Sir, – Kudos to Eduardo Porter for his incisive analysis of population and the environment ("Population, education and climate change are close relations", Health + Family, August 26th). However, his statement that China's one-child policy "is now widely considered a blatant violation of human rights" left me baffled. No human rights authority has ever determined that countries are forbidden from wading into the issue of family size, given the importance of that issue to the health and safety of the world.
For example, had world average birthrates remained at their 1995 level of 3.04 children per woman, the UN estimated world population would have reached 256 billion people by 2150. While methods of enforcement such as coerced abortions and sterilisations violate human rights, countries are free to implement population policies that gently guide their citizens to make good decisions, in much the way that some states guide their citizens to wear seatbelts and avoid cigarettes.
Given the parade of horrible things such as climate change and food shortages (to say nothing of mass extinction) that Mr Porter admits all come from a world bursting at its seams with people, one wonders why countries are not doing so already. – Yours, etc,
CARTER DILLARD,
44th Avenue,
San Francisco,
California.