The planet’s swiftly growing population coupled with the lack of food security and the degradation of natural resources has caused many demographers to worry about the ramifications of unchecked population growth while many philosophers worry about the ethical issues surrounding the methods of population control. Therefore, I intend to argue a system of encouraging a decrease in personal fertility rate via financial incentives offers a solution that is both viable and not morally reprehensible.

The planet’s swiftly growing population coupled with the lack of food security and the degradation of natural resources has caused many demographers to worry about the ramifications of unchecked population growth while many philosophers worry about the ethical issues surrounding the methods of population control. Therefore, I intend to argue a system of encouraging a decrease in personal fertility rate via financial incentives offers a solution that is both viable and not morally reprehensible.

In this paper, I provide policymakers, who rely on science to address their missions, with two arguments for improving science for social benefits. I argue for a refined concept of social robustness that can distinguish socially appropriate cases of political reliance on science from inappropriate ones. Both of the constituents are essential for evaluating the social suitability of science-relevant policy or action. Using four cases of population control, I show that socially inappropriate political reliance on science can make (...) science epistemically and socially harmful. Moreover, I argue that such an evaluation process should be supported by a political culture of mutual criticism within science and society. This demands freedom of expression and critical examination of science-relevant policy consequences in view of a sufficiently wide range of social value commitments. This paper suggests that the same considerations of social robustness and political culture of mutual criticism should be of general relevance for policymakers engaging in debates about science and values such as those regarding climate change. (shrink)

Environmentalists commonly offer three motives for why human populations need to be reduced or stabilized. One group maintains that human numbers threaten natural goods that should be preserved: biodiversity and ecosystems. A more extreme group maintains that we are taking up more than our fair share of the planet, eliminating species that have just as much right to be here. A third group advocates controlling human populations in order to prevent the environment from being degraded to the point that it (...) harms people. I intend to examine in light of Catholic social teaching whether these proposed motives for controlling population are always anti-life. (shrink)

Advances in genetic and genomic research have introduced challenges in obtaining informed consent for research in low and middle-income settings. However, there are only few studies that have explored challenges in obtaining informed consent in genetic and genomic research in Africa and none in South Africa. To start filling this gap, we conducted an empirical study to investigate the efficacy of informed consent procedures for an H3Africa genomic study on Rheumatic Heart Disease at the University of Cape Town in South (...) Africa. The main aim of the study was to understand ethical challenges in obtaining informed consent in the RHDGen study. We used a qualitative study methodology involving in-depth interviews and participant observations. Our study participants were RHDGen cases, healthy controls and research staff involved in the recruitment of RHDGen cases and controls. In total, we conducted 32 in-depth interviews with RHDGen cases and controls, 2 in-depth interviews with research staff and 57 direct observations of the consent procedures of RHDGen cases and controls. The interviews were conducted in English, audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analyzed using thematic content analysis. The study was conducted in 3 sites within Cape Town, South Africa. Most healthy controls joined the RHDGen study in order to be screened for rheumatic heart disease. A majority of RHDGen cases decided to join the RHDGen study because of therapeutic misconception. The ethical challenges that impacted on obtaining informed consent in the RHDGen study were complex. In this study, the main challenges were diagnostic misconception among RHDGen controls and therapeutic misconception among RHDGen cases. (shrink)

Women whether at home or at work, are generally more easily hurt by difficult situations and angry words, and are less able to cope with the cut and thrust of life. We were made as complementaly individuals to men and we need their strength, their objectivity and their protection at difficult times. But equally, ourvery sensitiiity and vulnerability makes us more ready to recwnize our need of God and of His daily power and While a man is often too busy (...) to acknowledge his need of a Saviour, a woman knows her need because it is an integral part of her own make-up1. (shrink)

