Reproductive Liberty and Overpopulation: A Response
Author(s)
Warner, Stanley
Abstract
This appraisal of Carol A. Kates’s “Reproductive Liberty and Overpopulation” challenges her call for world-wide population control measures–using compulsory methods if necessary–to save the world’s environment. The most successful part of Kates’s paper is her argument that reproductive rights are not indefeasible and nonnegotiable, but that like many rights, they are conditional and open to a balancing of individual freedom against collective community interests. But her advocacy of mandatory state population controls is flawed in several respects.
