A friend once asked me, “Why are you an environmentalist?” In essence, he was asking me why I cared so much. Of all the issues to be passionate about in life, why the environment?
I wasn’t sure how to answer him at first. I could have replied with any one of a hundred reasons. I thought about mentioning global warming, or cancer villages, or rainforest deforestation, or even oil spills. I had so many reasons that it felt impossible to answer the question with a single sentence.
But eventually, I decided to keep it simple. I told him that I was an environmentalist because I cared about protecting people.
In the end, I wasn’t an environmentalist because I cared that much about nature in itself. Preserving the earth’s ecosystems as its own end goal isn’t worth getting passionate about — but protecting people is.
Unfortunately, many environmentalists don’t share the same motivation. In their zeal to protect our planet’s beautiful ecosystems, they have forgotten the humane motivations behind their work. Instead of protecting people, they advocate that we kill them instead — in the form of abortion — to lower our environmental footprint (1).
They think that by having more children, we will only place greater pressure on the earth’s ecosystems. If we could only limit the birth rate, there would be fewer people alive to pollute, which would lower overall greenhouse gas emissions. Any method of population control, including killing the unborn, is a noble cause for the sake of the environment.
The Bible speaks so clearly against abortion that it leaves no room for debate. Even when a fetus is still in his mother’s womb, God considers him to be a human. As it says in one poem:
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. (Psalm 139:13-15)
From the moment of conception, we human beings bear the likeness of God’s image. Human life has sanctity — no one is allowed to arbitrarily take life away. As it says in the Bible: You shall not murder (Exodus 20:13).
Terminating the life of another human, no matter how young or how small, regardless of the noble
environmental intentions, is still murder.
The irony with abortion is that it doesn’t really solve any environmental crisis. In fact, we have many reasons to suspect that more abortions will simply increase our net environmental footprint.
The underlying root cause of environmental crises is overconsumption, not overpopulation. In the past, hundreds of millions of people inhabited planet earth without causing any of the environmental crises we face today. There were no problems with carbon emissions, landfills, e-waste, smog, or shrinking oil reserves. So clearly, these problems aren’t caused by overpopulation alone. It takes a short-sighted, modernized, Western culture to produce such catastrophes on a global scale.
A country’s population actually has very little to do with its levels of pollution. That’s because not all people pollute equally. The amount of pollution a person generates is roughly proportional to his wealth, since money represents control over natural resources. 80% of the world’s global income is controlled by the hands of 20% of the earth’s population. These wealthy 20%, located mostly in Western countries, are responsible for the vast majority of oil consumption, e-waste, and global warming. The remaining 80% of mankind survive on less than $10 each day; they are simply too poor to do much harm.
Ironically, it’s precisely those countries with low birth rates that are causing the most environmental damage. These nations tend to be wealthier and have stronger consumer cultures. Think of it like this: A single wealthy suburban American can produce more pollution than a hundred African slum-dwellers combined. The American lives in a McMansion, drives an SUV, takes cruise trips to Europe, eats fast food, and buys tablet computers. Slum-dwellers can’t really afford to do much besides buy food and water. And even when it comes down to basic essentials like water, we somehow manage to waste more per person as Americans than the rest of the world.
Fertility rate by country. Notice that the women in the Southern Hemisphere have lots of kids (3+ children per family) whereas women in the modern, Westernized nations in the Northern Hemisphere have far fewer children.
Carbon dioxide emissions per person per country. Notice that the most of our carbon emissions is coming from Western nations in the Northern Hemisphere.
Average daily water use per person by country. The average American uses around 10-30 times as much water as the average person from the Third World.
Encouraging a Westernized, child-free lifestyle, along with abortion, will probably make environmental crises worse. This is because families with children tend to pollute less per person than families without children. If a married couple has ten kids, they will be forced to spend most of their income on basic essentials like shelter, food, and clothing. Even if they wanted to pollute, they wouldn’t be able to afford to — they have too many mouths to feed. However, a married couple with dual-income and no kids will have plenty of extra cash. They’re more likely to buy sports car, SUVs, mansions with private swimming pools, round-the-world plane tickets, cruise vacations, and wide-screen TVs.
Clearly, what matters is not the absolute number of people on the planet, but our per person rate of pollution. This rate is determined by how much a society is influenced by our Western, consumer culture.
Sadly, most policymakers still think that murder by the millions is the appropriate solution. They’re even trying to export this atrocity to the developing world. Yet at the same time that we advocate abortion, we’re also advocating the American Dream.
We have seen this policy fail before. Since the 1970s, China has followed a one-child policy, which fines families for having two or more children. As expected, China’s population growth is slowing. However, its carbon footprint is growing exponentially. Within a few decades, it may even surpass the USA!
