Thomas Malthus was an English political economist who lived from 1766-1834. He is famous for his Principle of Population, which, though nuanced, still remains fundamentally true today. In his “Essay on the Principle of Population,” he says this:
The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world.
So basically, he is saying that since the sex drive in humans remains constant over the population, people will continue to reproduce at about the same rate as they always have (this was before good birth control options which are utilized in more wealthy countries today). This, paired with the fact of an earth with abundant but still finite resources, means that human population grows a basically constant rate until disease or famine balances out the population.
Next, I want to look at a more recent economist with whom you might be more familiar. Steven Levitt is the coauthor of Freakonomics and the paper, “The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime,” and in both he asserts that the drop in the crime rates of the 1990’s can be traced back to Roe v. Wade. In other words, because many of the women whose children would be predisposed to criminal lives chose to have abortions, the crime rate twenty years later was less than expected. It’s not a hypothesis I want to agree with, but Levitt makes a pretty strong case for it, and in his eyes at least, there has not been a better alternative theory for the crime drop.
Now, the question for Christians is what to do with these economic hypotheses. I think Malthus is undeniably correct in his fundamental assertion. While post-industrial economies have more flexibility in dealing with agricultural famine (as Malthus’s critics have pointed out), the earth is indeed finite, and can only sustain so many people. In Malthus’s view, this makes famine and plague a positive force of nature which counters overpopulation. In fact, he argued that England should not help the poor, but rather let the conditions that accompany poverty, such as malnutrition, starvation, and disease, naturally rid England of the problem these poor pose on their economy. In the same way, it would be easy to argue that Levitt’s hypothesis makes the case that abortion improves society by reducing crime. Whether or not we agree in the validity of these hypotheses, these are in the cultural milieu, and as believers in the sanctity of life, we as Christians must stand against these deathly ideas.
I would like to call this a Pro-Life ethic, but I mean this in a much deeper way than it is used by the right-wing constituency. Pro-Life must go beyond a simple definition of life as the unity of a sperm and egg; rather, life is found in the abundant living that Jesus called for. Being for life means being against all threats of life, abortion and beyond. This means asking serious questions: Can the threat to life that is war ever be called just? Does legislating against abortion solve the deeper problems of rape, poverty, familial strife, and low-self esteem that are so prevalent in the pre-pregnant girls? Can Christians let the poor die in their hunger and disease in order to balance the effects of overpopulation? Or, more poignantly, can the world sustain the life-style that we afford in America?
Here is where we must be against the pro-choice position. In our culture we are inundated with choice. In fact, we pride ourselves on the freedom to choose. Choices are a function of wealth. My fear is that we are choosing ourselves to hell. Perhaps if we truly want to be pro-life, we must limit our choices afforded by our wealth. Perhaps we must soberly, intentionally, and prayerfully limit our wealth by living more simply and sharing our power of choice with those who have no choice. And perhaps we can start by choosing to not have children.
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