Yesterday I saw a story in the Asian Correspondent about forced sterilization in India, and wishing to investigate the matter further I found that the article had been quickly taken down, probably due to its explosive nature, and I had to find the article again from other sources [1]. Having already written about the war against children in Uzbekistan [2], it is unfortunate that it must be admitted that the this hatred toward new life is not only present in dictatorships but even nations that are popularly assumed to be democracies at least on the road to development, like India. And worse yet, taxpayer money in nations like the United States and the United Kingdom is being used to pay for forced sterilizations in these nations that especially target the poorer and lesser orders of societies.

We might ask ourselves why this is the case. It is, after all, the wealthier nations and elites of the world (particularly in the West) that are gravely concerned about the environmental state of the earth. If one thinks that the earth is overpopulated, it is entirely proper to seek to limit your own family size and take personal accountability for the repercussions of your own decisions. It is, on the other hand, entirely unacceptable to coerce others into reducing their family size simply because one wants to hoard all the resources possible for one’s self, and especially unacceptable to use sterilization as a political weapon against marginal populations as a way of seeking to ensure that they do not gain power through demography.

As is often the case, consent is the main problem with this sort of behavior. It is an act of violence to deceive the uneducated and ignorant in order to take their fertility away from them and prevent them from growing in population. It is not only the ancient Egyptians that were afraid their marginalized populations would grow too large to be controlled, but many nations here and now share those same fears. And since we remember what judgment God gave to the wicked Egyptians for their infanticide and child murder, we ought not to be in a hurry to behave in a like manner ourselves in our own world with our own demographic fears. If we are afraid of the meek inheriting the earth, perhaps we ought to become more meek and humble ourselves so that the prospect is less threatening.

The reasons why forced sterilization is practiced is because of fear. Even in a democracy, elites fear too large a population of poor and outsiders who desire to improve their lot in life, threatening those who already have education and connections and credentials with additional competition, or the fear of confiscation of their resources. Other leaders, who are less interested in democracy, fear that too large a population of unhappy people would be impossible to keep under control, especially in such tumultuous times as we live in. People who believe in global warming and other related ideas about mankind’s impending environmental disasters are horrified by the prospect that our standard of living in the world will be hindered by masses of poor people around the world looking for food and water and shelter or looking to crowd our own space. These fears and others drive many nations to seek to control their populations through means fair and foul in order to reduce the tensions and insecurities they face.

It is easy to condemn such people for their inhumanity, but at the same time we have to remember that people are oppressive generally not because they are strong but because they are weak. In my own lifetime of dealing with abusive authorities and bullies and tyrants, I have found that strength is far more often pretended than possessed. When people feel insecure and threatened they tend to respond in ways that are ugly and brutal and unfriendly. At times in my life I have, rather uncharitably, deliberately attacked the insecurities of others, despite the fact that I take attacks to my own insecurities very personally. We all have to learn how to better treat and respect others, and to recognize that even ungodly leaders of nations and institutions are themselves also wounded souls plagued by deep fears and insecurities. It does not excuse their behavior, but it makes them human, and allows us to treat them as human beings rather than monsters.

This is an important point, if an unpopular one, because a large part of the problem with such forced sterilization and the general exploitation and mistreatment of others is that such people are not treated like human beings themselves, with their own freedoms and rights and hopes and dreams. Those of us who are so insistent on our own freedoms and rights have an immense obligation to honor and respect the freedoms and rights of other people. And those of us that abhor the mistreatment of others have to remember that even those who abuse and exploit others are human beings themselves, and that most often there are cycles of fear and insecurity that drive some to oppress others and to create their own worst enemies among the survivors of such mistreatment. We are all human beings, and we all have a lot of work to do to make this world an acceptable and just place. May it begin through a widespread recognition of the humanity of others, be they the unborn or the aged, the sick and inform, the poor and obscure, or whoever else we think of as the least important in our own world.

[1] http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/11372-us-uk-taxpayers-funding-forced-sterilization-in-india

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/uzbekistan-and-the-war-on-children/