Perspectives in the Population Debate Today

By Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope

I’ve long believed that the question of population — its growth, distribution, and implications — is far more complex than the political soundbites or development slogans we hear every day. As I navigated the corridors of policy work, community development, and academic study, I often encountered people and groups so passionate about population — some in fear, others in hope — and it became clear that each had their own lens, their own story. It wasn’t enough for me to know what the data said. I had to understand the philosophies driving the discourse.

I remember coming across the work of Frank Furedi, who offered a map of the population debate that mirrored much of what I had been observing quietly. His classification wasn’t just academic — it felt like a compass for someone like me, who stood at the crossroads of development, governance, and human rights. Let me share, through my own reflections, what these perspectives mean to someone who has walked among policymakers, parents, priests, and the poor.

The Developmentalist: The Optimist Who Measures Growth in Smaller Families

There was a time in my earlier public service when I heard “development” and immediately thought of economic statistics — GDP, per capita income, industrial zones. I didn’t question then why population was always part of the conversation. Developmentalists argue that rapid population growth is a barrier — draining state resources and undermining infrastructure. And I understand why they feel that way. I’ve seen towns where schools are overcrowded, where clinics run out of medicine, where water can barely meet the needs of a growing city.

But I also saw something deeper: the belief that if we could just modernize — bring more jobs, improve healthcare, upgrade lifestyles — people would voluntarily choose smaller families. I remember meeting a young mother in Taguig who told me, “Sir, kung may trabaho lang asawa ko, dalawa lang sana anak ko.” That’s developmentalism in real life.

The Redistributionist: The Advocate for Social Justice

Later in my career, I found myself working more with NGOs and grassroots organizers. Their views challenged mine. They didn’t see population as the enemy — they saw poverty as the root. These were the redistributionists. Their argument was simple but powerful: people have large families not because they want to, but because they must. It’s a response to insecurity — economic, social, even existential.

One woman told me, “Hindi ko alam kung ilang anak ko ang aabot sa high school. Kaya marami ako.” That stayed with me.

Redistributionists call for education, especially for women, land reform, and access to reproductive health. They don’t think population growth causes poverty — they believe the reverse. And the moment I opened my heart to that truth, I started seeing public policy differently.

The Limited Resources Perspective: Counting the Planet’s Breath

As I worked with environmental advocates and urban planners, another view became hard to ignore — the limited resources perspective. Here, the issue wasn’t about poverty or wealth, but about the Earth itself. Clean air, fresh water, arable land — these aren’t infinite. And even if we could feed 100 million Filipinos, could we keep our rivers clean? Could we protect our forests?

In this view, population isn’t just a demographic issue — it’s ecological. And in a country as naturally rich but politically fragile as ours, the concern is real. In Palawan, I once spoke to a community leader who said, “Bago dumami ang tao rito, punong-puno ng isda ang dagat namin. Ngayon, wala na.”

I don’t see this perspective as alarmist. I see it as a sobering reminder that sustainability is not optional — it is survival.

The Socio-Biological Lens: When Fear Shapes Policy

This next perspective troubled me deeply. Socio-biological arguments take environmentalism to a darker place. They start to talk about people as polluters — as threats. I remember reading policies in some Western countries that spoke of “controlling fertility in the global South” with a coldness that reminded me of colonial manuals.

It made me think: Who gets to decide when a population is “too much”? I’ve seen how such thinking breeds racism, xenophobia, and cruel immigration policies. It reduces human lives to numbers, and mothers to liabilities.

This view is dangerous when left unchecked. Because once we start believing that the poor reproduce “too much,” we start justifying eugenics. And history tells us where that road leads.

The People-as-Instability Argument: Fear of the Future

In international summits and geopolitical briefings, I noticed a new language creeping in — one that linked population growth with global instability. The logic went like this: “If too many poor people feel disillusioned and powerless, they will rise up. They will migrate. They will destabilize our order.”

I saw this after the Cold War, when the West began seeing the Global South not just as aid recipients but as potential threats. And I couldn’t help but feel the subtle blame: as if the mere existence of frustrated, poor, young people was the ticking time bomb.

But I have met these young people. I’ve taught them. I’ve laughed and cried with them. They are not threats. They are potentials unrealized — hopes waiting to be activated. If the world fears them, the world must ask why it has failed them.

