wfn.org | Church agency gives population problems extra attention

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Aug. 15, 2000 News media contact: Joretta Purdue ·(202) 546-8722·Washington
10-21-23-71BP{370}

NOTE: A photograph is available with this report.

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - For Jane Hull Harvey, population growth is at the heart
of many other issues including hunger and starvation, global warming and
environmental disasters, and even war.

"Global warming has caused so many environmental disasters in the world that
we have finally got the message: we can all live together or we can all die
together," said Harvey, an executive at the United Methodist Board of Church
and Society. "It's no coincidence that we are having the worst fires in the
West in 50 years."

Harvey recently began the one-year Hugh Moore Population Project at the
board, which is the United Methodist Church's social action agency. The
project will conclude a career of service to the church that she began as a
missionary in Korea in 1958. She has been with the board since 1981.

The project aims "to educate for advocacy" by informing United Methodists
and getting them involved in promoting sound population policies, she said.

The environmental degradation of the fragile planet has been significant,
Harvey said. Scientists and historians have said that "we have done so much
that has been so adverse that it will take 100 years" to see the full
effects, she noted. Droughts and floods often lead to the migration of
people, which may lead to armed conflicts, she said. 

She also cited the cyclones and floods in Orissa, a state in India,
estimated to have caused about 10,000 deaths last October. Rain and flooding
in Venezuela in December killed an estimated 30,000. Both figures are from
the United Nations.

Improvement is possible, Harvey said. The United Nations Children's Fund
reports some success in reducing child mortality. The 35,000 average daily
deaths from preventable causes of a few years ago have been reduced to
32,000 deaths. Those numbers include deaths directly from starvation and
hunger-related diseases, as well as from wars over food, water and land
resources, she said.

She draws hope from a visit to India last year organized by the Population
Institute - an independent, nonprofit, educational organization spun off
from the Board of Church and Society about three decades ago. On the trip,
she saw sharp contrasts between the state of Kerala, where child labor has
been nearly eradicated, and other parts of India where children in the
streets worked, begged and sometimes died. "We actually saw one little girl
die as we were stalled in traffic in New Delhi," Harvey said. "She was so
very thin."  

Kerala's emphasis on education for all children is making a difference
between that state and other parts of India, she said. Though one of the
poorest areas in India, Kerala has made education of women and girls a
priority since before the state's creation in 1956.

Studies have shown that education of girls and women is key to reducing
population growth and increasing economic development, she said. In Kerala,
the birth rate is 2.4 per family - the lowest in India. The frequency of
infant deaths was the lowest, and the literacy rate was the highest. That's
in a nation whose population of 1 billion includes more poor people than
Africa and Latin America combined, according to Harvey.
 
Pregnancies that are too frequent or too early or late in a woman's life
cause health problems for her and her children, Harvey noted. Some 600,000
women worldwide die each year of pregnancy-related causes.

Despite the problems, she noted, "We don't have a population policy in the
United States." 

However, the United Methodist Church does, she said, citing the Social
Principles and several statements in the denomination's Book of Resolutions.
A new edition of the book will be published later this year, with revisions
and new resolutions approved last May by General Conference, the church's
highest legislative assembly.

"We affirm," the Social Principles say, "that programs to achieve a
stabilized population should be placed in a context of total economic and
social development, including an equitable use and control of resources;
improvement in the status of women in all cultures; a human level of
economic security, health care and literacy for all."

The paragraph on population also urges reduction of resource consumption and
of the world population growth rate; advocates consideration of the impact
of decisions about childbearing in the context of the world community; and
favors access to contraception. This year, a sentence was added opposing
forced abortion or forced sterilization.

In announcing the creation of the project, the Rev. Thom White Wolf Fassett,
the board's top executive, said that population and related issues will be
addressed "in the context of the strong positions articulated by the United
Methodist Church." He said it will also build on the "historic work on
population and development" that has occurred under Harvey's leadership.
# # #

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org