This child-free, consumer culture may also catch on in India. Yes, abortion would result in fewer people, but expect the total pollution to skyrocket. If more Indians start driving cars, eating fast food, and buying consumer electronics, pollution will rise even as the population remains stagnant.
Ultimately, there are two ways to view our planet earth:
On one hand, there are those believe that earth’s resources are scarce. Life is nothing more than an endless competition for limited natural resources like food, water, land, and oil. To survive, it is necessary to steal, attack, and kill. Unborn children aren’t human beings — they’re just competitors. So the less children we have, the greater our own share. Ultimately, this belief is either fueled by ignorance or by sheer greed.
On the other hand, there are those who believe that the earth has plenty. If society would only plan for sustainable development, there would be enough to share. Wise stewardship, not competition, would be the solution to our present environmental crises. If we only gave up consumerism, it would be possible to house, feed, and clothe all of earth’s billions of people.
There’s no false dilemma between caring for the environment and caring for humanity. They are one and the same. After all, that’s why I’m a Greenimalist — so that our future children can enjoy the earth for decades to come.
- Abortion is murder, plain and simple. However, most
environmentalists
are willing to consider it. Grist, for example, consistently advocates this atrocity. Theseenvironmentalists
forget that the reason we protect the environment is to protect people, which include the unborn. - Photo credits: tonrulkens, CC BY-SA. PlatypeanArchcow, public domain. Dbachmann, CC BY-SA. Date 360, United Nations Human Development Report 2006.
Thank you for taking the time to draw up facts and research. I appreciated it in this post, as well as the post before! Great job.
I feel ashamed to be in the main country who squanders the resources with which we have been so blessed. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Don’t get me wrong. I’m proud to be an American but hope we will wake up and realize that our greed deprives others who are every bit as worthy as we.
And thank you too for pointing out the value of a human life…no matter the age or stage of development.
May God continue to bless (in the things that really matter) and use you.
Thank you for this AMAZING post! I absolutely love your blog!
I like your blog, but this post is not among your best. Abortion isn’t about being ‘green’ and it’s extreme for anyone – whether pro choice or pro life – to make that link. Yes, some people consider overpopulation to be cause for concern, but very few would consider abortion to be the answer. People who care about the earth and sustainability do so because of a reverence for life and nature.
I agree with Caroline. I think controlling population growth has a role to play in environmentalism, alongside controlling over consumption. Poor families and developing countries might pollute less per person, but that is not going to stay the same forever because you cannot demand that they remain poor or underdeveloped. Also, very few proponents of population control mechanisms would advocate abortion as a main strategy, although they might prefer to make it available as an option when considered appropriate. I think most advocates of population control would want to see people, and especially women, getting access to adequate health care, information and birth control methods.
There is no reason to think that providing health care, information and birth control is in conflict with caring about people. It could certainly be combined with information about environmental impact to prevent families in developing countries from reducing their family size for the sake of consuming more per person.
Just as the “American dream” would prove to be a nightmare of pollution and resource and habitat depletion if all people of the world lived it, so would six to eight children for every fertile woman in the world create a horror of starving people that could not be fed. As always seems to be true for humans, the intelligent balance eludes us. Yes, those who live in developed nations need to drastically reduce their lifestyles so that we have more to share with the rest of the world. But while I also believe that abortion is not God’s will, the need for health care, education, and reliable birth control (I don’t consider abortion an ethical means of birth control) is necessary to keep the world’s population from continuing to increase exponentially. Thank you for giving us so much information to think about, Aaron.
@Anum, Judy, Marie: Glad you all liked it!
@Caroline: Most environmental organizations today, including the USA Green Party, are lobbying for legalized abortion and often promoting its use. I feel morally obligated to speak out.
@j: From what I understand from the Bible, natural family planning and similar, non-destructive birth control methods are acceptable. Instead of destroying a half-formed fetus, these methods prevent fertilization from happening in the first place. There’s also adoption, which is a positive alternative all-around.
@Karen T. (and j): We can solve both poverty and environmental destruction through sustainable development. These techniques include better farming techniques using local materials, appropriate technology, cost-effective preventative healthcare, and sustainable building techniques. Here’s a Farmer’s Handbook that I’ve been reading.
If we practice sustainable living, we could actually make a positive impact on the environment and our local communities.
I am not sure what you mean by natural family planning. Birth control pills, injections, etc. and condoms prevent fertilization and do not destroy fetuses. But some people use “natural family planning” to mean other methods, such as monitoring temperature and recording cycles to predict the days with highest and lowest fertility. These non-intervention methods are less effective at preventing unexpected pregnancies than pills/injections/condoms/etc. in most women and will be almost completely ineffective in some women (women with irregular cycles or certain conditions, etc.).
