Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World PopulationListen to a short interview with Matthew Connelly Host: Chris Gondek - Producer: Heron & Crane Fatal Misconception is the disturbing story of our quest to remake humanity by policing national borders and breeding better people. As the population of the world doubled once, and then again, well-meaning people concluded that only population control could preserve the quality of life. This movement eventually spanned the globe and carried out a series of astonishing experiments, from banning Asian immigration to paying poor people to be sterilized. Supported by affluent countries, foundations, and non-governmental organizations, the population control movement experimented with ways to limit population growth. But it had to contend with the Catholic Church's ban on contraception and nationalist leaders who warned of race suicide. The ensuing struggle caused untold suffering for those caught in the middle--particularly women and children. It culminated in the horrors of sterilization camps in India and the one-child policy in China. Matthew Connelly offers the first global history of a movement that changed how people regard their children and ultimately the face of humankind. It was the most ambitious social engineering project of the twentieth century, one that continues to alarm the global community. Though promoted as a way to lift people out of poverty--perhaps even to save the earth--family planning became a means to plan other people's families. With its transnational scope and exhaustive research into such archives as Planned Parenthood and the newly opened Vatican Secret Archives, Connelly's withering critique uncovers the cost inflicted by a humanitarian movement gone terribly awry and urges renewed commitment to the reproductive rights of all people. |
Contents
How Biology Became History | 1 |
Populations out of Control | 18 |
To Inherit the Earth | 46 |
Populations at War | 77 |
Birth of the Third World | 115 |
The Population Establishment | 155 |
Controlling Nations | 195 |
Beyond Family Planning | 237 |
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Common terms and phrases
abortion agenda agreed American April Archives Asia began birth control birth rates Blacker campaign Catholic China Chinese clinics Commission Committee compulsory sterilization contraception Delhi demographic Development Draper economic Ehrlich eugenicists Eugenics Society Family Planning Program Family Welfare fertility Files folder Ford Foundation frames funding Gandhi global Health and Family hereafter History How-Martyn human immigration incentives India insisted IPPF IPPF's IPPFA January Japan June leaders London Malthusian March Margaret Sanger meeting ment migration million Ministry movement Notestein November officials one-child policy organizations Osborn overpopulation Papers percent Planned Parenthood political Population Bomb population control Population Council population growth Population Policy population problems president public health Ravenholt reduce reel Report reproductive Rockefeller Rockefeller 3rd social sterilization targets tion UNFPA United Nations University Press USAID wanted WBGA women World Bank World Population York