17th February 2008

Following a feature article in the Stroud News and Journal about Cllr Philip Booth saying it is time we started to think about population, Roger Plenty writes to the SNJ.

I am glad that Philip Booth has raised the issue of population (Feb 6). The planet is crowded and getting more so. Population is growing at nearly a quarter of a million a day, a billion in twelve yearsPopulation services are underfunded worldwide.

There is a huge gap between demand for reproductive services and supply, according to UNFPA, and each million pounds of shortfall leads directly to 720,000 unintended pregnancies, 300,000 unsafe abortions and over 60,000 maternal and infant deaths. According to Marie Stopes,201 million couples would use contraception if they had access to it: in Sub Saharan Africa the availability of condoms is about five per man per year.

One thing we can do as individuals, as well as considering the size of our own families, is to support charities such as International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes InternationalWe are trying to save the planet, but there is little hope that we can do so unless we can reduce our rate of reproduction.

Roger Plenty, Stroud