[Taxacom] Pro-natalism vs. biodiversity

[Kenneth Kinman]

Dear All,
      Educating more of the world's women would probably be helpful, but
ONLY if they also have access to a ready supply of condoms (and
willingness of their sexual partners to use them).   The world
production of condoms is about 12 billion per year, and assuming that
there are close to 2 billion sexually active males in the world, that is
only 6 condoms per year for each male. 
       Even if you assume a more conservative estimate of 1 billion
males having sex with fertile females, it still would only be an average
of one condom per month for each of them.  Hardly enough to prevent
unwanted pregnancies (not to mention STDs).  Even cheap condoms at two
cents apiece, a billion dollars would buy 50 billion such condoms, which
could easily prevent hundreds of millions of unwanted pregnancies and
new cases of STDs every year.  
      Preaching abstience is clearly not going to have much of an
impact, but making plenty of condoms freely available to the world's
women would make a HUGE difference.  The most effective way to curb
population growth is to be proactive and eliminating most unwanted
pregnancy.  Condoms would also reduce a lot of human misery by reducing
disease, reducing food shortages, reducing overcrowding and other
stresses.  Pouring money into vaccines and medical supplies is fine, but
it's really short-sighted if one doesn't invest in lost-cost condoms at
the same time.  
           ------Ken Kinman