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  • Title: Population and the American future: excerpts.
    Journal: Stud Fam Plann; 1972 May; 3(5):77-96. PubMed ID: 4655928.
    Abstract:
    In the report by the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future, one of the basic themes is the recommendation for the substitution of quality for quantity. To improve the quality of our existence while slowing growth will require a recasting of American values. The immediate goal is to modernize demographic behavior by encouraging the American people to make population choices on the basis of greater rationality rather than tradition or custom, ignorance or chance. A reduction in the rate of population growth would bring important benefits economically. Population growth is one of the factors affecting the demand for resources and the deterioration of the environment in the U.S. With slower population growth leading to a stabilized population, we gain time to devise solutions, resources to implement them, and greater freedom of choice in deciding how we want to live in the future. Unless we address our major domestic social problems in the short run, beginning with racism and poverty, we will not be able to resolve fully the question of population growth. The Commission recommends enactment of a Population Education Act to assist school systems in establishing well planned population education programs. Sex education should be available to all, and should be presented in a responsible manner through community organizations, mass media and schools. Both public and private forces should join to assure that adequate childcare programs be available. The Commission recommends that all children, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, be accorded fair and equal status socially, morally and legally. It recommends changes in attitudes and practices to encourage adoption. Congress and the states should approve the Equal Rights Amendment and all levels of government should undertake positive programs to ensure freedom from discrimination based on sex. States should eliminate existing legal inhibitions and restrictions on access to contraceptive information, procedures and supplies, and develop statutes affirming the desirability of this. They should adopt affirmative legislation permitting minors to receive contraceptive and prophylactic information and services. All administrative restrictions on access to voluntary contraceptive sterilization should be eliminated. State laws on abortion should be liberalized but abortion should not be considered a primary means of fertility control. Priority in research should be in reproductive biology and in the search for improved methods of fertility control. There should be a national policy and voluntary program to reduce unwanted fertility, improve the outcome of pregnancy and the health of children. America should welcome and plan for a stablized population. The situation of illegal immigration is serious. Immigration levels should not be increased. Action needs to be taken to increase freedom of choice of residential location through the elimination of current patterns of racial and economic segregation. Improvements are recommended for the basic statistics and research in the federal government. Organizational changes are needed to improve the government's capacity to develop and implement population related programs.
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