Message-ID: <36590A9F.5A8AEA59@jps.net>
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 23:11:28 -0800
From: Ted Toal <ttoal@jps.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: ppn <ppn@csf.colorado.edu>
CC: Ed Glaze III <eglaze@vsta.com>
Subject: Re: coercion, sterilization, culling
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Ed, thanks for your post explaining your viewpoints more fully.  I now
understand why your previous posts stirred things up so much.  I'm glad you are
open to further discussion of this.  You've brought up a multitude of things
that I'd like to comment on, and some I'd like to try to sway you in a
different direction on.

You know that I agree with you that we are overpopulated and a population
reduction is needed.  I also agree that time is important, and that continued
growth is leading to further degradation and a lowering of carrying capacity.
The question is, what to do?  You say:

<< I favor a planned reduction and the sooner the
better. And yes, that would entail many, many unpopular methods and
morally challenging decisions about who survives and why.>>

I think you know there is no way a "planned reduction" will come about unless
there is SUCH a serious global disaster that there is no other way.  When you
make statements like this, you are doing your cause harm by turning people off
to the whole subject.  Most people, upon reading that, will figure that if OP
is really that bad, then we're doomed anyway.  And I'd agree with them.  If we
have to resort to deciding who gets to survive, we've already lost the battle.
At that point, perhaps its best to give up and let nature handle it.  Another
experiment of nature that didn't work out - mankind! (dragging a lot of other
species down with him).

I find it most effective to argue that OP must be dealt with now because if we
don't, we may find ourselves one day at the point where we are forced to make
decisions about who survives.  I prefer to believe that we can still avoid that
fate.  There is no way one can prove that we have or have not reached the point
of needing to use these "crisis methods."  I think all of us who are well-read
on the OP subject know that the issues of carrying capacity, maximum
population, optimum population, etc. have been found to be extremely complex,
intractable problems.  If they weren't, we wouldn't need to be here discussing
it.  We don't know the true limits, we don't know the optimum levels, and we
don't know what the future will bring.  Therefore, each of us needs to choose a
way of looking at it --- optimistically, there is still time and ways to change
humanely --- or pessimistically, we need to enter crisis mode now.  You seem to
have chosen the crisis model, and I think that's the wrong choice to make.  It
will hinder your effectiveness at influencing change.  I believe you have made
this choice because you think it is the correct one, but what I want to
convince you of is that it isn't really all that clear that that is the correct
one.  You can give it up and choose the optimistic choice, without betraying
your inner logic.  Doing so will greatly increase your effectiveness as an OP
activist.

<< "Yes, I am in favor of sterilization in some cases and if Quinacrine
is cheaper and safer than surgery for females then that is an option
that should be available. Especially if sterilization is needed on a
large scale in a country that cannot afford, or does not have, the
doctors necessary......Plus it does not seem that there are widespread
or serious problems with Quinacrine when used properly.......
the articles place too much emphasis on approval of use by FDA or
other major countries where the decision is actually quite political.">>

I take note, and hope others do, that you said "safer than surgery".  I also
note that your understanding is that there don't seem to be serious problems
with Quinacrine when used properly.  This is apparently a different view than
Angela has.  She believes there is evidence it can cause cancer, and she is
concerned that it hasn't been tested very well.  It sounds like you are
promoting its use for sterilization, whereas Angela assumes it would be
promoted as a contraceptive and that sterilization would be an undesirable side
effect of it.  Since you mention a concern for safety, what is your opinion
about testing?  Do you think it needs more testing before widespread use?  It
is accurate to say that you believe FDA testing is too stringent, due to
political reasons?  If so, can you go into more detail about how you see those
politics working?

You've heard Angela's concern about "relative morality", that it is wrong to
ban quinacrine in the U.S. because it hasn't been adequately tested and at the
same time allow it to be used in poor countries.  To me that seems like a
legitimate moral concern.  A similar concern of mine is of pesticides like DDT
being banned in the U.S. but continuing to be manufactured by U.S. companies in
poor countries, and used there.  So, what's your opinion on this?

<< COERCION of some kind is a must if we are to stabilize and reduce our
populaton. >>

I note that you said that there are many forms of coercion, and you listed
many, including such things as financial incentives.  So far, I agree with you,
if coercion is defined that way.

<< Economic incentives and disincentives along with modifications
in education will be most socially acceptable. Next come added restictions
and laws which will also likely be necessary when it becomes obvious that
the easy ways will not work fast enough.>>

The first sentence - yes, I agree.  There are two problems with the second
sentence, first that you don't detail what the added restrictions/laws would
be, leaving the reader's imagination to run wild.  Second, you are stating that
these will probably become necessary and that the initial methods will not work
fast enough, and I don't think it is that clear-cut.  By throwing out the
second sentence worded the way it is, you again turn people off to the issue.
Repeating myself, you can be more effective by restating it in a way people can
hear, something like this:

"If we can't make these changes soon and effectively, it is quite likely we
will be forced into added restrictions and laws that no one wants, that begin
to erode human dignity and rights."

