Does Birth Control Need to Be Implemented to Limit the Population - Essay Example

Fallacies and Incompetence of a View on the Rising Procreation Rate and its Effects INTRO: In the article “The Case Against Babies,” Joy Williams argues that women’s strong desire for having many babies today affects nature and human lives. However, some of her claims are misleading, denoted as flawed, and unconvincing in numerous aspects. Williams has either failed to provide the audience with strong support for her argument or has been successful at providing some compelling reasoning to support her claim: the rising procreation rate today calls for the global end. Although some of Williams’ reasoning for her argument may be true and plausible, she has overlooked some other aspects of her view that may address and prove her argument to be null and inefficient. BODY I: Williams’ main claim is that a woman’s craving for babies leads to overpopulation and can cause detrimental problems in our world. However, her argument displays the post hoc fallacy, which underscores the author’s making a mistake of placing the causes of the overpopulation merely on the increasing rate of procreation of women today. Williams notes, according to the United Nations Population Fund, that “at current growth rates, the world will double its population in forty years” (par. 8), thereby, “overpopulation poses the greatest threat to all life on earth” (par. 8). She maintains that having babies can be considered as a selfish act, with no concern for the outside world. Williams displays the red herring fallacy when she starts talking about adoption. This has nothing to do with the subject and can be considered a side issue. Adoption is unlike giving birth, and is usually done because of pre-existing circumstances. The two points – procreation rates and adoption – are linked, but do not affect one another. Women who are unable to conceive children should not be looking down upon if they choose to adopt. This is because someone has already given birth to a child – a decision that the adopter had no part of. Adoption is a good thing because it makes sure that unwanted babies are looked after and cared for by a loving parent. It is a different matter completely if someone is able to conceive and then chooses to adopt. Williams discusses a relevant point when talking about adoption. Parents usually want to adopt children who do not have any physical flaws. This is a natural though process but it does not allow less fortunate babies to get any opportunity in life. BODY II: Although women producing a lot of babies may affect proliferating growth of the human population, which causes a shortage of natural resources and economic pressure on households, Williams has failed to account for the beneficial outcome that may result from an increased population: globalization. Globalization is said to allow countries to be more open to foreign trade and investment. This is not correct because foreign trade and investment is always going on in a wide range of countries. One thing that an increased population allows for is a larger workforce – and this could open up more work opportunities. Globalization may also let developing countries have better access to investment funds and new technologies. This cannot be true because countries are already working together for greater economic expansion anyway. BODY III: Williams disapproves the idea that most people have babies because they believe they will be “successful [and] personally fulfilled” (2, ln.6) and become “complete” women. Also, Williams considers this act as “selfish.” However, the potential of these babies and forthcoming generations are overlooked by some current dilemmas that are explained by Williams above. When generations of babies go “missing,” potential opportunities for great scientists, academics, and political leaders are neglected. The claim of Williams that women who choose to have babies are selfish is a fallacy. More specifically, it is the appeal to ignorance fallacy. This fallacy demands that the reader accept the author’s conclusion with any questions. The truth is that every woman has motherly instincts in her. This is a natural feeling and cannot be suppressed. As women get older, they start to worry if they will have a child or not. It can be seen when a mother holds her newborn baby that this process is completely natural and is not selfish at all. What is selfish is when a woman has more children just for the sake of it, or to claim some kind of benefit for having a large amount of children. BODY IV: Williams mistakenly displays the hasty generalization fallacy in her statement. She adds to her previous conclusions that the problem of the overpopulation is, in fact, specifically very serious in “low-tech countries” (par. 14), representing “ninety-seven percent of the surge” of the growth in the human population. Also, “the surge is going to take place in developing countries, with Africa alone accounting for thirty-five percent” (par.14). First of all, Williams holds the stereotype that Third World inhabitants are poor and assumes that they cannot make good family planning choices. Williams alleges in parenthesis at the end of her mention of the numerical growth rate of babies in Africa that “the poorer the country, the higher the birth rate” (par.14). This claim is an example of “appealing to ignorance,” which shows the author’s insistence on her argument and utterly shows an attitude of that’s just the way it is. Contrary to her claims, the current economically thriving situation of a country named Botswana, which is also located in Africa, can debunk this assertion. Botswana was traditionally one of the poorest countries in Africa; however, greater education and awareness of family planning has helped control the situation. What Williams shows is the typical Western arrogance of knowing the truth about other countries, when in fact she has no idea of the situation at al. If Williams had been aware of this fact, she probably would not have displayed these fallacies in her points of argument. BODY V: In addition to the hasty generalization fallacy, another fallacy known as the slippery slope fallacy is detected. This fallacy debilitates the whole argument of the article. Throughout her article, Williams explains some sort of a chain reaction situation that having many babies will ultimately be accompanied with some dire consequences, such as shortage of natural resources, omnipresent economic pressures, and most significantly, the overpopulation that causes a lack of space. At the end of her article, Williams describes that an overflowing number of babies, who are described as “those products of our species’ selfishness and sentimentality” (par. 20), will eventually lead our society to a “global death” (par. 20). This is a complete over exaggeration and is not based on any logical claims. Here, Williams’ assertion is that if we take even one step onto the “slippery slope” by having an overflow of babies, then we will end up sliding all the way to the bottom, which is the extinction of the global life. The reality is that the birth rate has generally remained steady throughout history and has only significantly increased after times of war or famine. Williams’ means of establishing her main claim follows the definition of the slippery slope fallacy, an argument for a chain of consequences where one says, “if A, then B, and if B, then C,” and so forth. This cannot be proven true without extensive research into the matter. It may be that event B occurs naturally after event A, but has no relation with it at all. Just because one event follows another does not mean that the events in question have to be related to each other. CONCLUSION: To sum up Williams’ argument, we can say that she believes that birth control needs to be implemented to limit the human population and avoid inevitable catastrophes. Throughout her argument, Williams has used the post hoc, red herring, appeal to ignorance, hasty generalization, and slippery slope fallacies. All of these were proven to not contain any facts and relied solely upon pleas and human emotions to get her point across. In refuting Williams’ claims, we can say the procreation is a natural instinct that all women have and cannot be forced upon anyone in any way. There are some instances where women are encouraged to give birth, usually through government benefits; however, this is not always the case. In some countries, such as China, the government discourages women from having more than one baby. This is a policy that Joy Williams would like to see implemented across the globe. However, this policy has had many negative consequences in China, such as an increased percentage of males compared to females, an aging population, and greater economic stress. Because of the local preference for boys over girls, it is only inevitable that there will be more boys, and this gives rise to gender imbalance. Another reason why limiting procreation is wrong is that there will not be enough younger people to support an aging population. Japan and many European countries are already experiencing the effects of an aging population. Lastly, the number of people working will decrease because there will be many individuals retiring and there will not be enough young workers to replace them. All these things will lead to greater problems than the alternative. Williams’ argument that rising procreation rates are having a detrimental effect on society is invalid. There are positives and negatives for each point of view; however, I would argue that there are more positives than negatives for procreation. Thus, procreation should be encouraged, but have restrictions on it so as the population can be kept under control. Read More