Like doctors who warn an overweight, beer guzzling, two-pack-a-day smoker that he needs to slow down, so do proponents of population control warn of the calamities that await unbridled population growth.  And it’s not because they hate humanity.  On the contrary, it is out of a profound Love for Humanity that they do so.

Let me put my cards on the table.   As a young adult with an innate curiosity in the world I became convinced that,  in our time in history, the gravest danger to humanity was humanity itself.  Considering this,  I believed that the most generous gift one could give to this amazing phenomenon called Life was to forego the joys of personal procreation.

Sounds weird but stay with me.

I thought about why people have children. To leave a legacy? My question here revolved around what kind of legacy would you leave?   The science is indisputable. Human numbers are gobbling up the planet like a cancer. Feeding the cancer doesn’t seem to be such a good legacy to me. And once the cancer consumes the host, well, then the cancer dies off too!

The desire to love unconditionally? Well, if that’s the driver I can’t think of any better way to test it than by adopting a child. Now that’s Unconditional Love. In other words, it seems to me the issue is not that there are not enough children in the world, rather it’s that there is not enough love for the existing children of the world.

In Africa human reproduction has a lot to do with tradition and what society expects of you. But we live in the Age of the Individual, where individuals can (and do) get to choose their lives. Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” campaign is about just that. If there’s one thing in Life that’s constant, it is Change.

Several people have said “But you should have children. Your genes are good and need spreading.” This notion appals me. There are Nazi strains in that tune.

Finally, I asked myself this simple question.  Would my life be more meaningful if I had children?  I couldn’t answer in the affirmative.

Having said all this, if I had a life partner who had strong feelings on the subject  I would co-operate.

But back to the transpersonal.  The links between overpopulation, over-utilisation of natural resources and poverty are clear and direct.

Anyone who’s travelled through the back streets of Africa, Asia and South America’s most populous cities will have witnessed the naked horror of poverty caused by overpopulation. Thanks to India’s blossoming global culture (e.g. Slumdog Millionaire, White Tiger) the misery of penury is slowly filtering into mainstream imagination.

Is it wrong to desire a decent standard of living for human beings? Is it somehow anti- humanity? On the contrary, it is hostile to carry on breeding as before.

The groundswell of voices calling for self-restraint does not propose that people stop having children altogether, but rather that sensible numbers be considered.

At the Fringe one already hears that it’s way uncool to have more than two kids per couple. In twenty years time I’m pretty sure the youth will be saying it’s totally selfish.

So out of a Love for Africa and her People I add my voice to the clarion call for sensible population self-control (read self-empowerment) on our continent.