Obama’s Science Czar: We Need Forced Abortions and Mass Sterilization Overseen By Planetary Regime
Obama’s Science Czar: We Need Forced Abortions and Mass Sterilization Overseen By Planetary Regime
The book is called
Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment and the suggestions made by Holdren are completely chilling, like something only a Hitler-like madman could dream up.
Although
authored in 1977 and now denounced by Holdren, one can only think that
‘once a madman always a madman’. Overpopulation is a myth propagaged by
those who seek to control the Earth. While it might seem self-evident
that our population is indeed growning and there is only so much space
around, the reality is that
by 2030 the world population will start dropping.
Take a look at the excerpts from Holdren’s book below.
Page 837: Compulsory abortions would be legal
| Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society. |
As noted in the FrontPage article
cited above, Holdren “hides behind the passive voice” in this passage,
by saying “it has been concluded.” Really? By whom? By the authors of
the book, that’s whom. What Holdren’s really saying here is, “Ihave
determined that there’s nothing unconstitutional about laws which would
force women to abort their babies.” And as we will see later, although
Holdren bemoans the fact that most people think there’s no need for such
laws, he and his co-authors believe that the population crisis is so
severe that the time has indeed come for “compulsory population-control
laws.” In fact, they spend the entire book arguing that “the population
crisis” has already become “sufficiently severe to endanger the
society.”
Page 786: Single mothers should have their babies taken away by the government; or they could be forced to have abortions
| One way to carry out this disapproval might be to insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption—especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone. If a single mother really wished to keep her baby, she might be obliged to go through adoption proceedings and
demonstrate her ability to support and care for it. Adoption
proceedings probably should remain more difficult for single people than
for married couples, in recognition of the relative difficulty of
raising children alone. It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society. |
Holdren
and his co-authors once again speculate about unbelievably draconian
solutions to what they feel is an overpopulation crisis. But what’s
especially disturbing is not that Holdren has merely made these
proposals — wrenching babies from their mothers’ arms and giving them
away; compelling single mothers to prove in court that they would be
good parents; and forcing women to have abortions, whether they wanted
to or not — but that he does so in such a dispassionate, bureaucratic
way. Don’t be fooled by the innocuous and “level-headed” tone he takes:
the proposals are nightmarish, however euphemistically they are
expressed.
Holdren
seems to have no grasp of the emotional bond between mother and child,
and the soul-crushing trauma many women have felt throughout history
when their babies were taken away from them involuntarily.
This
kind of clinical, almost robotic discussion of laws that would affect
millions of people at the most personal possible level is deeply
unsettling, and the kind of attitude that gives scientists a bad name.
I’m reminded of the phrase “banality of evil.”
Not
that it matters, but I myself am “pro-choice” — i.e. I think that
abortion should not be illegal. But that doesn’t mean I’m pro-abortion — I don’t particularly like abortions, but I do believe women should be allowed the choice to have them. But John Holdren here proposes to take away that choice — to force women
to have abortions. One doesn’t need to be a “pro-life” activist to see
the horror of this proposal — people on all sides of the political
spectrum should be outraged. My objection to forced abortion is not so
much to protect the embryo, but rather to protect the mother from
undergoing a medical procedure against her will. And not just any
medical procedure, but one which she herself (regardless of my views)
may find particularly immoral or traumatic.
There’s a bumper sticker that’s popular in liberal areas which
says: “Against abortion? Then don’t have one.” Well, John Holdren wants
to MAKE you have one, whether you’re against it or not.
Page 787-8: Mass sterilization of humans though drugs in the water supply is OK as long as it doesn’t harm livestock
| Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is
a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for
involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very
difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective,
despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite
varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must
be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock. |
OK,
John, now you’re really starting to scare me. Putting sterilants in the
water supply? While you correctly surmise that this suggestion “seems
to horrify people more than most proposals,” you apparently are not
among those people it horrifies. Because in your extensive list of
problems with this possible scheme, there is no mention whatsoever of
any ethical concerns or moral issues. In your view, the only impediment
to involuntary mass sterlization of the population is that it ought to
affect everyone equally and not have any unintended side effects or hurt
animals. But hey, if we could sterilize all the humans safely without
hurting the livestock, that’d be peachy! The fact that Holdren has no
moral qualms about such a deeply invasive and unethical scheme (aside
from the fact that it would be difficult to implement) is extremely
unsettling and in a sane world all by itself would disqualify him from
holding a position of power in the government.
Page 786-7: The government could control women’s reproduction by either sterilizing them or implanting mandatory long-term birth control
Involuntary fertility control
…
A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men.
