Tonight I heard about a statement by John Holdren (Obama’s Science Czar or adviser) about a need for forced sterilization in the United States. I was told to look it up, so I’ve done a little bit of digging to see what the story was. The original report on this issue seems to have been here:

http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/

One of the quotes:

The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births.

On the next page of the book Ecoscience (Paul R. Ehrlich, Anne H. Ehrlich, John P. Holdren) that it was taken from:

Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.

Both quotes can be found at that link above. David Freddoso says that he has tracked down a copy of the book. It was published in 1977, and that seems to be part of the defense that John Holdren’s office is now making. The Washington Post reports:

When asked whether Mr. Holdren's thoughts on population control have changed over the years, his staff gave The Washington Times a statement that said, "This material is from a three-decade-old, three-author college textbook. Dr. Holdren addressed this issue during his confirmation when he said he does not believe that determining optimal population is a proper role of government. Dr. Holdren is not and never has been an advocate for policies of forced sterilization."

This statement is ludicrous. Is the staff telling us not to trust college textbooks? Or are they saying that we can’t trust an education that we received 32 years earlier? Is there a point to getting a college degree? Sure, we should never stop learning but why is there such an emphasis on college if that information isn’t reliable? That’s a rather sticky subject, so I’ll leave you to think about the rest of what it could mean. There’s another wrong statement in there but you have to dig through the confirmation hearing for John Holdren to find it. The first link (from Zombie Time) provides the links and I’ve verified them (three-hour video, transcript of the relevant Q&A). Here was what Mr. Holdren said when asked about how in 1973 he had “encouraged ‘a decline in fertility to well below replacement’ in the United States”:

I no longer think it's productive, Senator, to focus on the optimum population for the United States. I don't think any of us know what the right answer is. When I wrote those lines in 1973, I was preoccupied with the fact that many problems the United States faced appeared to be being made more difficult by the rate of population growth that then prevailed. I think everyone who studies these matters understands that population growth brings some benefits and some liabilities. It's a tough question to determine which will prevail in a given time period. But I think the key thing today is that we need to work to improve the conditions all of our citizens face economically, environmentally, and in other respects. And we need to aim for something that I have been calling for years 'sustainable prosperity'.

So I must ask, was it that he never held this position or that he no longer holds it? The thing that worries me is that forced sterilizations were performed in the United States between 1907 and 1981 (about.com) in various forms. As quoted above, the book that John Holdren co-authored recommends putting these sterility drugs into food and water supplies. They go even further with talking about creating an international body to regulate the optimum population levels are for each region of the world. Some say that the United States is only avoiding depopulation because of the numbers of migrants that are entering the country. Others simply say that we are just hovering at the the bare minimum of 2 (and a third for every 10th couple) children per family when averaged out.

Other people think that the depopulation levels would not cause any problems in keeping the economy running. They expect the governments and automation to take over for the decreasing numbers of working people. My problem with it? No government keeps a buffer for when this happens. Abortion is a “voluntary” form of population control. It, already, is horrendous. Please keep an eye out for these others as well. I don’t think that John Holdren will try to force it on us – at least not openly – but the ideas are out there and are being pushed. The break-up of family units is having a bigger effect on the housing market (single people prefer apartments) than most of our leaders have been able to predict. Population controls will have far-reaching effects as well. I’m tired after looking through this so far so I’ll leave off some of the other effects from forced population controls. The world is not overpopulated as many people are claiming. Down in the mountains of Latin American countries, such as Peru, they are discovering that the old ways of farming the mountains yield more food than our modern methods. Many of the impoverished countries of the world are that way because of the cultural mores or a corrupt government. It has little to do with the resources that are available. Yes, we need to care for the earth and we probably need to do better than we are now. But it is not going to collapse under us. At the worst, the abusers will push themselves to extinction through some form or another, very much like several current ideas say happened with Easter Island.