Population control is the practice of limiting population increase, usually by reducing the birth rate. The practice has sometimes been voluntary, as a response to poverty, or out of religious ideology, but in some times and places it has been government-mandated. This is generally done to try to prevent a believed threat of Malthusian catastrophe, or overpopulation in general. This article or section may contain external links added only to promote a website, product or service — otherwise known as spam. ... A Malthusian catastrophe, sometimes known as a Malthusian check, Malthusian crisis, Malthusian dilemma, Malthusian disaster or Malthusian trap, is a return to subsistence-level conditions as a result of agricultural (or, in later formulations, economic) production being eventually outstripped by growth in population. ... Overpopulation occurs when the population of a living species exceeds the carrying capacity of its ecological niche. ...

History

Surviving records from Ancient Greece document the first known examples of population control. These include the colonization movement, which saw Greek outposts being built across the Mediterranean and Black Sea basins to accommodate the excess population of individual states. As the number of available sites decreased, the Greeks - beginning with the Cretans - turned to pederasty, the formal practice of pairing young adult males with adolescent boys for educational and erotic purposes (according to Aristotle and others). The Greeks also used abortifacients and practiced infanticide, though the latter is considered to have been an early form of eugenics. Ancient Greece is the term used to describe the Greek-speaking world in ancient times. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Colonialism. ... The Mediterranean Sea is an intercontinental sea positioned between Europe to the north, Africa to the south and Asia to the east, covering an approximate area of 2. ... Map of the Black Sea. ... Crete (Greek Κρήτη / Kriti, Turkish: Girit) is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest in the Mediterranean Sea. ... Pederasty as idealized by the ancient Greeks, was a relationship and bond between an adolescent boy and an adult man outside of his immediate family. ... Aristotle (Ancient Greek: Aristotelēs 384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution: Logo from the Second International Congress of Eugenics, 1921, depicting it as a tree which unites a variety of different fields. ...

The Siwa Oasis also used age-structured homosexuality and pedophilia as an outlet for male sexuality in order to control population size in an environment with finite resources and no natural enemies. Men were generally not allowed to marry before the age of forty. Thus the overwhelming majority of men took adolescent boys as lovers, a social contract often sealed with a formal and public marriage ceremony - a practice documented into the twentieth century in a controversial book called Oasis, Siwa: from the Inside Traditions, Customs and Magic, by Fathi Malim. The Siwa Oasis is an oasis in Egypt, located between the Qattara Depression and the Egyptian Sand Sea in the Libyan Desert. ... Since the first coinage, the word homosexuality has acquired multiple meanings. ... Pedophilia (Am. ...

Forms

Given the nature of human reproductive biology, controlling the birth rate generally implies one of the following practices:

• sexual abstinence
• contraception
• sterilization
• abortion
• infanticide

Sexual abstinence is the practice of voluntarily refraining from some or all aspects of sexual activity. ... Sterilization is a surgical technique leaving a male or female unable to procreate. ... In sociology and biology, infanticide is the practice of intentionally causing the death of an infant of a given species, by members of the same species. ...

See also

• Eugenics
• Population genetics
• Population bottlenecks

An important example of mandated population control is China's one-child policy, in which having more than one child is made extremely unattractive. This has led to allegations that practices like infanticide, forced abortions and forced sterilization are used as a result of the policy. However, the punishment of "Unplanned" pregnancy (fine) is much lesser than the punishment of murder (from 10 years' imprisonment to capital punishment); and both forced abortion and forced sterilization can be charged with intentional assault, which is punished with up to 10 years' imprisonment. Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution: Logo from the Second International Congress of Eugenics, 1921, depicting it as a tree which unites a variety of different fields. ... Population genetics is the study of the distribution of and change in allele frequencies under the influence of the four evolutionary forces: natural selection, genetic drift, mutation, and migration. ... A population bottleneck (or genetic bottleneck) is an evolutionary event in which a significant percentage of a population or species is killed or otherwise prevented from reproducing, and the population is reduced by 50% or more, often by several orders of magnitude. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... In sociology and biology, infanticide is the practice of intentionally causing the death of an infant of a given species, by members of the same species. ... Compulsory sterilization programs sprouted up in many countries at the beginning of the 20th century, usually as part of a program of negative eugenics -- to prevent undesirable members of the population from reproducing. ... Capital punishment, also called the death penalty, is the execution of a convicted criminal as an punishment for a crime often called a capital offence or a capital crime. ...

A prominent modern advocate for mandatory population control is Garrett Hardin, who proposed in his landmark 1968 essay The Tragedy of the Commons that society must relinquish the "freedom to breed" through "mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon." Garrett Hardin Garrett James Hardin (April 21, 1915 – September 14, 2003) was a controversial ecologist from Dallas, Texas who was most known for his 1968 paper, The Tragedy of the commons. ... 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ... The tragedy of the commons is a phrase used to refer to a class of phenomena that involve a conflict for resources between individual interests and the common good. ...

Another example was the classified study entitled National Security Study Memorandum 200, prepared by the U.S. National Security Council under the direction of Henry Kissinger in 1974. However, this report states that "it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion." National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM200) was completed on December 10, 1974 by the U.S. National Security Council under the direction of Henry Kissinger. ... NSC can also stand for National Safety Council in several countries such as the US and Ireland. ... Henry Kissinger circa 1970s. ... 1974 (MCMLXXIV in Roman) is a common year starting on Tuesday (click on link for calendar). ...

External links

• The Nine Lives of Population Control by Midge Specter Traces the history of the perceived need for population control.
• Population Control, from Pro-Life Pages For Students