Cas9/guide RNA (gRNA)‐based gene drive systems are expected to play a transformative role in malaria elimination efforts., whether through population modification, in which the drive system contains parasite‐refractory genes, or population suppression, in which the drive system induces a severe fitness load resulting in population decline or extinction. DNA sequence polymorphisms representing alternate alleles at gRNA target sites may confer a drive‐resistant phenotype in individuals carrying them. Modeling predicts that, for observed levels of SGV at potential target (...) sites and observed rates of de novo DRA formation, population modification strategies are uniquely resilient to DRAs. We conclude that gene drives can succeed when fitness costs incurred by drive‐carrying mosquitoes are low enough to prevent strong positive selection for DRAs produced de novo or as part of the SGV and that population modification strategies are less prone to failure due to drive resistance. (shrink)

The Islamic government of Iran recently passed and announced a new law titled “Rejuvenation of the Population and Protection of the Family.” This legislation is a noteworthy example of biopolitics‐influenced biolaw. In terms of abortion, contraception, prenatal screening, and population control, this law clearly contrasts with women's fundamental rights and freedoms and has significant health‐related consequences for different sectors of the population. A historical review of the population policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran shows (...) the occurrence of multiple abrupt and radical changes in such policies over the past four decades. This new law, promoted by religious biopolitics, is the most recent example, and places stringent limits on abortion. According to it, all decisions concerning abortion must be made in courts rather than in health clinics. Such courts are typically presided over by male religious scholars. This law also limits prenatal screening to the degree that will increase the rate of genetic defects, especially in the population's lower socioeconomic strata. By strictly limiting access to contraception, this law will increase the rate of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. This paper argues that such an influence of biopolitics on biolaw contrasts with the principles of bioethics. Still, Iran's current institution of bioethics cannot address it effectively. Therefore, a new model of interaction between bioethics, biopolitics, and biolaw is needed to prevent the detrimental consequences of such pieces of legislation. Such a paradigm shift is demanded by the current “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement of the Iranian people. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Malthusian Warning “Population Control” and its Critics “Leveling Off”: The Demographic Transition The Ethics of Population Programs Optimal Population Size: Fewer with More, or More with Less? A Thought‐Experiment About a Solution to the Population Problem References.

In the presence of heterogeneity between the randomized controlled trial (RCT) participants and the target population, evaluating the treatment effect solely based on the RCT often leads to biased quantification of the real-world treatment effect. To address the problem of lack of generalizability for the treatment effect estimated by the RCT sample, we leverage observational studies with large samples that are representative of the target population. This article concerns evaluating treatment effects on survival outcomes for a target (...) class='Hi'>population and considers a broad class of estimands that are functionals of treatment-specific survival functions, including differences in survival probability and restricted mean survival times. Motivated by two intuitive but distinct approaches, i.e., imputation based on survival outcome regression and weighting based on inverse probability of sampling, censoring, and treatment assignment, we propose a semiparametric estimator through the guidance of the efficient influence function. The proposed estimator is doubly robust in the sense that it is consistent for the target population estimands if either the survival model or the weighting model is correctly specified and is locally efficient when both are correct. In addition, as an alternative to parametric estimation, we employ the nonparametric method of sieves for flexible and robust estimation of the nuisance functions and show that the resulting estimator retains the root- n n consistency and efficiency, the so-called rate-double robustness. Simulation studies confirm the theoretical properties of the proposed estimator and show that it outperforms competitors. We apply the proposed method to estimate the effect of adjuvant chemotherapy on survival in patients with early-stage resected non-small cell lung cancer. (shrink)

Mental health surveys are used extensively in epidemiological research worldwide. The ethical questions that arise regarding their risk of causing psychological distress or other potential harm have not been studied in the general population. We have investigated how study participants serving as controls in a population-based study perceived an anonymous postal questionnaire focusing on mental health and wellbeing. Parents were contacted from the Swedish Census Bureau as part of a larger follow-up study on palliative care conducted in 2001. (...) Eligible parents had a child of the same gender, year of birth and were from the same counties in Sweden as parents who had lost a child to cancer. Five percent reported being negatively affected. The principle negative effect on participants was that self-reflection reminded them of their difficulties. Of the 418 respondents, 52% reported that they were positively affected by study participation and 95% perceived the inquiry as valuable. These findings support the use of population-based controls in future research. (shrink)

