Mark Reeder @franklin_reeder May 24
I came across a hardcopy of a July 1956 Reader’s Digest. It has an article by Margaret Sanger titled, “Asia Discovers Birth Control.”
I’ll tweet the full article and point out some excerpts.
“When in 1922, I lectured in Japan […], the Imperial Government forbade me to advocate birth control publicly… but 32 years later, in 1954, I was invited to address the Upper House Welfare Committee on efficient methods of combating overpopulation.”
“…Dr. E. Stuart Kirby of Hong Kong University, an authority on the demography of the Eastern Hemisphere, has said: “The P-bomb (population bomb) is a greater threat to the world than is the A-bomb or the H-bomb.’…”
“…So desperate had the population problem become (in Japan) by 1948 that a Eugenic Protection Law was enacted, permitting the termination of any pregnancy which could ‘seriously injure the health of the mother owing to physical or economic conditions.’…”
“…India is also engaged in ambitious efforts to increase food production to meet the needs of its growing population. But there as elsewhere such efforts are doomed to failure unless there is population control…”
“…Recently, a population expert attested that ‘efforts to increase the production of food cannot alone suffice to achieve any steady or rapid rise in nutrition levels. A firm control of the number of births is indisputably necessary.’…”
“…It seems unbelievable that in an age when we have harnessed the atom we still have not perfected a simple method for the control of human fertility. But research now under way in many parts of the world will surely result in important discoveries….”
“These may provide the means not only of curbing the quantity of the world’s population but of changing its quality to give an onward and upward lift to human dignity and freedom.
It may be that the East, which has the most to gain from [it], will lead the way.”
Fast forward to 2023:
“Japan’s prime minister issued a dire warning about the country’s population crisis on Monday, saying it was “on the brink of not being able to maintain social functions” due to the falling birth rate…”
https://cnn.com/2023/01/23/asia/japan-k ... index.html
https://www.foxnews.com/world/china-now ... ild-policy
“Demographer Yi Fuxian remains sceptical whether any measures would have a significant impact by themselves, saying China needed a ‘paradigm revolution of its entire economy, society, politics and diplomacy to boost fertility.’”