…
The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births. |
Note
well the phrase “with official permission” in the above quote. Johh
Holdren envisions a society in which the government implants a long-term
sterilization capsule in all girls as soon as they reach puberty, who
then must apply for official permission to
temporarily remove the capsule and be allowed to get pregnant at some
later date. Alternately, he wants a society that sterilizes all women
once they have two children. Do you want to live in such a society?
Because I sure as hell don’t.
Page 838: The kind of people who cause “social deterioration” can be compelled to not have children
| If some individuals contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children, and if the need is compelling, they can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility—just as they can be required to exercise responsibility in their resource-consumption patterns—providing they are not denied equal protection. |
To
me, this is in some ways the most horrifying sentence in the entire
book — and it had a lot of competition. Because here Holdren reveals
that moral judgments would be involved in determining who gets
sterilized or is forced to abort their babies. Proper, decent people
will be left alone — but those who “contribute to social deterioration”
could be “forced to exercise reproductive responsibility” which could
only mean one thing — compulsory abortion or involuntary sterilization.
What other alternative would there be to “force” people to not have
children? Will government monitors be stationed in irresponsible
people’s bedrooms to ensure they use condoms? Will we bring back the
chastity belt? No — the only way to “force” people to not become or
remain pregnant is to sterilize them or make them have abortions.
But
what manner of insanity is this? “Social deterioration”? Is Holdren
seriously suggesting that “some” people contribute to social
deterioriation more than others, and thus should be sterilized or forced
to have abortions, to prevent them from propagating their kind? Isn’t
that eugenics, plain and simple? And isn’t eugenics universally
condemned as a grotesquely evil practice?
We’ve
already been down this road before. In one of the most shameful
episodes in the history of U.S. jurisprudence, the Supreme Court ruled
in the infamous 1927 Buck v. Bell case that the State of Virginia had had the right to sterilize a woman named Carrie Buck against
her will, based solely on the (spurious) criteria that she was
“feeble-minded” and promiscuous, with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
concluding, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Nowadays, of
course, we look back on that ruling in horror, as eugenics as a concept
has been forever discredited. In fact, the United Nations now regards forced sterilization as a crime against humanity.
The italicized phrase at the end (“providing they are not denied equal protection“),
which Holdren seems to think gets him off the eugenics hook, refers to
the 14th Amendment (as you will see in the more complete version of this
passage quoted below), meaning that the eugenics program wouldn’t be
racially based or discriminatory — merely based on the whim and
assessments of government bureaucrats deciding who and who is not an
undesirable. If some civil servant in Holdren’s America determines that
you are “contributing to social deterioration” by being promiscuous or
pregnant or both, will government agents break down your door and and
haul you off kicking and screaming to the abortion clinic? In fact, the
Supreme Court case Skinner v. Oklahoma already determined that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment distinctly prohibits state-sanctioned sterilization being applied unequally to only certain types of people.
No no, you say, Holdren isn’t claiming that some kind of people contribute to social deterioration more than others; rather, he’s stating that anyone who overproduces children thereby contributes to social deterioration and needs to be stopped from having more. If
so — how is that more palatable? It seems Holdren and his co-authors
have not really thought this through, because what they are suggesting
is a nightmarish totalitarian society. What does he envision: All women
who commit the crime of having more than two children be dragged away by
police to the government-run sterilization centers? Or — most
disturbingly of all — perhaps Holdren has thought it through, and is perfectly OK with the kind of dystopian society he envisions in this book.
Sure,
I could imagine a bunch of drunken guys sitting around shooting the
breeze, expressing these kinds of forbidden thoughts; who among us
hasn’t looked in exasperation at a harried mother buying candy bars and
soda for her immense brood of unruly children and thought: Lady, why don’t you just get your tubes tied already? But
it’s a different matter when the Science Czar of the United States
suggests the very same thing officially in print. It ceases being a
harmless fantasy, and suddenly the possibility looms that it could
become government policy. And then it’s not so funny anymore.
Page 838: Nothing is wrong or illegal about the government dictating family size
| In
today’s world, however, the number of children in a family is a matter
of profound public concern. The law regulates other highly personal
matters. For example, no one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a
time. Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children? |
Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?
Why?
I’ll tell you why, John. Because the the principle of habeas corpus upon
which our nation rests automatically renders any compulsory abortion
scheme to be unconstitutional, since it guarantees the freedom of each
individual’s body from detention or interference, until that person has
been convicted of a crime. Or are you seriously suggesting that, should
bureaucrats decide that the country is overpopulated, the mere act of
pregnancy be made a crime?
I
am no legal scholar, but it seems that John Holgren is even less of a
legal scholar than I am. Many of the bizarre schemes suggested in Ecoscience rely
on seriously flawed legal reasoning. The book is not so much about
science, but instead is about reinterpreting the Constitution to allow
totalitarian population-control measures.
