N.B. Views represent those of the writer and not HC Leeds.
As busy people we often concern ourselves with the menial: what shall I have for dinner? When will I find time to do this essay? Did I really have enough money to buy those jeans? But recently I’ve been thinking should we not be concerning ourselves with the bigger issues instead? I often hear people say that the wider issues simply ‘don’t concern them’, which is an extremely ignorant view of the world. Perhaps people just enjoy living in blissful ignorance, but that will do our future generations no favours.
When I used to see that people I went to school with were having babies and getting engaged my initial reaction was always fear as I still consider myself to be a child, despite being days away from my twentieth birthday (sob). However, recently I’ve been thinking how all of these pregnancies are impacting on the population. I know in the nineteenth century, and earlier, women were married off at the age of twelve and gave birth to ten children, but there were incredibly different circumstances. Firstly it is estimated that between 34% and 40% of children born in the 1800s did not live until they were ten years old. That is a large percentage of people who don’t even make it to their teenage years, never mind adulthood. Secondly, it was extremely common for women to die during childbirth with there being about a 40% chance of death in labour throughout the 19th century. It’s a wonder anyone was still having sex with those odds! However by 1900 it is estimated that only 1 in 100 women were dying during childbirth, which led to a confidence in pregnancy and a subsequent increase in the population.
I’m not arguing that the solution to over-population is to let women die in childbirth and children die in infancy, the medical availabilities of the 1800s just made this unavoidable. In this country we are extremely blessed with the NHS which helps to prevent these extremely high mortality rates. I used to find it strange that my mum decided to give birth to me at home, it seemed so archaic to me as women had no other choice hundreds of years ago: I was often worried she’d put both of our lives in danger. However, that being said, she did still have two NHS nurses rallying around her and an ambulance team on stand-by in case anything did go wrong. I suppose that allows me to praise the NHS’s dedication even more. I am obsessed with television programmes like ’24 Hours in A & E’ and ‘Junior Doctors’ which display the wonder of the National Health Service. However there is a negative tone to this in the sense that they’re allowing humans to live longer than they used to, and not die as often from disease and injury, which is directly leading to over-population.
In 1804 it was estimated that there were 1 billion people inhabiting the planet; when these figures are extrapolated it is estimated that there will be 8 billion people on the planet by 2025. That figure does not seem so unachievable when we consider there are an estimated 7 billion people living on the planet at this moment. According to 7billionactions.org, in less than ten years more than one billion people living on the planet will be over sixty. Those statistics would have been incomprehensible to people living in the 19th century. Recently I was watching the BBC programme ‘Keeping Britain Alive: The NHS in a Day’ which claimed that the NHS sees 1500 deaths a day and around 2000 births: this statistic is worrying for our planet.
There are more radical people who believe that it is the increase of pregnancies out of wedlock which are detrimental to our population. The Population Reference Bureau says that “back in 1960, births outside of marriage were virtually unheard of and were often kept as secret as possible. But times have certainly changed”, implying that our liberal morality is the cause of over-population. I do see where this website is coming from, in the sense that if people had to wait until they were married to procreate there would be fewer births; that is a fact. But I don’t believe it to be as simple as blaming it on promiscuity and unmarried couples having sex. Perhaps if more people were educated on contraception, especially in third-world countries, there wouldn’t be such a strain on our resources.
Recently, I watched a series on Channel 4 called ‘Utopia’. The gist of its plot was the discovery of a scientist’s life work; he had been concerned about the strain of over-population on the planet’s resources and so had developed a gene. The gene would sterilise 95% of the population and would be distributed widely, both through common foods and a faux-Russian Flu vaccine. This idea is rather radical for most people as those who were sterilised would have no choice over the matter, and therefore it is extremely unethical. However, I believe the point the show was trying to make came across strongly and did get me, and probably plenty of others, thinking. If only 5% of the population were able to reproduce, of course the over-population problems we have would be solved effectively. China already has a ‘one-child policy’ in place, and if China’s procreation is already being restricted, why not the rest of the world’s?
Sources referenced:
http://gcanyon.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/life-expectancy-in-the-1800s-not-as-bad-as-reported/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_death
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy
http://www.7billionactions.org/?gclid=COrxtZaQ6LYCFVDMtAodwnAAeg
Image sources:
http://i2.cdnds.net/13/15/618×341/uktv-24-hours-in-a-and-e.jpg
http://cdn.bleedingcool.net/wp-content/uploads//2013/03/channel-4-utopia.jpg?802b89
http://www.china-mike.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/one-child-policy-chinese-family-small.jpg
http://www.isjl.org/history/archive/al/images/Coplanfamily.jpg