Closing Statement. Taking the Interests of Women and the Environment to Heart
| Author | Leslie Carothers |
| Position | President |
| Pages | 60-60 |
Page 60 ❧ THE ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM Copyright © 2010, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.
Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, Jan./Feb. 2010
ELI Report
On a recent overseas trip, I
read in the Indian Express an
analysis of income and car-
bon emissions showing that the richest
Indians produce less than the poorest
Americans. As pressure mounts on
India and China to curb greenhouse
gases, their leaders understandably
emphasize that the biggest impact
on the climate comes from excessive
consumption and energy use in more
industrialized nations.
ey are right to challenge our
rampant consumption. But conced-
ing the need to change the level and
manner of our resource consumption
should not mean that population
growth as a contributor to environ-
mental degradation should be given
a free pass. Environmental leaders
routinely recite the prediction that
world population will increase greatly
by 2050 — from 6.8 billion today to
9.2 billion according to the United
Nations — and then go on to say
how tough it will be to raise living
standards for the poor while sustain-
ing the natural resource base upon
which we all depend. I wish more
would also call for action to expand
programs that could moderate this
growth by enabling all women to plan
their families.
People may be wary of inviting the
charge that western, majority-white
countries are seeking to suppress the
numbers of people of color. ere are
undoubtedly some who think that
way, but those of us who see the goal
as the education and empowerment
of all women do not and should not
be deterred by an appeal to political
correctness.
Nor should we kowtow to the
fundamentalist religions whose lead-
ers have had such a baneful influence
on the advancement of women and
reproductive health policy in many
countries. e Roman Catholic pa-
triarchy, the heads of conservative
Christian sects, and the mullahs of
Islam seek to determine to a greater or
lesser degree whether legal and policy
frameworks enable women to access
family planning services.
An essay on population trends in
the Economist contains good news
and also confirms these observations.
Fertility rates worldwide are dropping
much faster than experts predicted.
As people pass from poverty to
middle class income status, fertility
drops; but wealth is not the only fac-
tor. In some countries, even the poor
have fewer children, because “many
people in poor countries want fewer
children, and family planning helps
them get their wish.” e exceptions
to these trends are instructive.
Fertility rates remain much higher
than average in many Muslim coun-
tries and in sub-Saharan Africa, where
levels of poverty remain high and
both Muslim and conservative Chris-
tian sects are influential, according to
the Economist. e article also notes
that fertility in South Asian countries
has dropped even faster than it did
in Japan, except for the Philippines,
an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic
country where the church hierarchy
has vigorously opposed making birth
control services available to the poor.
Church leaders claim birth control
leads to abortion, when the contrary
argument is more likely to be true. (It
will be interesting to see whether the
U.S. Roman Catholic bishops, now
advancing on Washington to oppose
inclusion of abortion services in any
subsidized health plan, will take a
stand against coverage for contracep-
tives as well).
In Roman Catholic Latin America,
fertility rates remain high, but are
moving down because of increasing
prosperity and political leadership
willing to make birth control services
available to the poor. Although Pope
Benedict has attacked legalized con-
traception as a threat to the “future
of the peoples” of Latin America,
President Lula da Silva of Brazil sup-
ports subsidies to give poor Brazilians
“the same right that the wealthy have
to plan the number of children they
want.”
Fertility statistics make abundantly
clear that most women with the
resources to limit pregnancies do so
regardless of religious dictates. Poor
women without options are forced to
follow those rules. e Economist con-
cludes with the odd observation that
if all women who lacked birth con-
trol service gained access to it, world
population in 2050 would “only”
be reduced from 9.2 to 8.5 billion.
Only? at’s 700 million people, or
more than twice the population of the
U.S. and Canada combined.
Reasonable steps to enable women
to make voluntary decisions about
family size would improve the well-
being of countless families and give all
of our grandchildren better prospects
for a livable world. We know how
to help this happen and should not
shrink from confronting adversar-
ies who do not have the interests of
women or the environment at heart.
Closing Statement
Taking the Interests of Women and the Environment to Heart
Leslie Carothers
President
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