<< I am against forced STERILIZATION in most cases, at least under present
conditions. >>

Noted.  I'm sure your list of exceptions will get a lot of people riled.
That's something you might want to take note of, and change your style.  There
is no sense throwing out things that will turn people off to your basic
message.  You have a tendency to throw out tidbits that are likely to incite
people, and sometimes it seems to me likely you haven't even given a great deal
of thought to some of those tidbits, and first thing you know, there'll be a
big flame war going over one of those tidbits.  Just for example: sterilization
of a crippled person.  Say he was paralyzed from the waste down in a car
accident, but his spouse is not crippled, and they want to have one child, and
can do so without burdening society.  I doubt you would say he should be
sterilized, right?  So - just a suggestion - be more careful throwing out those
tidbits.

>> At some point I would even call it a crime to have
women who refuse to stop having kids, whether they are poor or rich.<<

I would too, at some point.  In fact, I consider it a moral crime now for
anyone to have more than two children, unless they can truly claim ignorance
(which many, unfortunately, can).  But again, best way to present the OP
message is something like:

"I'd hate to see us ignore OP and allow it to worsen until it eventually got to
the point where it became necessary to force women to be sterilized so they
would stop having babies."

In other words, show that you are human, that you care about other humans, that
you care about human rights.  I think this can't be stressed enuf.  There is a
general view amongst the public that overpopulationists are child-haters.  The
way to change this is to use words that convey that our ultimate message is
that we care about humans, care about children, and want to ensure that they
face a bright future, hence our concern about OP.  I still remember manning the
ZPG booth at the Santa Clara County Fair in San Jose, CA in 1977, and having a
woman practically spit at me and accuse me of hating children.  Being only 24
at the time, I was speechless, unfortunately.

<< In that respect I would also include infants, as I mentioned in an earlier
post, since we do not need many more of them. >>

Bad thing to say, Ed.  But I empathize with you.  I suspect you have no
children.  I spoke similar words before having my two children.  And I do agree
with you that infants have less value than adults, and that we don't need many
more of them.  But....well, let's put it this way.  When my first child, my
son, was born, I was thunderstruck with his degree of consciousness.  I
experienced an incredible bond to Rion in the minutes after his birth, and its
still with me today (he's 13).  I assume most anyone who has had a child has
this understanding that babies are really, really human, they aren't empty
shells waiting to be turned into humans.  The value I place on infants went WAY
up the moment Rion was born.  This is an important thing for you to understand,
Ed, because again, your effectiveness at arguing the issue that is closest to
your heart, OP, will increase greatly once you do.  If you truly believe that
we should be killing infants now because of OP, and you are unable to change
that opinion in lite of what I've said, you would do the entire OP movement a
big favor by ceasing your activism.  I hate to say that, but I think it's
true.  I look forward to hearing more from you on this one.

<< For this to work it would require mutual coercion, mutually agreed on.>>

Now that's an important statement, duly noted.  You're saying that you don't
think any of your proposals would work without people pretty much agreeing to
do it that way, right?  But surely you realize that such agreement on many of
the things you've said, particularly culling of infants, is nowhere in sight?

In summary, I see two basic problems with what you've said: (1) you have an
unwarranted degree of certainty about what the future would entail were
overpopulation not dealt with as severely as you think it should be; (2) you're
proposing policies in a somewhat idealistic way - taking that certainty you
express about the future without such policies, then adding on to it a
certainty that these particular policies will be the only ones that would work,
and therefore must be done even though they would entail horrible "sacrifice"
of billions of people.  I guess what I'd like to try to "push" you more towards
would be: (1) the future is probably somewhat fuzzier than you think, the
possibility exists that it won't be anywhere near as bad as it looks to you;
(2) policies that take human rights into more consideration may work better
than your suggested directions, and will be infinitely more likely to be
implemented; (3) the most effective way to argue the OP issue is from a stance
that fully respects human rights and dignity and makes it clear that you do;
(4) there is a point at which we must give in to nature, and allow what is
going to happen to happen, and that point comes before we start throwing human
rights out the door.

Ed, I believe your heart is in the right place, you are clearly intelligent and
have educated yourself well about the OP problem, and you are a hard-working
activist.  I don't want to see you become ineffective because you present your
message in a way people won't hear, so please accept this email as an attempt
at constructive criticism.

Ted Toal.