BeFriending Creation
We can help the earth by helping Friends to limit their family size
QEW recently established a "Men For Men" (M4M) fund to assist Quaker men who want a vasectomy to limit their family size. The need for this can be summed up in personal terms:
"Hannah is to be an only child. Sarah and I love being parents, but don't think that we have the financial resources to have another child. We spend a lot of time with Hannah, and we hope that she will get a good education. We are lucky enough to live in a city with a Friends school; our desire is for her to go there when she is old enough.
"Sarah and I realize that the average person in the U.S. uses as many of the planet's resources as a dozen people in India. Although our family lives a simpler life than most, we still consume a lot of the world's resources—perhaps more than our share. We've read that we humans have already overshot the earth's ability to sustain us by 20 percent!
"In his book, Maybe One, Bill McKibben deals with the process that he and his wife went through to decide on their family size. Zero children was an option they considered, since they are so concerned about environmental issues. They decided to have one, however, and the book takes a careful look at the mental health of only children. The common perception is that only kids grow up spoiled and neurotic, but McKibben reassures us that this is not so. In fact, only children are generally well-adjusted and high achievers.
"Sarah has taken care of the family planning since we were married. Now it is time for me to take the responsibility for limiting our family size. Vasectomy is the way we have chosen, but unfortunately we don't know how to pay for it."
Hannah, Sarah, and this father-of-one are fictitious, but they illustrate a problem that I hear frequently: Many families cannot afford health insurance, and many who do have limited coverage still cannot afford surgery to end their fertility. Some have problems with birth control pills and other temporary means of contraception and end up taking chances. Indeed, half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned.
In the past we have focused on the personal dimension of having unplanned children. When unwanted parenthood keeps people from advancing educationally or economically, they often become child-abusers, and their children are more likely to commit crimes. Each new child also represents increased demands on shared resources of the world at large.
Human population growth is not just a personal matter; it is also a moral question. By our overconsumption and large numbers, our species is defacing a jewel of Creation. Worldwide, we are displacing other species and threatening them with extinction.
In some places, such as Rwanda, overcrowding and inadequate food have resulted in war and genocide. At the time that hostilites broke out in the 1990s, the average Rwandan woman had eight children. It is likely the bloodshed could have been prevented by smaller family size.
When Quaker Earthcare Witness was formed 20 years ago, it expanded the traditional testimony of conscientious objection to war, to include "conscientious protection of our planet," in recognition that historic Quaker concerns for peace and justice cannot be separated from ongoing deterioration of our planet. This in turn cannot be separated from our individual and corporate responsibility to help stabilize human population.
We suspect that there are not many Quaker men who don't have the resources to pay for a vasectomy if they desired to limit their fertility. But we feel that even one unplanned pregnancy is one too many if we could help prevent it. The M4M fund will start with Quaker men (including Meeting attenders). Later the fund will be made available to any man who desires a vasectomy but cannot afford it.
M4M will pay a stipend of $350 towards a vasectomy. The recipient must make arrangements with the surgeon of his choice. There is a simple form to fill out, and a letter from QEW to the surgeon explaining M4M. We hope that later on the recipient will be able to reimburse the fund so that others can benefit from it.
Someone who might be interested in receiving a stipend, or who wants more information on M4M, should contact the QEW office. The forms are also available on the QEW website.
The fund also is open to outside donations. This is an excellent way of helping to assure that every child is a wanted child. •
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Population Is People A Friends Perspective
Edited by Stan Becker, Louis Cox, and Lisa Gould
ISBN 1881083-06-3, 216 pp., $5.00 + $3.50 S&H
BETWEEN 1950 and 2004 human population exploded from 2.5 billion to 6.4 billion.
In Population Is People, 23 Friends draw on their professional, academic, or life experiences as they reflect on a wide range of social and ecological issues that are affected by rapid population growth.
The emphasis is on compassion, understanding, and responsible sharing of world resources as we work together toward population stabilization and well-being for everyone. Copies may be ordered
directly from the QEW office.
*while supplies last
Northwest Earth Institute discussion courses
educate and help build eco-community
Thousands of people who are concerned about peace, justice, and ecological integrity have been informed and brought together as informal eco-communities through discussion courses offered by the Northwest Earth Institute (NWEI) of Portland, Ore.
Institute co-founders Jean and Dick Roy say their self-guided courses are dedicated to "motivating individuals to examine and transform personal values and habits, to accept responsibility for the earth and to act on that commitment."
NWEI courses include "Choices for Sustainable Living," "Voluntary Simplicity," "Exploring Deep Ecology," "Globalization and Its Critics," "Developing a Sense of Place," and "Healthy Children."
The eight to nine study sessions in each series are based on provocative and informative excerpts from recent publications, such as Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures. There are also questions to stimulate discussion, as well as suggestions for setting up and facilitating regular meetings.
After completing one course, many groups have elected to continue together on other courses.
To get started, contact NWEI at 506 Sixth St., Suite 1100, Portland OR 97204; 503/227-2807. E-mail them at info@nwei.org or visit their web site at www.nwei.org. •