Page 942-3: A “Planetary Regime” should control the global economy and dictate by force the number of children allowed to be born
Toward a Planetary Regime
…
Perhaps those agencies, combined with UNEP and the United Nations population agencies, might eventually be developed into a
Planetary Regime—sort of an international superagency for population,
resources, and environment. Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime could
control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution
of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable, at least
insofar as international implications exist. Thus the Regime could have
the power to control pollution not only in the atmosphere and oceans,
but also in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes that cross
international boundaries or that discharge into the oceans. The Regime might also be a logical central agency for regulating all international trade, perhaps including assistance from DCs to LDCs, and including all food on the international market.The
Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the
optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating
various countries’ shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits. |
In case you were wondering exactly who would
enforce these forced abortion and mass sterilization laws: Why, it’ll
be the “Planetary Regime”! Of course! I should have seen that one
coming.
The
rest of this passage speaks for itself. Once you add up all the things
the Planetary Regime (which has a nice science-fiction ring to it,
doesn’t it?) will control, it becomes quite clear that it will have
total power over the global economy, since according to Holdren this
Planetary Regime will control “all natural
resources, renewable or nonrenewable” (which basically means all goods)
as well as all food, and commerce on the oceans and any rivers “that
discharge into the oceans” (i.e. 99% of all navigable rivers). What’s
left? Not much.
Page 917: We will need to surrender national sovereignty to an armed international police force
| If this could be accomplished, security might be provided by an armed international organization, a global analogue of a police force.
Many people have recognized this as a goal, but the way to reach it
remains obscure in a world where factionalism seems, if anything, to be
increasing. The first step necessarily involvespartial surrender of sovereignty to an international organization. |
The
other shoe drops. So: We are expected to voluntarily surrender national
sovereignty to an international organization (the “Planetary Regime,”
presumably), which will be armed and have the ability to act as a police
force. And we saw in the previous quote exactly which rules this armed
international police force will be enforcing: compulsory birth control,
and all economic activity.
It
would be laughable if Holdren weren’t so deadly serious. Do you want
this man to be in charge of science and technology in the United States?
Because he already is in charge.
Page 749: Pro-family and pro-birth attitudes are caused by ethnic chauvinism
| Another related issue that seems to encourage a pronatalist attitude in many people is the question of the differential reproduction of social or ethnic groups. Many people seem to be possessed by fear that their group may be outbred by other groups. White
Americans and South Africans are worried there will be too many blacks,
and vice versa. The Jews in Israel are disturbed by the high birth
rates of Israeli Arabs, Protestants are worried about Catholics, and
lbos about Hausas. Obviously, if everyone tries to outbreed everyone else, the result will be catastrophe for all.
This is another case of the “tragedy of the commons,” wherein the
“commons” is the planet Earth. Fortunately, it appears that, at least in
the DCs, virtually all groups are exercising reproductive restraint. |
This
passage is not particularly noteworthy except for the inclusion of the
odd phrase “pronatalist attitude,” which Holdren spends much of the book
trying to undermine. And what exactly is a “pronatalist attitude”?
Basically it means the urge to have children, and to like babies. If
only we could suppress people’s natural urge to want children and start
families, we could solve all our problems!
What’s
disturbing to me is the incredibly patronizing and culturally
imperialist attitude he displays here, basically acting like he has the
right to tell every ethnic group in the world that they should allow
themselves to go extinct or at least not increase their populations any
more. How would we feel if Andaman Islanders showed up on the steps of
the Capitol in Washington D.C. and announced that there were simply too
many Americans, and we therefore are commanded to stop breeding
immediately? One imagines that the attitude of every ethnic group in the
world to John Holdren’s proposal would be: Cram it, John. Stop telling
us what to do.
Page 944: As of 1977, we are facing a global overpopulation catastrophe that must be resolved at all costs by the year 2000
| Humanity cannot afford to muddle through the rest of the twentieth century; the risks are too great, and the stakes are too high. This may be the last opportunity to choose our own and our descendants’ destiny. Failing
to choose or making the wrong choices may lead to catastrophe. But it
must never be forgotten that the right choices could lead to a much
better world. |
This
is the final paragraph of the book, which I include here only to show
how embarrassingly inaccurate his “scientific” projections were. In
1977, Holdren thought we were teetering on the brink of global
catastrophe, and he proposed implementing fascistic rules and laws to
stave off the impending disaster. Luckily, we ignored his warnings, yet
the world managed to survive anyway without the need to punish ourselves
with the oppressive society which Holdren proposed. Yes, there still is
overpopulation, but the problems it causes are not as morally repugnant
as the “solutions” which John Holdren wanted us to adopt.
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