Women and Human Rights: The Feminist Truth

This perspective speaks the most to my belief in dignity and choice. High birth rates, some argue, aren’t just economic or cultural — they are political. They reflect a denial of women’s rights. I’ve seen this firsthand. I’ve met teenage girls forced into early marriages. Women who bore seven children without ever being asked if they wanted to.

When women are empowered — through education, healthcare, and voice — fertility rates decline naturally. And joyfully. They choose fewer children, not because they’re afraid or poor, but because they have agency.

I remember a workshop in Nueva Ecija where a young woman said, “Ngayon lang ako tinanong kung gusto ko pa ng anak.” That one question symbolized centuries of silence being broken.

The People-as-Problem-Solvers: The Hopeful View

Let me tell you about my grandfather. He was born poor, in a time when families had ten or more children because survival was uncertain. Yet he became an educator, a leader, and a father who raised us to think critically. He was proof that population isn’t always a burden—sometimes it’s a blessing.

That’s the heart of this final perspective. More people means more minds, more hands, more creativity. I’ve seen this in community enterprises where innovation didn’t come from millionaires but from farmers and fisherfolk solving problems with heart.

This approach reminds us that humans are not just mouths to feed—they are minds to empower. Investing in their potential could expand the limits of nature through human imagination.

A Final Reflection: Beyond the Numbers

In the end, none of these perspectives fully capture the complexity of population issues in the Philippines — or anywhere. But taken together, they form a mosaic. Some views focus on scarcity, others on justice. Some fear growth, others celebrate it.

I learned that the question is not how many we are, but how well we live and care for each other and the Earth that sustains us.

I remain cautious of policies that reduce people to figures or treat fertility as a crisis. I advocate for policies that provide people—especially women—choices, access, and dignity. I believe in solving problems by investing in human potential, not erasing it.

Population growth isn’t a threat. The real threat is inequality, exclusion, and the stubborn refusal to see people — especially the poor — as part of the solution.

Let’s not forget: every demographic number we discuss is a life, a story, a soul.

 

Scientific Origins of Eugenics

by Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD

There are stories in science that carry both brilliance and burden—stories that reflect our most profound attempts to better humanity and yet reveal how deeply flawed those efforts can become when driven by a dangerous moral certainty. One of those stories is eugenics.

The term “eugenics” might sound clinical or academic to many today, a relic buried somewhere between forgotten biology textbooks and World War II documentaries. Yet, in its time, it was not only a scientific idea—it was a movement, a philosophy, and even a political agenda. It promised a better human race through the selective encouragement or discouragement of reproduction. But as we peel back the layers, what is uncovered is less a tale of scientific progress and more a narrative of misguided moral ambition, cloaked in the language of science.

The Galtonian Dream: The Roots of Eugenics

It was Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, who first coined the term “eugenics” in 1883. Galton envisioned a noble goal: to improve the human race through careful selection, much like the selective breeding of animals. His idea, now referred to as positive eugenics, emphasized the encouragement of the “best and brightest” to reproduce more abundantly. For Galton, the pursuit was moral; he believed that science had the potential to elevate humanity to unprecedented heights (Kevles, 1985).

But even early on, there was a darker twin to this dream—negative eugenics. While positive eugenics hoped to inspire reproduction among the fit, negative eugenics aimed to prevent the unfit from reproducing at all. And in time, it was this second philosophy that gained more traction in state policy, especially in the United States, Germany, and Scandinavian countries.

Degeneracy Theory and the Fear of “Bad Blood”

A belief system known as degeneracy theory planted the seeds of eugenics centuries earlier. This theory, which held sway well into the 19th century, claimed that social and biological failures—mental illness, criminality, even poverty—were hereditary conditions caused by the deterioration of the human stock (Pick, 1989). Environmental toxins, moral decay, and yes, even masturbation (then called “onanism”) were believed to damage not just the body but future generations.

Such beliefs were not just idle superstition. They shaped law and medicine. In 1899, Dr. Harry Clay Sharp, a prison physician in Indiana, began sterilizing inmates—men he believed were degenerates. By 1907, the first state-mandated sterilization law was enacted in Indiana, requiring the sterilization of prisoners, the mentally ill, and other individuals deemed “unfit” (Lombardo, 2008).

Scientific Ideals and Agricultural Analogies

Early in the 20th century, eugenics started to adopt a scientific approach. Its proponents borrowed freely from agricultural science and genetics, applying Mendelian inheritance theories to human populations. The idea was simple: if a farmer could breed a stronger horse or a more fruitful plant, why not a healthier human being?

