Thinking about MLK
So everybody is posting the I Have a Dream speech today, and a very fine speech it is. In fact, I had fun making a
Wordle of it which you can view at full size on the site.
But via a comment on Shakesville, I would like to post a quote from an even more interesting speech, the one Dr. King gave upon receiving the Margaret Sanger award:
They would observe that for death planning we spend billions to create engines and strategies for war. They would also observe that we spend millions to prevent death by disease and other causes. Finally they would observe that we spend paltry sums for population planning, even though its spontaneous growth is an urgent threat to life on our planet. Our visitors from outer space could be forgiven if they reported home that our planet is inhabited by a race of insane men whose future is bleak and uncertain.
There is no human circumstance more tragic than the persisting existence of a harmful condition for which a remedy is readily available. Family planning, to relate population to world resources, is possible, practical and necessary. Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess.
It's amazing (by which I mean terribly disheartening) to see how the globalized focus on population issues in the 1960s and '70s seems to have been completely inverted in recent years, bringing the issue from one of worldwide stewardship to the life of one individual fetus at a time. I really appreciate his contrast of "death planning" vs. "population planning."
ETA a link to the full Planned Parenthood speech.
Wordle of it which you can view at full size on the site.
But via a comment on Shakesville, I would like to post a quote from an even more interesting speech, the one Dr. King gave upon receiving the Margaret Sanger award:
They would observe that for death planning we spend billions to create engines and strategies for war. They would also observe that we spend millions to prevent death by disease and other causes. Finally they would observe that we spend paltry sums for population planning, even though its spontaneous growth is an urgent threat to life on our planet. Our visitors from outer space could be forgiven if they reported home that our planet is inhabited by a race of insane men whose future is bleak and uncertain.
There is no human circumstance more tragic than the persisting existence of a harmful condition for which a remedy is readily available. Family planning, to relate population to world resources, is possible, practical and necessary. Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess.
It's amazing (by which I mean terribly disheartening) to see how the globalized focus on population issues in the 1960s and '70s seems to have been completely inverted in recent years, bringing the issue from one of worldwide stewardship to the life of one individual fetus at a time. I really appreciate his contrast of "death planning" vs. "population planning."
ETA a link to the full Planned Parenthood speech.