[1] Fr. Robert Drinan, a Jesuit professor of law at Georgetown University in Washington, recently told Catholics that they must stop their silence on the world overpopulation crisis. Writing in Aug. 29 issue of NCR, Drinan based his article on a book by William Hollingsworth, a lawyer concerned primarily with encouraging U.S. funding of birth control programs worldwide. In my opinion, neither understands much about population issues. 

[2] Drinan also seems not to learn from past mistakes. About a year ago he publicly supported President Clinton's veto of a bill to ban partial-birth abortion. His support, he said, was based on the fact that such abortions were sometimes medically necessary. 

[3] Drinan reversed himself when the American Medical Association said they were never medically necessary, and both houses of Congress rejected them as a form of infanticide. Drinan said he hadn't fully understood the procedure.

[4] Again, not fully understanding, Drinan has chosen to instruct us about the impending world disasters that will result from the startling rate of world population growth. In his presentation of the demographic facts, Drinan joins the trumpeters of fear, tragedy and doom. His recitation of statistics is somewhat accurate but largely irrelevant. 

[5] It is true that world population increased from 3.4 billion in 1966 to 5.7 billion in 1996. But one has to look at the figures of the latest U.N. population estimates. The global rate of population growth has been consistently declining over the past 30 years, from 2.1 percent in the late 1960s to 1.48 percent in 1995. The actual number of people added to the world population annually peaked at 87 million during the 1985-90 period, dropped to 81 million by 1995 and is expected to continue at that level until 2000. Thereafter the numbers are expected to decline, dropping to 41 million by 2050. The latest U.N. data shows that by 1996, world population growth fell faster, national fertility declines were broader and deeper, and migration flows were larger than previous estimates had anticipated. Rates are higher in
the least developed regions but even there they are in decline. 

[6] Drinan calls attention to the 1994 U.N. Population Conference at Cairo, which he badly misrepresents. He claims that there was little attention given to population issues by Catholics who were preoccupied with abortion. Again, Drinan is seriously misinformed or his ideological bias prevents objective understanding. 

[7] The Cairo Conference was to focus on population and development but failed to even address the development questions. The preoccupation with abortion was forced on the conference by its planners - Dr. Naf`is Sadik, a small coterie of nations under her influence, and the United States, at the direction
of the Clinton administration - all aided by the New York-based population control groups. 

[8] Prestigious demographers were highly critical that development issues were pushed aside as abortion advocates and the more radical feminist organizations hijacked the conference. Vocal opposition to this agenda came from Malta, Latin American nations, Islamic nations and the Holy See. But each nation
spoke for itself from its own culture and/or its own constitutional history.

[9] Drinan cites Hollingsworth's book as his basic source. Hollingsworth believes in regulating fertility, apparently by any means - abortion, contraception, sterilization - so long as there is no coercion and it is "respectful of human freedom." Abortion clearly is not respectful of the freedom of the unborn. Recent reports from Sweden and Japan about government-promoted sterilization of people with disabilities suggests that such programs were, in fact, coercive and dehumanizing. 

[10] Drinan claims that Catholics are not supportive of efforts to promote family planning and are noticeably absent from groups trying to control "overpopulation." He laments the fact that Catholics are unaware of the continual decline in U.S. dollars for birth control programs in foreign nations. One might reasonably presume that Drinan does not understand the church's teaching on responsible parenthood and its link to social development. That teaching was clearly set forth at Cairo, at the International Conference on women in Beijing ( 1995) and at the Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen (1996). It may even be that Drinan is unhappy with the church's teaching on birth control. If so, he should be more forthright in saying so, rather than hiding behind a misrepresentation of the demographic data. 

[11] Drinan concludes his article with a concern for the additional one billion people who will be on the planet in 2010. He urges more heroic efforts to prepare a quality existence for them. I agree. However, that will not result from bigger and better birth control programs. It will come from development assistance, relief of international debts, and sharing of modern technology by the developing nations. In this way, we can create a world in which there is a true spirit of solidarity that knows no borders, no political or cultural barriers, and a world that sees each person as a child of God and a welcome member of the human family.