Population – Page 3 – Population Matters-USA

Although she is often given credit for being the earliest to broadcast family planning in the USA, Margaret Sanger was not the first. However, perhaps she was the bravest since she was arrested eight times while trying to help women.

You may remember Sanger as the woman who started family planning clinics in New York; she spent time in jail for this audacious act. She persisted despite adversity, with the end result of a series of clinics that were the start of Planned Parenthood. Currently there are over 600 Planned Parenthood clinics in the USA. Her family planning work was greeted internationally as well as in the USA, with the International Planned Parenthood Federation providing reproductive health service in more than 145 countries.

Trained as a nurse, Sanger worked in a clinic for poor women in New York City early in the 20^th century. She realized that having children too close together was bad for the mothers’ health—and also for the children. Growing up with 10 siblings probably interested her in family planning!

Unfortunately, Sanger got on the eugenics bandwagon, which was common in that era. Her name is somewhat besmirched because of that. It is very concerning that we seem to be experiencing a rebirth of eugenics in the USA, with discontinuation of programs to help poorer people and those among us with disabilities.

There were at least two male physicians who helped pave the way for Sanger. Dr. Robert Dale Owen wrote “Moral Physiology; or, A Brief and Plain Treatise on the Population Question”, (1831). He wrote: “Is it in itself desirable, that man should obtain control over the instinct of reproduction, so as to determine when its gratification shall produce offspring, and when it shall not?” He suggested using withdrawal to limit family size and suggested that a tubal ligation could be done at the time of a (then, very rare) Cesarean section.

Owen also espoused an electrical devise to control fertility: “…considerable opportunity has been afforded by the sale of the Electro-Galvania alluded to in this work, for testing its efficacy as a preventive of conception.” The primary message of his book is furthering the message of Malthus—that overpopulation would bring on famine. He also advocated celibacy until “a late age”.

Dr. Charles Knowlton’s “Fruits of Philosophy: The private companion of young married people” (pictured above) appeared a year later, in 1832. Again, his primary message is a concern about overpopulation, but he gave more information about family planning. Knowlton recommended the rhythm method, or douching shortly after intercourse to prevent pregnancy.

The book described another means of birth control. The woman should insert a small, moistened piece of sponge in her vagina before intercourse. A thin ribbon attached to the sponge would aid its removal. This method is similar to what Francis Place, a British activist advocated in a pamphlet published 10 years earlier, and was commonly used by the upper classes.

Both of these books argue that family planning was not immoral. Unfortunately, Knowlton, a citizen of Massachusetts, spent 3 months in prison on obscenity charges. Apparently, the officials didn’t agree with his views on morality.

Forty years later, strict laws were enacted to prevent the mailing of obscene or abortion-related matter—the Comstock Act. Most of those laws have been overthrown, except for the part about mailing abortion information. Although it is now possible to mail information about family planning or get birth control pills by mail, now anti-choice forces in the USA are considering using this archaic Act to prevent prescription of medication abortion by telemedicine.

©Richard Grossman MD, 2025

Environmental groups are only treating the symptoms of overpopulation

Several years ago a friend asked if I would be interested in helping start a population interest group in what became the Sierra Club’s SW Colorado Group. Today the Group is going strong, including leading discussions about possible new mining in the La Plata mountains, learning about the pros and cons of beavers and introducing a local organization that advocates for giving legal status to features of nature.

I remember when the national Sierra Club (SC) had a large, energetic Population Issues Committee. There was an active chat group where we traded information back and forth. Before then, SC published Anne and Paul Ehrlich’s classic book The Population Bomb. Past SC president, Carl Pope, used the term “most overpopulated nation” to describe the USA, acknowledging the huge footprint Americans leave on the environment.

What happened that the SC no longer seems concerned about human population? Journalist and Durango native, Kathleene Parker, may have part of the answer. She wrote that a 2004 Los Angeles Times article gave a clue to this change in policy.

At the end of the 1990s there was a tug-of-war in the SC’s board. People such as Dave Foreman pushed for a strong policy to limit immigration and population growth. Other members had a laisse faire attitude; they won the dispute. They were perhaps helped by a rich donor, David Gelbaum, who gave over $100 million to the SC. He wrote: “…that if they ever came out anti-immigration, they would never get a dollar from me.”

Personally, I am ambivalent about immigration, but passionate about slowing population growth voluntarily.

The current national SC Population Policy starts off stating: “The Sierra Club is a pro-choice organization that endorses comprehensive, voluntary reproductive health care for all. Sexual and reproductive health and rights are inalienable human rights that should be guaranteed for all people with no ulterior motive.”

This sounds pretty good. However, it further states: “This includes policies and positions made in the name of preventing ‘overpopulation’ by ideas and means that include, but are not limited to: zero-growth, population stabilization, family planning as climate mitigation, or promoting women’s empowerment or girls’ education as an indirect means to limit population growth.”

To me, this seems like an attempt to be politically correct by ignoring the basic cause of all the environmental problems that the SC tries to deal with. It is too late to “prevent” overpopulation; overpopulation is already attacking the integrity of our planet, our life support system. Three billion people, more or less, is the maximum human population that can be sustained without causing degradation of our environment. We are approaching 3 times that number!

In the USA we are consuming much more than is sustainable. Yes, consumption is a major factor; people often bring it up. I am tempted to ask these advocates of reduced consumption if their carbon footprint is 2 tons or less; this is what is considered to be sustainable. (The average carbon footprint of people in the US is 16 tons!) I know few people who are trying to consume less. However, I have met hundreds—no, thousands—of people who wish to have control over their family size. Slowing population growth is, indeed, the “low hanging fruit.”

The word “population” seems to be anathema to many people, perhaps because it goes against the biblical admonition “be fruitful and multiply”—and all the religious hang-ups about pronatalism and sexuality. Perhaps it brings up racial and genocidal disasters of the distant past—and also recent and near. We need to get over it and face up to the fact that “we have met the enemy and he is us”. And the more of us, the worse things will get.