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First the New York Times, now the BBC! Today, Eco Child’s Play’s Kristen Chase and myself were featured on the BBC’s program “World Have Your Say“. The topic was “Would you stop having children to save the environment?“ I was invited to join the conversation with John Guillebaud, professor of family planning at University College, London, because of my post “Should We Stop Having Children to Save the Earth?“, and Kristen was invited for a comment she left on my post, before she was a writer on our blog. The BBC asks:
Should the wealthiest in the world stop having kids? Indeed, would it best if we all kept to 1 or 2 per couple? Or does the fail to take into account religion, culture and every person’s right to have as many children as they like?
You can download the podcast (it’s called “Overpopulation”) to the program or listen to it using the BBC’s iplayer.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice job Jennifer and Kristen!
HA! I should have known it was you! Definitely an interesting discussion, and the manner in which it was initially presented to me, and then how the Dr. explained his position was vastly different.
Certainly not asking people to stop having kids, but encouraging us to think more carefully about family planning.
yes, I think family planning and feminism go hand in hand. I was expecting to have more of a conversation, but oh well. Of course, afterwards I thought of much more to say.
I actually can not have children because of an autoimmune disease – and when this was realized I really thought outside the biological box I had been in. So now in my own way I feel as though not having a child does indeed help save the planet a little bit 1.no extra human is produced & consuming, and one can be adopted if I change my mind
2. I won’t pass on my disease which would have made the child more environmentally consuming.
This is a really cool discussion, and congrats for getting on BBC !!
Well, the horses are out of the barn on my part, but I have to tell you all the funny thing that happened on the way to menopause. I married fairly young, frankly because my parents didn’t want me to travel unmarried….yes, things were different. In my group of friends I was first married, first pregnant, and first divorced. He never had any more children. Next union produced two lovely babes, but also ended. He had one other child, but her mother stopped at one. I jumped into it AGAIN with a childless man, and had another. When I got pregnant with the fifth (these were not accidents, I have to tell you) and was for the first time exceeding the each on replace one rule (I was at Stanford during the ZPG IUD earring phase) my middle son’s first grade teacher, who had no children, said I could have his child-credit, as he loved my kids. His wife didn’t want any. Sadly, my first baby died suddenly at 16, when the new baby was a few months old. He had had a forceps delivery, and had developed seizures. I am now the proud mother of 4 living great lives, don’t know if there are grandchildren in my future, and I have told them all I had them for them, not for grandchildren. My daughters have been nannies, so we’ll see, they may get their baby fixes that way. They are all happy nurturing adults, share houses with each other when it works out, and all live very lightly on this planet (portland is good for that). If I had thought that anyone would have let me adopt, we were always poor, homeschooled mostly, and frankly, I am an old hippie, I would have. So, sorry that was such a long story, but I hope you see my point. If you do, tell me, I think I got sidetracked….