Obama science chief: Abortion can save planet

AP Photo: J. Scott Applewhite

John Holdren’s textbook says forced sterilization may become necessary

WorldNetDaily | Sep 21, 2009

By Jerome R. Corsi

Despite the claims of some media watchdogs, President Obama’s science czar contended in a textbook he co-authored that involuntary birth-control measures, including forced sterilization, may be necessary and morally acceptable under certain conditions, such as widespread famine brought about by “climate change.”

John Holdren argued in the 1970s college textbook obtained by WND, “Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment,” that, “Compulsory control of family size is an unpalatable idea, but the alternatives may be much more horrifying.”

The book, last revised in a 1977 edition, was co-authored with Malthusian population alarmist Paul R. Ehrlich and Ehrlich’s wife, Anne.

The authors also advocated abortion as an acceptable form of population control and proposed that the best survival strategy for a pregnant woman is to abort her baby.

“When performed today under appropriate medical circumstances by a qualified physician … abortion is much safer than a full-term pregnancy,” Holdren and the Ehrlichs wrote.

To support the argument, the authors noted the death rate in the U.S. for legal abortion in the first trimester was then less than two in 100,000, increasing to 12 per 100,000 in the second-trimester, “still only half the maternal death rate for childbirth.”

“Ecoscience,” the once popular college textbook, now has become rare, with the only copy currently available on Amazon.com offered for $649.

The scarcity of the politically explosive text is reminiscent of the controversial anti-war book John Kerry co-authored in 1971 with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a volume that reached price heights during the Democratic senator’s 2004 presidential run and is even today selling on Amazon.com in the rare hardcover edition for $199.

Instead of publishing a new edition now that Holdren has risen to the position of White House science czar, Holdren and his White House supporters have tried to distance him from the views expressed in the book, arguing it is now more than three decades old.

Moreover, a statement released by the White House argued that while the textbook discussed compulsory methods of population control, including forced abortion and sterilization, the Ehrlichs and Holdren never advocated involuntary birth control but preferred milder, voluntary population control measures.

In a Sept. 9 item by Media Matters asserting Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity falsely claimed Holdren advocated compulsory population control, the left-leaning media watchdog insisted Holdren merely “discusses ‘compulsory control of family size’ including abortion and sterilization as a possible consequence for countries whose expanding birth rates are not curbed by ‘milder methods.”

Media Matters refers to the St. Petersburg Times’ fact-check website, Politifact.com, which addressed similar claims in July by Fox News host Glenn Beck, who said Holdren’s textbook proposed forced abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population.

“We think a thorough reading shows that these ideas were presented as approaches that had been discussed,” Politifact.com wrote. “They were posed as suggestions or proposals. In fact, the authors make clear that they did not support coercive means of population control. Clearly, nowhere in the book do the authors advocate forced abortions.”

A close reading of “Ecoscience,” however, shows the authors clearly stated their acceptance of abortion as an effective population-control technique.

“An abortion is clearly preferable to adding one more child to an overburdened family or an overburdened society, where the chances that it will realize its potential are slight,” Holdren and the Erhlichs argued on page 760 of the 1977 edition of “Ecoscience.”

“There is little question that legalized abortion can contribute to a reduction in birth rates,” the authors wrote on page 761. “Liberalization of abortion policies in those countries where it is still largely or entirely illegal is therefore justifiable both on humanitarian and health grounds and as an aid to population control.”

Moreover, Holdren and the Ehrlichs indicate that should population growth continue uncontrolled, the consequences of “global warming,” including widespread famine, may make compulsory population control measures necessary.

Holdren and the Ehrlichs concede compulsory population control measures if implemented to prevent disasters resulting from uncontrolled population growth will be distasteful to those with moral objections.

Arguing that voluntary measures of family planning and birth control might not be enough, Holdren and the Ehrlichs wrote on page 783 that compulsory birth control methods would need to be implemented when “massive famines, political unrest, or ecological disasters make their initiation imperative.”

In further defining this “disaster exception” in which compulsory methods, including forced abortions and sterilization, might become acceptable, if not necessary, Holdren and the Ehrlichs wrote on the same page: “In such emergencies, whatever measures are economically and technologically expedient will be likeliest to be imposed, regardless of their political or social acceptability.”

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