In this systematic review, we summarized and evaluated the evidence for effects of, and associations between, immersive nature-experience on mental, physical and social health promotion outcomes. Immersive nature-experience was operationalized as non-competitive activities, both sedentary and active, occurring in natural environments removed from everyday environments. We defined health according to the World Health Organization’s holistic and positive definition of health and included steady-state, intermediate, and health promotion outcomes. An electronic search was performed for Danish, English, German, Norwegian, and Swedish articles (...) published between January 2004 and May 2017. Manual approaches, e.g., bibliographies from experts, supplemented the literature search. Data were extracted from 461 publications that met the inclusion criteria. To assess the status and quality of the evidence for health promotion effects of immersive nature-experience, we focused on the subset of studies based on controlled designs (n = 133). Outcome level quality of the evidence was assessed narratively. Interventions most often involved adventure-based activities, short-termed walking, and seated relaxation in natural environments. We found positive effects on a range of health promotion outcomes grouped under psychological wellbeing (n = 97; ≈55% positive; ≈13% mixed; ≈29% non-significant; 2% negative); psychosocial function (n = 67; ≈61% positive; ≈9% mixed; ≈30% non-significant); psychophysiological stress response (n = 50; ≈58% positive; ≈18% mixed; ≈24% non-significant), and cognitive performance (n = 36; ≈58% positive; ≈6% mixed; ≈33% non-significant; 3% negative); and social skills and relationships (n = 34; ≈70% positive; ≈7% mixed; ≈22% non-significant). Findings related to outcomes categorized under physical health, e.g., risk of cardiovascular disease, were less consistent (n = 51; ≈37% positive; ≈28% mixed; ≈35% non-significant). Across the types of interventions and outcomes, the quality of the evidence was deemed low and occasionally moderate. In the review, we identify, discuss, and present possible solutions to four core methodological challenges associated with investigating immersive nature-experience and health outcomes: 1) intervention and program complexity; 2) feasibility and desirability of randomization; 3) blinding of participants and researchers; and 4) transferability and generalizability. The results of the review have been published as a popular-scientific report and a scientific research overview, both in Danish language. (shrink)

Every rational person knows that there is a finite limit to the carrying capacity of the earth. No ecologist was needed to tell us this, for the statement that finite systems cannot sustain infinite magnitudes is a truth of logic no sane person can choose to ignore and still claim to be rational. The question concerning how we shall approach the limits to population growth, and at what cost, is still an open question. Human beings have increasingly taken on (...) a "cybernetic role" in the ecosystem which sustains them. The question facing humankind relative to population control is, Will the cybernetic role of human beings on the earth's ecosystem be expanded to include the regulation of human numbers, or will nature reassume this function? If this role in regulating human numbers is assumed by people, what forms will it take? (shrink)

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, human population growth is one of the two primary causes of increased greenhouse gas emissions and accelerating global climate change. Slowing or ending population growth could be a cost effective, environmentally advantageous means to mitigate climate change, providing important benefits to both human and natural communities. Yet population policy has attracted relatively little attention from ethicists, policy analysts, or policy makers dealing with this issue. In part, this is because (...) addressing population matters means wading into a host of contentious ethical issues, including family planning, abortion, and immigration. This article reviews the scientific literature regarding voluntary population control's potential contribution to climate change mitigation. It considers possible reasons for the failure of climate ethicists, analysts, and policy makers to adequately assess that contribution or implement policies that take advantage of it, with particular reference to the resistance to accepting limits to growth. It explores some of the ethical issues at stake, considering arguments for and against noncoercive population control and asking whether coercive population policies are ever morally justified. It also argues that three consensus positions in the climate ethics literature regarding acceptable levels of risk, unacceptable harms, and a putative right to economic development, necessarily imply support for voluntary population control. (shrink)