Recognizing the future

The advocates of the reproductive health bill usually cite micro economics and quality of life to support their views. Their logic goes this way: the less children a family has, the more disposable resources they have to go around for the family; and this in turn, enhances the quality of their lives because they're better off financially.

Naturally, with a smaller population, macro economics is also served because the government has more resources to serve the population, thus benefiting the whole country. On the surface, everything's very simple and logical, and should easily be understood even by us, pro-life neanderthals.

Their economic argument is founded mainly in the Malthusian Theory that says a geometrically increasing population will completely devour an arithmetically
increasing food supply, thus leading to the obliteration of the human race.

As evidence of the success of imposed population control on the wealth of a nation, RH'ers hold up the evidence of countries such as Japan, (West) Germany, Singapore.

Actually, the Malthusian Theory has been effectively disproved for decades because Robert Malthus failed to include in his equations technological advancements which increase the supply of food and other resources available to the populace. Man's own ingenuity and talent, with the support of a benevolent God, whose existence Malthus affirmed, developed the solutions to the problems of an increasing population. The 17th century scientists developed a plethora of innovations that effectively staved off Famine, the third horseman of the Apocalypse.

Economics, in the simplest terms, is the exchange of goods and services; the greater the goods and services available to the public, the stronger the economy. Obviously, goods and services are produced by people. Today in the setting of a 2nd Great Depression, the most vibrant economies that are leading world economic recovery are countries with huge populations, primarily China and India; populations that are able to produce, and consume, resources.

The countries that RH bill supporters hold up for emulation were worthy examples two or three decades ago. Today, they are precisely the countries that are starting to suffer from the population controls they instituted to enable them to become world economic powers.

The Aug 31, 2009 issue of Time magazine contained a Commentary article on the economy of Japan by Mikka Pineda, titled 'A New Deal'. (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1917634,00.html)

In the article, the author states: “It's no secret that the root of all of these problems is demographics. An aging population is shrinking Japan's labor force and consumer market.” It is a very interesting and informative read.

While Japan is knocking itself out trying to find ways out of the morass it is in, our own mavens are trying hard to lead us into the same swamp. We are following in the footsteps of Japan 30 years later, into the same pit, instead of blazing our own way that avoids it entirely. So, 30 years hence, will we look to them again to show us the way out of the pit we're heading for today?

So much for the economic foresight of the RH'ers. As for their vaunted concern for the quality of life, listen to a 31-year old Japanese lady, Setsuko Kanzaki. In the same Time issue, “They want to be heard”, the cover story states, “Kanzaki criticizes Japan's postwar goals for having favored a race for middle-class comfort over the promotion of family values. "Concentrating on making money destroyed community and family relationships," she says. "We make money. So what? We feel empty."

Let us, by all means, learn from the successes of those who have gone before us. But also, let us not ignore the lessons of their mistakes.