Overpopulation

The other day in class we discussed the ethics of population control. The discussion was sparked by our assignment to watch the movie “La Operacion.” This film analyzed the process through which Puerto Rico’s government has coerced one in three women on the island to be sterilized. I think most people agree that it is unethical to trick women into being sterilized without their knowledgeable consent. Furthermore, I believe that most of our class agrees that without a change in socioeconomic structure of Puerto Rico, sterilization will not fix the economic difficulties the country faces.
However, my question is not if the travesties performed against the women of Puerto Rico is ethical, but instead if under different circumstances population control can be an ethical solution to the problem of overpopulation. After completing some outside research into the subject area, I have come to believe that population control may not be the only answer to the problem of overpopulation. However, if humans continue to live with the current lifestyle we have developed, population control may be used as an ethical means of aiding the problem of overpopulation.
It is only with an understanding of our natural environment and the interaction between the environment and human beings that we can begin to tackle the reason of why overpopulation exists. Humans, unlike other species, view themselves as a master of nature, while other animals are a part of nature. Urbanization, a typical effect of rapid industrialization, has led to the explosion of infectious diseases and the destruction of the natural environment. Through the common practices of deforestation, construction of dams and irrigation, the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides human beings have attempted to control the environment. Although the efforts are typically thought to improve the economy of a given population, environmental degradation usually leads to further economic inequality within a population, which furthers the growth of poverty. A large population size contributes to the contamination of our natural resources: air, water, and natural foods.
Population control may not be the only answer to fixing the economic and social inequalities that are found across the globe. However, it is due to the choices that humans have made in our very recent history that there is a need at all for mandatory population control. Other species are not faced with the issue of population control because the environment should control population size naturally. Humans have tried to conquer nature, and that is the reason for unwieldy overpopulation. If we continue to dominate our environment then population control though techniques like mandatory sterilizations may be necessary. Enforcing population control may appear unethical, especially after being performed immorally in areas like Puerto Rico. However, I argue that it is the blatant abuse of our environment that is the more unethical issue at hand. Furthermore, obligatory population control techniques can be used in an ethical way to deal with the problem of overpopulation that human beings have created.