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'''Population control''' is the practice of limiting population increase, usually by reducing the birth rate. The practice has sometimes been voluntary, as a response to poverty, or out of religious ideology, but in some times and places it has been government-mandated. This is generally conducted to improve quality of life for a society or to prevent a “Malthusian catastrophe”. [“Malthusian catastrophe” is a return to subsistence-level conditions as a result of agricultural (or, in later formulations, economic) production being eventually outstripped by growth in population. Theories of “Malthusian catastrophe” are very similar to the subsistence theory of wages. The main difference is that the Malthusian theories predict over several generations or centuries whereas the subsistence theory of wages predicts over years and decades.] 'Population control' has also been conducted in the name of eugenics, racism, and the economic self-interest of corporations to exploit citizens of poor countries. Given the nature of human reproductive biology, controlling the birth rate generally implies one of the following practices: sexual abstinence, contraception, same-sex relations, sterilization, abortion, and infanticide.
Contemporary concern about population growth would appear to be a direct contradiction between the Orthodox Christian ethical imperative to “be fruitful and multiply.” Humanity has been obedient to the divine command and has been “fruitful” and has “multiplied” and “has filled the earth” (Gen. 1:28). This population growth is an empirical fact. To affirm this does not necessarily conflict with the Orthodox teaching on marriage and procreation as one of its purposes. Coercion of the individual couple's choices regarding their obligation to procreate does not seem ethically appropriate. Also, Orthodox ethics opposes the use of abortion as a birth control method. Advocating widespread abstinence from sexual relations by huge numbers of married people without contraception control methods violates some of the purposes of marriage as understood in the Orthodox Church. The use of contraceptives within marriages to space and limit offspring seems to be the appropriate ethical response. Persuasion and education are appropriate means to encourage smaller families. All Orthodox ethicists, however, would hold that respect for the freedom of each couple to decide must be considered an important and significant factor of population control policy.
-United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). 'Population, Health and Socio-Economic Indicators/Policy Developments- China', (unfpa.org)
-'Population Control'., (wikipedia.org)
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