While many Catholics and pro-life organizations have rightly focused their efforts on keeping abortion and euthanasia out of health care, population control advocates are pushing hard for global populationist  policies as a way to neutralize climate change.  Steve Mosher has a story revealing these efforts from a few days ago here. http://bit.ly/3nmoE

Cardinal Justin Rigali, Chairman of the Pro-Life Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, recently took issue with environmentalists pushing for population control, via abortion (including vacuum abortions), abortifacients and other forms of contraception, as a way to confront climate change.  The Cardinal also advocated for larger families when he emphasized that small family sizes are bankrupting Social Security and Medicare.

Cardinal Rigali criticizes population control as way to curb climate change

Cardinal Rigali:

“It should not be surprising that the neglect, and even the death, of some people are offered as a solution to rising health care costs. Population control advocates have long espoused aborting children in the developing world as a misguided means for reducing poverty.

“Some environmentalists now claim that the most efficient way to curb global climate change is to make ‘family planning’ more widely available in the developing world. They report that an average of 2.3 pounds per day of exhaled carbon dioxide can be eliminated from the atmosphere by eliminating one human being. As used by population control advocates, the innocuous term ‘family planning’ includes abortifacient contraceptives, sterilization, and manual vacuum aspiration abortions …

Since the advent of widespread contraception and abortion, a cultural hostility to children has grown. They are often depicted as costly encumbrances who interfere with a carefree adult life. No fewer than six recent books are dedicated to defending the childless-by-choice lifestyle – for selfish reasons, or to counter ‘overpopulation,’ a thoroughly discredited myth. In fact, if married couples were to have more children, Medicare and Social Security would not be hurtling toward bankruptcy.

“Since 1955, because of fewer children and longer life spans, the number of workers has declined relative to the number of beneficiaries, from 8.6 to only 3.1 workers paying benefits to support each beneficiary. Without substantially more young people to enter the work force as young adults, in 25 years, there will be only 2.1 workers supporting each beneficiary. Eliminating our young does not solve problems even on pragmatic grounds. It adds to them.”

Amen.