Bertrand Russell Quotes

Once it was necessary that the people should multiply and be fruitful if the race was to survive. But now to preserve the race it is necessary that people hold back the power of propagation.

Who is going to be the first to face up to the need for self-restraint in the number of children brought into the world?

Anyone who opposes methods to control the birth rate, is automatically voting in favour having the death rate go up.

We have access to practical, ethical and scientifically established methods of birth control. So I think that is the most ethical way to reduce our population.

The typical white American woman in 1800 gave birth seven times; by 1900, the average was down to 3.5.

By improving health, empowering women, population growth comes down.

In order to stabilize human population growth, we must prioritize the education of girls, the empowerment of women, the provision of ubiquitous access to the knowledge and techniques of fertility management, and the continued raising of child survival rates.

Family planning is the only exit point of the land problem. No other solution is possible.

Zero population growth ….

Africa needs birth control far less than it needs death control.

No country has reduced its population growth without resorting to abortion.... Indeed, abortion, legal and illegal, now has become the most widespread fertility control method in use in the world today...

Those who in principle oppose birth control are either incapable of arithmetic or else in favour of war, pestilence and famine as permanent features of human life.

It is common sense that when women are able to plan their pregnancies, populations grow more slowly and as a result so do greenhouse gas emissions. Providing access to contraception and preventative health should be one of the many effective strategies used to fight climate change.

I do not pretend that birth control is the only way in which population can be kept from increasing. There are others, which, one must suppose, opponents of birth control would prefer.

There would be no population explosion if people who are trying to keep the wolf from the door wouldn't let the stork fly in through the window.

We have yet to beat our drums for birth control in the way we beat them for polio vaccine. We are still unable to put babies in the class of dangerous epidemics, even though this is the exact truth.

The second great channel through which the impulse towards the control of procreation for the elevation of the race is entering into practical life is by the general adoption, by the educated—of methods for the prevention of conception except when conception is deliberately desired.

Contraceptives unlock one of the most dormant, but potentially powerful assets in development: women as decision-makers. When women have the power to make choices about their families, they tend to decide precisely what demographers, economists, and development experts recommend. They invest in the long-term human capital of their families.

Many good people, being influenced by the bold spirit of the times, are now seeking surgery for the wife or the husband so they may avoid pregnancies and comply with the strident voice demanding a reduction of children. It was never easy to bear and rear children, but easy things do not make for growth and development. But loud, blatant voices today shout 'fewer children' and offer the Pill, drugs, surgery, and even ugly abortion to accomplish that. Strange the proponents of depopulating the world seem never to have thought of continence!

In the 1960s, 110 countries had averages of six or more children per family.

The number of children is not growing any longer in the world. We are still debating peak oil, but we have definitely reached peak child.

The good news is world population growth rate decreases systematically and is expected to reach zero by 2050, thanks to urbanisation and women's education.

Beyond 2050 the world population may start to decrease if women across the world will have, on average, less than 2 children. But that decrease will be slow.

The biggest obstacle was mixing abortion with overpopulation. These are two things that have nothing to do with each other.

With our increased birthrates the black man and woman can actually breed ourselves into power.