Population Matters-USA – Page 23 – working for a sustainable world

“…to bring a child into existence without a fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its body, but instruction and training for its mind is a moral crime, both against the unfortunate offspring and against society.” John Stuart Mill, 1859

I took care of an infant with bad burns when I was in general practice. He was not seriously hurt, but I would have missed the backstory if I hadn’t made house calls.

My three years as a GP were in a small town where I got to know people much better than if I only worked in the clinic. It has been almost half a century ago, so some parts of this story are hazy. The little room where the teen mother and her baby lived still seem clear, however. I was there for a visit to change the bandages and to check on the burns. The 8-month-old baby was fussy from the pain he felt as I removed the bandages, examined and then redressed the wounds.

Since this was not our first visit together, I was hoping to get some insight how this little boy had scalds on his feet and legs.

“I didn’t want him, anyway” the young mother answered. “He was fussy so I put him in the tub to calm him down by giving him a bath. He was still crying and standing, holding on to the knobs. I turned on the ‘hot’–I guess to punish him.”

Probably having children is the one thing that has the greatest impact on us as individuals and on society. Yet it seems that many people don’t give parenting as much thought as buying a car. Unfortunately, many children in this country are conceived by accident, as was the case with the young mother with the scalded child. Almost half of pregnancies are unintended. Studies by Dr. Henry David have shown that children suffer if they were unwanted and their unfortunate mothers had to raise them.

There is an alternative. The purpose of the organization Having Kids (www.havingkids.org) is to increase the intentionality of childbearing and to change reproductive norms. It also hopes to make society more supportive of children and of parenting.

They call what we have now the “isolation model”. In this model: “… potential parents are seen as individual entities apart from their prospective children and the communities in which they live, whereby the rights of prospective children are not recognized and the voices of communities are not heard.” In our model parents decide how many children to have with little regard to the interests of the child(ren) or of society. Furthermore, it is assumed that women will all become mothers.

The “isolation model” doesn’t take into account environmental deterioration, mass extinction of species, climate chaos or the other litany of problems global society faces. Nor does USA society deal well with the needs of early childhood development.

Having Kids presents a new, child-centered model. Their goals include having parents consider the state of the environment when making decisions about childbearing. They want all children to have a fair start in life, with a minimum level of food, love, attention, healthcare, etc. They believe that children should be brought up without violence and kids should have some control over their lives, thus forming the basis for a just and democratic society.

A key part of Having Kids is to advocate for small families. They point out the many advantages of single child families, including a smarter, more productive child, less frantic parents and more resources to raise the kid.

Amanda Gorman at President Joe Biden’s Inauguration

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the past year, many organizations have affirmed their beliefs against racism. An example from my life will help illustrate my beliefs.

Anthropologists teach us that hunter-gatherers tended to group into small bands. Individuals in a band were usually homogenous in appearance, language and customs. When one band of people encountered another band, they recognized their differences and were likely to be wary. In some cases, an encounter would result in violence.

Distrust or fear of different ethnicities is understandable; some might even claim that it is built into our species’ DNA. However, that sort of discrimination is no longer tenable in today’s globalized world. We are surrounded by people of different skin colors, speaking different languages and with different cultures. We can either try to maintain separatism or dive in and enjoy the wonderful variety that is around us.

I grew up with contacts with other cultures; my father had friends in many countries. As a kid I used to stay up at night searching for foreign stations on my shortwave radio. It was exciting to receive stations in other countries, although I couldn’t understand what was being said much of the time. When I was 9, our family was fortunate to travel in Europe where my father spoke at meetings. Two years later we all went to Latin America. Although not a linguist, I have studied French and Spanish and a little German in school. When hitch-hiking in Europe during college, I learned that speaking even a little of the local language helps communication.

Little did I know how valuable studying Spanish would be! Many people from Latin America live in the Durango area. Often the husbands join the workforce and the wives stay at home, so often women donâ€™t learn much English. However, they seek prenatal care when pregnant and give birth in the hospital. For years the most constant translation services were school kids who came with their mothers. In the hospital sometimes we called on the bilingual cleaners for help.

Maria had a Cesarean in Mexico for the birth of her first child. We couldn’t get her medical records so we had no idea of the direction of the incision in her uterus. This is important, because a vertical scar is weak and can tear apart during labor, while a transverse incision is much stronger and unlikely to tear apart. Should the uterus rupture, the mother would probably hemorrhage and the baby might die–pretty terrifying! As a consequence, Maria was scheduled for a repeat Cesarean.

The morning Maria arrived at the hospital for her repeat Cesarean, she was in labor. In fact, her cervix was already dilated 6 centimeters! I sat next to her and explained, in Spanish, the risks and advantages of a vaginal birth. Between contractions she asked some questions, then said “quiero dar luz naturalmente.” Both she and the baby did well, and they went home the next day. I was happy that I could communicate with her directly in Spanish.

My goal as a physician has always been to treat all folks equally, with respect and the best care I’m capable of. That goes for people of different cultures, colors and tongues. It goes for people regardless of their academic achievement.

Eugenicists have theorized that our species’ average intelligence would decrease because (in general) people of lower socioeconomic class don’t do as well on intelligence tests, but they tend to have more children. If eugenicists were correct, the average IQ of our species would decline. However, this has not proven to be the case: average intelligence test scores of all groups have actually increased over the past decades, both globally and in the USA. This is called the Flynn Effect, and helps defeat the argument of elitist eugenicists.

At Black Lives Matter demonstrations, I listened to people retelling bad experiences in our community–how they had been targeted because of their skin color. Some were followed when shopping, others were ignored by clerks or treated rudely. Although this might be expected in a big city, I am saddened that this sort of offensive behavior would happen in our community.

My belief is that all people should be treated with respect. Although I have not always succeeded in living up to this goal, I feel it is important that this aspiration be an integral part of all medical care, and especially in family planning programs.