The Role of Healthcare Providers in Our Overpopulation Crisis
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2021 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Overpopulation exacerbates environmental and health problems, from climate change to biodiversity loss and pandemics. It is the “upstream” driver of numerous existential threats and also a major obstacle for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Addressing overpopulation and population growth compassionately - always - should be axiomatic for all health-care providers. The work of this profession, which has dramatically reduced death rates since the 1800s while keeping birth rates high, unintentionally bears some responsibility for the increase: one billion then, eight billion looming. Therefore, healthcare providers, especially those in gynaecology and obstetrics, must be uniquely motivated to: (1) become involved in rights-based policies and services with unbroken supply chains, ensuring optimal contraceptive care is available to all women and couples worldwide, (2) remove well-known tangible (unavailable contraceptives) and intangible (cultural, religious and mis-informational) barriers to women’s freedom to access family planning everywhere, while achieving full gender equity, especially in education, (3) sound the alarm on how overpopulation risks all planetary life, through optimal environmental education both for colleagues and the public, and (4) campaign for a maximum of two children per family (i.e. replacement fertility, and ideally less) on principle. |
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