But if you really, really want to reduce the number of abortions there are several things to consider. First, I believe the actual number of abortions is almost completely unrelated to the legality of the procedure. Desperate women will seek an illegal operation if they feel like they have no choice. Second, abortions are less common when women have access to birth control and information about reproduction. These allow women to prevent the situations where women feel forced to make a choice about an abortion.
So if you want abortions to be illegal because you feel that is your moral imperative, then absolutely advocate for such a policy. But if you really feel that it is the abortion that is immoral, and not just legal access to abortions that is immoral, then please consider advocating for access to education and birth control instead, because these are much more effective in reducing the number of abortions that just making the procedure illegal.
@j: I am OK with condoms and male sterilization. However, I’m worried about endorsing drugs because some of them still destroy life, only in earlier stages. Some pills act after a zygote is fertilized, by eliminating it from the uterine wall.
Is a zygote a human? It is wiser to err the safe side and assume that life begins at conception since we are dealing with human lives.
As a country, we should outlaw abortion altogether. If we legalize it, we will be guilty of complicity. I’m not sure if birth control education would help. Many abortions occur when women are impregnated out of wedlock. If we want to halt this crisis, our country needs to turn back to the Lord and stop the adultery that is so rampant in our country. We’ve forgotten God’s definition of marriage: a single, monogamous union for life.
I think the possibility of pharmacological based birth control causing a spontaneous abortion are greatly exaggerated by the anti-birth control groups. I have heard very different figures from the makers of the drugs and from groups wishing to make them illegal. These drugs primarily prevent fertilizations.
But the question of whether a zygote is or is not a human is very apt. It may be, so erring on the side of caution would suggest that birth control pharmaceuticals are to be avoided. But, on the other hand, the woman is definitely human. And she should have rights to decide if and when she would like to have a family. Many others would suggest that it would be erring on the side of caution to give the rights to the guaranteed human and not to the possible human given the unlikelihood of pharmacological triggered early abortions.
You also say we as a country. But not all of the country is Christian, and it seems wrong for one group to make such personal decisions or moral judgments for another. Christians living in other countries certainly would not want to be obliged to follow all the rules and mandates of some other religion, nor be prevented from doing things that Christianity allows but other religions don’t. The US constitution grants freedom of religion, meaning that no one religion can dictate what others can do, so I have problems with statements like “we as a country should ban…” when that ban is based on religious beliefs or lessons gained from religious texts.
Furthermore, your original article discussed abortion outside the country, where we, as a country, have no right to determine policies.
Don’t get me wrong here. I am not in favour of abortions. I don’t know whether a zygote, or a fetus below whatever age, is a human or not. I really couldn’t say what I would do if I were confronted with a situation to which an abortion might be offered as a solution. Instead I would like to see those situations prevented as much as possible.
It can be very hard to understand the perspectives of others. But think of a cultural or religious traditions from some other group that you disagree with. Perhaps a forbidden food, a style of dress, or a practice such as putting to death people who have committed an act that you do not consider immoral or worthy of death. Now imagine if you were legally obliged to follow these traditions or rules because a religious text that you do not believe in clearly states that food X is forbidden, or people must always wear Y, or that for committing act Z, the penalty is death. Would you follow them? Would you expect others to do so? Or would you prefer that that religion teach its rules to its own followers and not make laws that govern followers and non-followers alike?
Sorry this is so long. Women’s rights is an issue dear to my heart.
58.6% of abortions are on women who already have children.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6001a1.htm?s_cid=ss6001a1_w
A common reason cited for getting an abortion is to be able to take care of the actual, not potential children a woman already has. Do you really find that unreasonable?
‘Many abortions occur when women are impregnated out of wedlock’.
Many abortions are obtained by married people as well – and it’s kind of a redundant argument given the high divorce rate and the largely ignored group of non wedded people living in lifelong monogomous relationships.
The majority of abortions are obtained by people who identify as Protestant (37%) and Catholic (28%). Does that say anything about members of religious groups? I would suggest that those statistics are just as unhelpful as comments about marriage status.
J raises a salient point about women’s rights. Women are a marginalised group, and they are the ones who bear the brunt of the difficult decisions regarding child care (42% of abortions are performed on women who live beneath the poverty line). Women get impregnated by men. Where is the talk of these men? Where are the questions that ask why women should be forced to choose between an abortion and being ground deeper into poverty?
