17 January 2012

Family Planning

Watch this video from the TED symposium by Hans Rosling. He is Swedish and is a professor of Global Health at his institute. The information is very interesting, and will challenge your world-view. The claims made must be scrutinized and put into a proper context.

What is the proper 'causal' relationship? Why do these developing countries have, statistically, more children versus the developed countries (8 v. 2.1). Is it because of 'family planning' that we have that they do not? Is it because they need more people to 'work the fields'- because they are an agrarian society? America was there no less than 60 years ago.

It is not because of family planning that our average children per family has dropped to 2.1 today. I submit that it is because of a myriad of reasons, not just one. Therefore, drawing a conclusion that more 'Family Planning Funding' to these undeveloped nations will decrease their per-family size, therefore reduce the demand for scarce resources, therefore decrease poverty, therefore decrease mortality/morbidity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTznEIZRkLg

When he says 'we must stop population growth and Family Planning', I hear is sterilization and global funding for abortion (via the UN and Planned Parenthood). This is an error in drawing a linear conclusion from one data point. His mantra is that we must 'Stop Population Growth'.

What are your conclusions? Does it challenge your world-view? It does for me.

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