Birth Control and ecology in the Philippines

One of the hotly debated issues in the Philippines at the moment is birth control. While many Filipinos want it, the church does not and has successfully been stalling the “reproductive health bill” for fourteen years. The Los Angeles Times has a brief article about the background of this and offers a human angle.

At Marine Conservation Philippines we do not generally volunteer our opinions on religious or moral matters. As an organization however we can offer an ecological perspective on the population growth of the Philippines. The Philippines has one of the most rapidly growing populations anywhere. With the current fertility rate it’s expected that the population will increase by 57 million by 2050 (currently the population is around 97 million.) In a country with massive poverty and lack of jobs such a population growth isn’t good news.  If no new technologies appear to save the day, then it’s safe to say that ecologically the population growth will have a very severe detrimental effect on the environment, due to increased carbon emissions, other pollution and increased strain on natural resources. Natural resources are already under severe pressure in many places in the Philippines, and with a population who primarily eat a fish based diet vulnerable fish stocks will come under increased pressure.

The church isn’t actually advocating population growth, but it does considers birth control an abomination.  It may seem this is the same from a pragmatic point a view, but there’s an important distinction from a moral point of view. To spell it out, the reasoning is that there wouldn’t be such a problematic population growth, if only people would stop all that fornication…  And to be fair, the issue for the church has never been one of population growth, statistics and socio-economics – that discussion wouldn’t be very long lived. It’s been a moral and religious issue all along, that’s why it’s become such a long and hard fought battle.

While we do not generally speak on religious or moral issues, we must comment on consequences of established policies. The take away message is that religion and morals aside, a population growth such as what’s expected is a really bad idea from an ecological, social, and economical point of view.