You can argue that abortion isn’t green. And others may argue that it is. A better argument for both sides is to look at green ways to lessen the demand for such a service. Addressing that is a post that demonstrates caring for your planet, and all of your fellow people.
@j, Val, Caroline: Suppose a woman has three children, who are now teenagers. Would it be OK for her to kill one of them to reduce her family’s carbon footprint? Or to kill one because her low salary makes it difficult to feed the large family? Clearly, this would be murder.
Suppose then that the women’s children are younger. Instead of being in their teens, they are infants. One of them is newly-born — merely one-day old. Would it be OK for the woman to kill the newborn infant for the environmental/financial reasons? Wouldn’t that be murder?
Why, then, should it be legally permissible to kill a person if it’s just one week short of being born? Or two weeks short of being born? Or even twelve weeks short of being born? Where do you draw the line between murder and ? As far as I can tell, the only sensible place would be at conception.
I cannot condone murder in the name of environmentalism or frugality. That would go against every core of the Scriptural teaching, Love your neighbor as yourself, which is why I care about sustainable living in the first place.
This post makes so many ridiculous points I hardly know where to start.
… families with children tend to pollute less per person than families without children. If a married couple has ten kids, they will be forced to spend most of their income on basic essentials like shelter, food, and clothing. Even if they wanted to pollute, they wouldn’t be able to afford to…”
So in your mind, families with lots of kids are the better choice because they will be too poor to afford luxuries? I think you’ve gone off the deep end here.
It seems like you decided you were going to write a post against abortion today and then struggled to find arguments that supported your position.
The fact is, there is not an indefinite supply of the earth’s natural resources, even with careful husbandry; we are already seeing the effects of an ever-growing world population and the calamitous impact on the environment, climate warming, global extinctions, water shortages, civil unrest, etc.
I have never heard of someone advocating abortion in the name of the environment. Population control, in the form of birth control, yes. Many Catholics quietly use birth control pills despite the church position. To suggest that environmentalists support “murder” is twisting the facts to support your own agenda.
There’s no need for you to reply to this because I will no longer be reading your blog. This post has convinced me you’re not objective or rational.
@fern:
See point #3 in Grist’s article. I quote:
Paul Ehrlich, author of the Population Bomb, also advocates abortion.
No, not at all. I want us to increase our wealth, but in a sustainable manner. My point is that it is mainly the rich that are damaging the earth. I’d like to see us being more wealthy but without driving, wasting electricity, wasting water, etc.
Based on my current convictions, I can accept non-abortive, non-destructive family planning methods like condoms, but only within marriage. That’s one possibility if you are genuinely worried about overpopulation.
Aaron, I’m not continuing to comment because I want to argue and I am completely sidestepping the debate of whether abortion is ok or not. What you are missing in your article and comment rebuttals is the acknowledgement is that this issue is complicated beyond the right/wrong of the abortion debate.
I like your blog. I am aiming for many of the same things as you are. But your privilege and lack of understanding of the complexities of people’s lives is astounding. People who don’t have a lot of socio economic power -immortality is not the reason that the majority of abortions are performed on women who are considered to be living below the poverty line – or are marginalised in other ways will often be forced to make choices that they would not otherwise make. Please, live your values, but try and understand the how’s and why’s of people make the choices they do. It’s rarely a clear cut decision.
Aaron you hit a live wire with this topic. But chances are good that’s what you were aiming for. I’m not going to touch the abortion angle. Women fought long and hard for that right and it is an incredibly complex issue. It would be hard to sandwich such a complex topic into a post about the environment, let alone in a comment on the post.
I will chime in on family size and resources though. Patrick and I, as a monogamous couple with a 16 + year relationship have chosen not to have children. It was a decision we made together at the beginning of our relationship.
We made the decision because we did not want to bring more children into a world that is unbalanced environmentally and spiritually. It was our silent vote for population control. Now whether or not someone wants to have a family of 12 or have an abortion, in my mind that is their decision to make, and I choose not to judge. Similar for my choice to be a vegetarian. I know in my heart what is right for me, and I believe it is environmentally progressive, but I do not judge others on their choices.
I’m a budding environmentalist. I agree that it isn’t the birthrates of the people of the impoverished nations that are wreaking havoc on our natural world but rather the industrialized nations: the US, parts of Europe, and parts of Asia. We need to change our habits and realize that it is more advantageous for the entire planet that we live according to what is necessary rather than what is desired. Great article!
@Edwina: If we planned for the long-term and built a more sustainable culture, I think we could use the world’s growing population for green projects like reforestation. Hsinya and I have recently started experimenting with homesteading, and our goal is to improve the soil, plant trees, and increase biodiversity all while producing food.