Ending the Explosion: Population Policies and Ethics for a Humane Future (NPG Booknote)

• David Simcox
• October 1, 1996
• Forum Papers
• Forum Paper
• 0 Comments

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Ending the Explosion: Population Policies and Ethics for a Humane Future
An NPG Forum Paper
 (NPG Booknote) 
by David Simcox
October 1996

Two years ago the world badly needed William Hollingsworth’s tough-minded but humane prescription for urgent reduction of human fertility.

His book offers what the 1994 UN Conference in Cairo on Population and Development (UNCPD) should have produced but studiously avoided: a strategy and a moral and political justification for a global effort to reduce world fertility to replacement level in the next 15 to 20 years. Just such an urgent endeavor, he warns, is the world’s best chance to stabilize its population at less than 10 billion by the end of the next century. A central argument of this book is that humankind’s ability to limit its own fertility is now the most critical determinant of finding or losing a humane future.

Humankind’s ability to limit its own fertility is now the most critical determinant of finding or losing a humane future.

Where the UNCPD uttered only exhortations, the author prescribes fertility and population goals and timetables. While the UNCPD soft-pedaled money talk, Hollingsworth suggests the sums needed and their sources. Most crucially, he makes the case that incentives and disincentives, a concept scorned in Cairo, can reduce fertility while enhancing human freedom and dignity.

….Continue reading the full Forum paper by clicking here.