The Eugenics Record Office, established by Charles Davenport and Harry Laughlin, exemplified this trend. These men, who originally worked with chickens and crops, now turned their attention to humans. They charted family trees, documented criminal records, and declared the need to remove "bad stock" from the human gene pool (Davenport, 1911).

What’s striking is how clinical and unemotional their rhetoric was. The language was efficient, like that of a botanist pruning a tree. But behind it were real people—patients, prisoners, immigrants—individuals who were institutionalized or sterilized, often without full consent or understanding.

The Jukes, the Kallikaks, and the Demonization of Poverty

The movement also drew on social research to build its case. Richard Dugdale’s study of the Jukes family in 1877 painted a bleak picture of hereditary criminality and poverty. Similarly, Henry H. Goddard’s infamous work on the “Kallikak Family” claimed to demonstrate how a single act of indiscretion—one illegitimate child—had bred generations of “feeblemindedness” (Gould, 1981). These studies were often cited as proof that poverty, criminality, and mental illness were genetically determined.

Such research, later discredited, had real consequences. Immigrants were refused entry at ports, children were institutionalized, and families were torn apart—all under the banner of improving the race.

Eugenics and Medicine: The Pathologizing of the Poor

It wasn’t just scientists and politicians who promoted eugenics. Doctors, too, embraced it. Some viewed social deviance as a form of illness—a hereditary disease to be prevented, not cured. Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso declared that criminals were evolutionary throwbacks, “atavisms” of a more primitive human past.

In Germany, public health physician Rudolph Virchow blended the ideals of racial hygiene with state medicine. German-trained physicians, who championed "preventive eugenics," exported his ideas to America. As institutions became overcrowded with individuals deemed "undesirable," sterilization was viewed as a "humane" solution. If they could not be helped, they could at least be prevented from reproducing.

Doctors like Harry Sharp argued that sterilization was not punishment but compassion. It spared patients from lifelong institutionalization and spared the public the cost of their care. But beneath this reasoning was a terrible assumption—that some people were simply unworthy of existence as full members of society.

When Eugenics Becomes Policy

By the 1930s, more than 30 U.S. states had passed sterilization laws. By 1940, over 60,000 Americans had been forcibly sterilized. Many of these were women of color, immigrants, the poor, or those with disabilities.

These practices were supported by the U.S. Supreme Court, most notoriously in Buck v. Bell (1927), when Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. infamously declared, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” It was a ruling that echoed for decades.

Germany took the logic of eugenics to horrifying extremes. The Nazi T4 program, which began with forced sterilizations, culminated in the mass murder of those deemed “life unworthy of life.” It was not a deviation from eugenic logic, but its full realization (Lifton, 1986).

The Turn Away—But Not Completely

After World War II, eugenics became a taboo word. The horrors of the Holocaust forced many nations to confront the dangerous paths that pseudoscience can take. Yet, the ideas behind eugenics—about who is worthy, who is fit, who is “better”—never completely disappeared.

Even today, modern genetics and reproductive technology raise challenging ethical questions. Where is the line between choice and coercion? Between prevention and discrimination?

In retrospect, what began as a hopeful dream for some—a dream of curing illness, ending poverty, and perfecting mankind—was built on a foundation of fear, classism, racism, and ableism. It is a cautionary tale that reminds us: when science becomes untethered from compassion, humility, and human rights, it can become a dangerous ideology.

A Personal Reflection

As an educator, public servant, and advocate for justice, I, Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, reflect on this chapter of human history not with detachment, but with a deep sense of responsibility. We cannot afford to forget how easy it is for science to be weaponized when we lose sight of the human beings behind the data.

Eugenics, though wrapped in the promise of human progress, was ultimately an ideology that divided, hurt, and dehumanized. It’s a reminder that the worth of a human being is not found in their IQ, lineage, or productivity—but in their inherent dignity as a person.

May we never again mistake precision for wisdom or ambition for ethics. And may we always remember: science serves humanity, not the other way around.

References (APA Style, Pre-2010)

• Davenport, C. B. (1911). Heredity in Relation to Eugenics. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

• Gould, S. J. (1981). The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

• Kevles, D. J. (1985). In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

• Lifton, R. J. (1986). The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. New York: Basic Books.

• Lombardo, P. A. (2008). Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

• Pick, D. (1989). Faces of Degeneration: A European Disorder, c. 1848–c. 1918. Cambridge University Press.