Toward a Humane Balance Between Life and Death

Abstract

The World Population Conference will convene on August 19-30 1974 in Bucharest. A world population plan will be forwarded to the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations for adoption. In the past year the UN organized 4 symposia: on the realtionship between population and economic development on the problems of population in the context of the family on the relationships among population resources and environment and on the relationships between population and human rights. The first problem is aggravated by an increasing dependency load due to an increasing or constant birthrate and a declining mortality rate. In countries where basic social and religious beliefs hinder access to the information or the means to avoid unwanted pregnancies it is false to assume the society will remain static. National sovereignty must be respected. The struggle of women to obtain recognition of their proper status in society has in the US caused the Supreme Court to render laws prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives obsolute and will continue to influence patterns of population growth. The world has entered a period characterized by the economics and politics of scarcity. Situations such as the high percentage of migrant workers in the labor pool of northern Europe indicate the need to study the migrant with regard to population and development.