a) First of all, we must observe that countries like India and China, where the demographic situation is -- they say -- serious and complex, are not suffocating under the influence of the Church or Christian morality. Indira Gandhi suffered a resounding electoral defeat in 1977 because, together with her son Sanjay, she wanted to impose anti-life measures on the Indians, notably obligatory sterilization. Indians saw the measures as intolerable because they were inhumane, and they didn't have need of the Church to make this discovery.

b) Moreover, the Church does not deny in any way the existence of world demographic problems; she herself says that they must be seriously examined. But what the Church affirms, above all, is that the problems which are occasioned as much by demographic growth as by its implosion, are first of all of a moral nature. More precisely, their solution is made difficult by reason of the "structures of sin," which bring about innumerable distortions in the process of development. It is this assertion that bothers people, and they reject it.

For the Church, under-development and poverty have their source in egoism, materialism, injustice, incompetence, laziness, corruption, imbalance in the distribution of wealth, bad organization, etc. But the Church adds right away: There are solutions to these problems, and these solutions are called the rights of man; respect, justice, peace, solidarity, love.

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PERSISTENT MALTHUSIAN PARADIGM: http://www.brown.edu/Courses/Bio_Community_Health168C/malthus.htm
COUNCIL FOR SECULAR HUMANISM: http://www.freespeech.org/freethought/declaration.htm
SOCIAL DARWINISM AND ELITISM: http://tqd.advanced.org/3376/Genktk7.htm
THEORIES OF POPULATION: http://www.knight.org/advent/cathen/12276a.htm
THE OVERPOPULATION MYTH: http://www.ohiolife.org/overpop/overpop.htm
WESTERN CIVILIZATION IS DYING: http://www.ohiolife.org/qa/qa20.htm
IMPOSED MORALITY?: http://www.ohiolife.org/qa/qa22.htm
POPULATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE: http://www.pop.org

POPULORUM PROGRESSIO (ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF PEOPLES)
http://www.sni.net/advent/docs/pa06pp.htm
SOLLICITUDO REI SOCIALIS (ON SOCIAL CONCERNS)
http://listserv.american.edu/catholic/church/papal/jp.ii/jp2solli.txt
CENTESIMUS ANNUS (CENTENARY OF RERUM NOVARUM)
http://www.sni.net/advent/docs/jp02ca.htm
ETHICAL & PASTORAL DIMENSIONS OF POPULATION TRENDS
http://www.hli.org/issues/population/church/pop1.html
COMBATTING ABORTION & EUTHANASIA
http://www.sni.net/advent/docs/jp02ab.htm

CBCP GUIDELINES ON PHILIPPINE POPULATION CONTROL
http://www.cbcp.net/documents/population_90.html
THE TAIPEI DECLARATION OF 1996
http://www.simbahayan.org/taipeideclaration.html