Abortion in Relation to the

Problem of Overpopulation
By: Brandy Dominguez

e-Portfolio Link: bd222.weebly.com

Abortion has been highly debated in the United States for decades. Even in 1973 when
Roe vs. Wade made abortions legal the debate continued on. Abortion has been controversial
because those, especially with a religious upbringing, say that a fetus is a human and that life
should be valued above all else those people who believe abortion is immoral belong to a group
who go by Pro-life. The other side are those who believe it is a womans body and her innate
right to choose whether or not she has a child, they equivocate it with slavery saying that
forcing a woman to have a child is no more moral that forcing other human beings to work on a
plantation. China has taken an interesting stance on abortion through the enforcement of the
One-Child policy. In this paper I will be looking into the morality of abortion. More specifically I
will be asking: Is it moral to enforce the one child policy; and would it be beneficial for the
greater good to make this policy a global practice?
First off, we should look at exactly what the one child policy is. The policy was introduced
in 1979 to alleviate social, economic, and environmental problems in China. (1) It is a
population control policy of the People's Republic of China. With this law a birth permit is
required before becoming pregnant. Enforcement varies, the majority of cities permit two
parents who were only children themselves to have two children. In more rural, or farmland,
areas families are allowed two children no matter what. In most areas, families are allowed to
apply to have a second child if their first-born is a daughter or suffers from any kind of disability
whether it be mental or physical. The family planning policy (or one-child policy) is enforced
through a financial penalty which is collected from their annual income in the year of the child's
birth. For an income of $32,000 the minimum $31,884 and the maximum child-raising fee
would be about $63,763. The overall fertility rate of mainland China is close to 1.4 children per

woman. The more research I did, the more I realized that they were not all that strict about the
enforcement anymore. As of 2007, only 35.9% of the population were subject to a strict onechild limit. A 2008 survey undertaken by the Pew Research Center reported that 76% of the
Chinese population supports the policy. Showing that it is possible that people can and will
adapt to the adjustment if it were to be implemented.
With this in mind we should now look at the problems of overpopulation on a global
level. According to howmany.org Human population is growing like never before. We are now
adding one billion people to the planet every 12 years. That's about 220,000 per day. (2) With
this in mind we should look at what this means for resources. One out of every seven people
alive, go to bed hungry. Every day, 25,000 people die of malnutrition and hunger-related
diseases. Almost 18,000 of them are children under 5 years old. Food production and
distribution could catch up if our population stopped growing and dropped to a sustainable
level. About one billion people lack access to sufficient water for consumption, agriculture and
sanitation Air quality: Pollution from smokestack[s] in many regions of the country [have
caused], childhood asthma rates [to rise] dramatically in the past 20 years. The problems are
not limited to the industrialized countries [though,] children in undeveloped countries, where
people depend on burning wood for their heat and [food], are also at risk. (2) With a one
child policy in place the more industrialized world could help underdeveloped countries with
the excess money. We have to ask ourselves: it is moral to prevent the future children from
being born in order to help the children who are alive today?
The moral implications of reducing the population through growth control is a difficult one
to wrestle with. On one hand it clearly would benefit the world as a whole. The other side

though, would mean that you would take away someones freedom to have children. I
personally feel that the greater good should be more important than the individual. The earth
has so few resources; until we can make it to another planet that can sustain life we should be
more cautious with what we have. Is it really okay to damage the earth just to have two
children instead of one? As a whole we have all said we as humans will conserve the earth we
always promise to reform and become a better, less damaging, species. The truth of the matter
is that humans are, by nature, extremely greedy and manipulative. We are so manipulative that
we even lie to ourselves. We truly believe that we will change next week, or next month, and
then next year. A perfect example of this greediness and deceit, especially in America, is the
severe obesity that plagues a huge percentage of Americans. Even for our own health and wellbeing doesnt mean much to us because our greed and need for instant pleasure overrule the
long-term well-being. This begs the question: if the western world cannot even choose to eat
less to become healthier do we have the self-control to not consume an excess amount of
water?
Many people find meaning in their life through their children. Taking this away could be
devastating to some. On the other hand though, it may not be as traumatic of a change as we
might think. Many young couples are choosing not to have children or choosing to wait to
develop their careers first. CBSnews.com says Couples in the world's five biggest developed
economies - the United States, Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom - had 350,000
fewer babies in 2012 than in 2008, a drop of nearly 5 percent. The policy would just help
prevent un-planned children as well as huge families that typically have a low socio-economic
status. One problems some see with the implementation of a global one child policy or rather

just a decline in population is that it could possibly threaten the global economic growth.
Because there are not as many people there therefore are not going to be as many creative or
innovative people. I argue, that with less children, people may be able to focus more on their
careers and ideas and less with the stress of money the cost of raising a child is 350,142 (3)
according to babycenter.com. Which means two kids would be With 700,000$ saved without
having kids that money can be saved. Those who would have been too busy to worrying about
their financial status would now have more time to be innovative. And therefore I feel that the
economic growth would not be inhibited with a population reduction.
I am not sure that the one child policy could ever be implemented with our current
government. If it were I am sure that we as a society would be happier. With the requirement
of a birth permit we would have less poverty because people wouldnt have children by
mistakes. Children would be wanted and taken care of eliminating the costs of orphanages and
reducing the costs of grants for people who take care of children through foster care. There
would be more jobs and homelessness would not be as prevalent because of, not only job
opportunities, but because we could put the money saved toward a better care system for the
mentally ill.
In summation, the idea of an international birth control policy would make the world a
better place. With more jobs and less homelessness we could focus on more humanitarian
causes. The world might be able to have an exponential amount of innovation because
countries once riddled with poverty would be able to now contribute to the technology and
development of the world as a whole. Water would be more abundant and the concern with its
depletion could be held off for a significant amount of time. Hopefully by then we will have a

new system to purify and recycle water. Fossil fuels would be less prevalent and with the
knowledge lent from other cultures we may even be able to find an alternative energy source.
I believe it would be completely moral to choose to implement a one child policy. Although
many people would be upset and feel that our rights were taken away at the rate that we are
going, we wont have any resources left within the next couple generations. The fact that the
elderly are living longer and the younger generations are having multiple children means that
our population has grown significantly since the invention of modern medicine.

This graph shows the significant growth over the last couple years. (4) If we do not have a
policy enforcing a one child policy through birth permits and abortion. We need to do
something to help ourselves globally.

(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)

http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/One-child_policy.html
http://howmany.org/environmental_and_social_ills.php
http://www.babycenter.com/cost-of-raising-child-calculator
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/standard/geography/population/population_change/revision/2/