Religious responses to the population sustainability problematic: implications for law.

• Author: Coward, Harold
• Position: Symposium on Population Law

1. INTRODUCTION

   In an Atlantic Monthly article, Charles Mann asked the question, "How Many is Too Many?" for the earth to sustain.(1) Mann argues that since the 1700s, the answers to this question have varied between those who believe that continued population growth will eventually lead to an environmental catastrophe (e.g., the economist Robert Malthus in 1798 and the biologist Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 book The Population Bomb) and those who argue that increasing technological efficiency and changing social and economic patterns will solve the problem (e.g., the Marquis de Condorcet in 1794 and Amory and Hunter Lovins in their 1991 essay Least-Cost Climatic Stabilization(2)).(3)

   At the Rio Earth Summit, the developing countries of the South responded to the developed countries of the North on this issue. The developing countries argued that the problem is not one of overpopulation in the South, but of excessive consumption of the earth's resources by the well-off few in the North.(4) It is said that a baby born in Europe or North America, for example, will likely consume thirty times the earth's resources (and produce thirty times as much pollution) as a baby born in a developing country.(5) But even this generalization is too simple. It ignores the fact that there is an increasing number of well-off people in developing countries who consume at the same unsustainable level as their counterparts in developed countries.

   The debate over how many is too many has ranged across the disciplines of biology, economics, ecology, anthropology, philosophy, and demography. Mann's brilliant summary of this long, complex, and crucial debate is particularly significant in that the role of religion is never mentioned. Yet, it is clear that religions can and do shape people's attitudes about the environment, practices surrounding fertility and reproductive health, and the just sharing of the earth's resources. This was evident at the 1994 Cairo United Nations Conference on Population and Development (Cairo Conference) where the human rights issues raised evoked a strong religious response. The views of the world's religions, especially Islam and Christianity via the Vatican, had a strong influence on the drafting of preliminary documents, the Conference discussions, and the resulting "Programme of Action."(6)

   Unlike earlier UN summit conferences, the Cairo Conference opened the doors to input from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including religious groups. This was evident at the three preparatory meetings at which the agenda, themes, and drafts for the Cairo Conference were prepared. It was also true at Cairo itself, and at the subsequent UN meetings in Copenhagen and Beijing The views of the religions, along with those of scientists, social scientists, and secular thinkers, are now very much front and center as the world attempts to solve its most pressing problems. While the Cairo Conference was originally focused on the population problem and the developments (especially in the education, social status, and employment of women) needed to deal with it, the analysis quickly made clear that the issue of environmental degradation could not be left out.

   Thus, the three-pronged problematic of population pressure, excessive consumption, and environmental degradation has emerged as perhaps the major challenge facing us today. Current trends in reproduction and consumption appear to threaten the well-being of both future generations and the ecology of the earth. The Cairo Conference taught us that target-driven population policies guided by demographers must be replaced by approaches which recognize that women's education, empowerment, and improvement of status are important ends in themselves. To respond to this challenge, the knowledge of the natural and human sciences are being called upon together with the wisdom and teachings of the religions. The Cairo Conference demonstrated that religions still exert a major influence in our struggle toward world solutions.

   This Article addresses religious responses to these issues and identifies the ways they can work with or against policy and legal attempts to address the problem. Part II focuses on the question of whether religion can become a force for change in the post-Cairo era. Part III asks if the policy and law of the "modem liberal state" pose an obstacle to the engagement of the religious responses.

2. CAN RELIGION BECOME A FORCE FOR CHANGE POST-CAIRO?

   On the issues of fertility control and the education of women, the world's religions have frequently been obstructions rather than forces for change. Virtually all religions have been strongly pro-natal.(7) At one time or another in their histories, most religions have opposed giving women education and a status equal to that enjoyed by men. However, the patriarchal domination of religions by male scholars and leaders is currently under challenge, as is the traditional pro-natal stance of the religions. Theological thinking within the religions is changing. Despite this change, the religions are not relinquishing their claim to be based on divine truths usually given in revealed and unchanging forms (e.g. scriptures). How does this happen?

   Theology proceeds by what Paul Tillich called "the method of correlation."(8) In response to the challenges and questions posed by human existence, theology searches its sources of revelation and tradition for answers. It is only recently that the various religions have had to question their sources with regard to the interaction of humans with the environment. This has occurred in response to the population explosion and the resulting human strain being put on the earth's resources at a rate that threatens to exhaust its life sustaining capacity. Thus, we have witnessed the advent of ecotheology in Christianity, in which the themes of nature and the environment (which one searches for in vain in the works of the early Christian thinkers) are cutting edge issues of the day.(9)

   It is when questions about population growth are removed from the narrow and exhausted debate over birth control or abortion and considered in the context of consumerism and environmental degradation that the traditional sources provide new answers. It is perhaps not surprising that much of this eco-theologizing is being done by women scholars, for the analysis suggests that just as nature has often been treated as a resource to be exploited, so have women. Indeed, the Christian theologian Rosemary Reuther argues that patriarchal societies and religions have categorized women together with nature and treated both as commodities to be used.(10) Reuther argues that "what is necessary is a double transformation of both women and men in their relation to each other and to `nature.'"(11) Reuther offers militarism as the strongest example of this double rape of both women and the earth, and concludes that the change of consciousness needed "is one that recognizes that real `security' lies, not in dominating power and the impossible quest for total invulnerability, but rather in the acceptance of vulnerability, limits, and interdependency with others, with other humans and with the earth."(12) In the Hindu context, Vandana Shiva offers a similar critique.(13)

   The ecofeminist theology response points out the necessity of a fresh approach to the population problem. Rather than meeting demographic quotas through the imposition of fertility controls such as family planning aimed at slowing population growth, the new approach introduced during the lead-up to the Cairo Conference is aimed at reproductive health.(14) This new emphasis on reproductive health signals a change from seeing the population pressure problem as subject to a scientific solution through the imposition of medical technology (often through the sterilization of women) to a holistic approach which involves "reducing poverty, improving health, decreasing mortality rates, enhancing education, augmenting reproductive health services, achieving sustainable development, abating environmental degradation and excessive consumption, and attaining gender equity and equality."(15) The voices of women from nongovernmental organizations and religions around the world were a powerful influence in achieving this significant shift in approach at the Cairo Conference. What this shift makes clear for theologians of all religions is that one can no longer deal with the challenges of population pressure, excess consumption, and environmental degradation as questions to be addressed separately.

   While this makes matters more complex, it also opens the door to exciting new theology. When, following Tillich's correlational method,(16) we ask our traditions for their wisdom on the three-pronged problematic of population, consumption, and ecology, we find fresh and creative answers forthcoming--answers that we could not get by asking about the ethics of reproduction, consumption, or our relation to nature separately. I say this on the basis of personal experience. Some years ago, I put together an interdisciplinary research team to do an ethical analysis of possible scientific and social responses to the challenge of the greenhouse effect. In analyzing the teachings of the various religions, I was able to sift out their "theologies of nature."(17) But the result was not satisfying because it remained at the level of theory and lacked the ability to engage the world's very real problems.

   A major weakness in the study was our failure to include the population variable. Even if decision makers in governments and the private sector made the `green choice' based on our ethical analysis, the environmental threat would continue to worsen due to the increase in the earth's population. As a result, in 1993, under the auspices of the Center for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, I brought together a new team of scientists, social...