Ethics and Population Limitation

The ethical issues of population control as they arise in government decision-making are analyzed and a structure for examining these issues along with some possible solutions developed. 3 values have had a predominant role in the West: freedom justice and security-survival with freedom holding primacy. Given this ranking of values governments must act to implement individual freedom through voluntary family planning programs. To introduce programs that go beyond family planning it must 1st be shown that family planning has been adequately tried and has failed (a proposition so far not established). The choice of a program that goes beyond family planning should be a positive incentive program that respects freedom of choice and a coercive program should be used only as a last resort. In general the more coercive a program the more stringent should be the conditions necessary to justify and regulate it. To allow the right of free choice is to take a risk which is justified only by the high value of that rig ht which cannot be posited on utilitarian considerations.