Hello, Etienne Vermeersch (to whom I will refer to as 'EV') is a Belgian philosopher. This man's knowledge is boundless, and I'm not even kidding about that. He's devoted the last past 40 years of his life studying, well, mostly everything. You should see some of his debates/lectures/conversations, ... on YouTube, but sadly, they're all in Dutch. This man recites passages from Roman and Greek mythology (in Latin and Greek), the bible, the qur'an, eastern religion, ... by heart in original language. Not only is he most well-versed in all things religion, since he is an emeritus professor philosophy, he can talk about western philosophy since medieval times for hours on end. Besides that, he studied maths, physics, chemistry, history, western conflicts of the past century, ...

In short: someone you wouldn't mind having on your quiz team ;)

It's mostly thanks to him that we have the most liberal abortion law in the world in Belgium (abortion is allowed under any circumstance, I believe).

He proposed this as a solution to a lot of third world problems: use funds for humanitarian help to spread anticonception means and offer free sterilisation. In fact, he proposed that anyone who let him/herself be sterilised receive a fee and help. With this method, casualties from disasters, famine, ... can be brought down.

He often cites Haiti as an example: the earthquake and tsunami caused thousands of casualties, and immediately the USA, Europe, ... came to help with humanitarian aid: tents, food, water, ... but no anticonception means! He expects that the next time such a disaster occurs, the death toll will be even greater.

Niger, the poorest country in the world, has also the highest fertility (children per mother) in the world, namely 9. He puts that cutting fertility and reducing the amount of newborns could make conditions in Niger, and other countries, better.

What do you think?

This solution has been discussed for a long time, and actually the root cause of such behaviors has caused a lot of problem even in 1st world nations. USA's economic problems are the result of an inability to live within their means, for example.

I don't think there's any way to implement this in a way that doesn't seem like stealth genocide.

The question is, is stealth genocide worse than what's going on right now? I think the same argument as with certain abortion cases can be applied: it's better to prevent a birth if the child will not have a chance in life.

Sure, if their government decides to implement a 'one child' policy or whatever, I think it would be good. But for an outside party to ask that or offer services to that affect is not good.

Would it be better to have less people? Yes absolutely.

Do you really think that a country like Niger or Namibia, struggling with providing electricity and basic education to its inhabitants, could attain and maintain the control necessary to empower a one child policy?

No, of course not.

I know it's a controversial viewpoint, but a good one nonetheless. Besides, I would ask myself the question if those mothers with 5-10 children would still have 5-10 children if they could prevent that from happening efficiently.

What people fail to see here is the underlying problems and question in need of an answer:

1) Why is it not that having 5-10 kids is acceptable?

Is it due to poverty? Overpopulation? This is a country which could sustain a population about 100 times the current if it were properly developed. Why rid the country of the possible workforce by stealth genocide? To give the western world and china yet another chance to exploit the riches of Africa?

2) How could one justify this kind of "treatment", is it not the same as selling organs to someone who would destroy them?

3) Why spend humanitarian funds of undermining the cause of the problem rather than helping those in direct need of help?

Using his standpoint, going with pure utilitarism one could justify almost anything, such as killing of the weakest individuals in a country so that only the strongest can give raise to the future... Which is sick. Correction: Wicked.

I agree with smogard.
The poor people in those countries get so many children so they can support their families financially or with workforce.
I don't understand how taking that away from them would better the quality of life. It's not like you can magically fix a country by reducing it's population. :v
I doubt that charity can offer enough service to solve all those problems anyway.
Additionally I hardly think that blackmailing people into getting themselves sterilized is morally right and it is no business of foreign nations to tell them how to get on tracks, particularly because that only leads to manipulation and exploitation.

Families in those countries don't have the resources to support so many children, leaving many children to die. If they had fewer children the thinking is they would be able to support them better.

A more fundamental question would be; why is it considered intrinsically good to have a quality of life closer to that of a first world nation?