ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 4, 1996 TAG: 9601040041
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
THE WORLD is living beyond its means.
That fact is easy to lose sight of in the comfortable, overindulged world of which America is a part. But 79 percent of the globe's population live in the poorest countries, where too many people are calling upon too few resources to scratch out even a subsistent existence.
What that means to the Earth we share, says the Population Institute:
About 600,000 square miles of forest have been cut in the past 10 years, either to make way for living room or to provide firewood.
Some 26 billion tons of topsoil have been lost.
Eighty-eight nations are unable to get enough food, either by growing or buying it, to feed all their people.
Optimists are confident that technological advances will take care of this imbalance eventually. But science already has provided humanity with means to survive: contraception.
And yet, the U.S. House of Representatives voted twice last year against contributing U.S. dollars to the United Nations Population Fund, for its activities anywhere in the world, as long as it supports voluntary family-planning programs in China.
China has used forced abortions in its population program, a despicable practice denounced by anti-abortion and pro-choice constituencies alike. But to deny the Population Fund money for family planning, none of which ever has gone to pay for abortions of any kind, is tragically shortsighted. The more unwanted pregnancies prevented by good family planning methods, the fewer abortions there will be.
For the sake of the Earth and the people on it, the House should put abortion politics aside and support rational family-planning efforts.
LENGTH: Short : 42 linesby CNB