IN THE MEDIA
Media Coverage
Our team works hard to stay active in our media advocacy efforts to shift the mainstream cultural narrative to inspire behavioral and system change towards substantially downscaling human impact to enable natural ecosystems, nonhuman animals, and humanity to flourish together.
Media inquiries for our executive director Nandita Bajaj can be sent to media@populationbalance.org.
Dismissal of “population alarmism” is rooted in pronatalist ideology
Pronatalism is a globally pervasive form of reproductive coercion, that reduces people to reproductive vessels for external agendas. In addition to being a source of reproductive injustice, it fuels population growth and has propelled the global population toward the 8 billion milestone. It’s time to confront the pernicious influence of pronatalism on population growth, human rights, and the planet.
I am not a slave to the biological clock
And why we would do well to recognize that perhaps the “biological imperative” is simply a powerful creative impulse, and we are glossing over this more complex reality when we attribute that impulse, with little examination, to wanting a child.
Abortion bans are a natural outgrowth of coercive pronatalism
Coercive pronatalism may take the form of restrictions on contraception, or propagandist myths around contraceptive use, or loan forgiveness and other financial incentives in exchange for having large families. If these inducements don’t convince women to have children, then abortion bans are instituted to force them into it against their will.
The baby bust is good for the planet
Pronatalism and baby-bust alarmism ignore the gains in women’s empowerment and reproductive autonomy that lead to lower fertility rates. Pronatalism commodifies women, babies, and immigrants as economic inputs that benefit only the corporations that rely on a never-ending supply of workers and consumers for their products.
Pope Francis’s criticism of childless couples hurts parents and nonparents alike
“The fact that after fighting for personal and reproductive liberation for centuries, women in some countries are finally able to break free from their prescribed biological and gender roles and authentically exercise their right to have no or fewer children is something to be celebrated,” Bajaj said. “It’s a hallmark of a liberated society. It’s neither a loss of humanity nor selfish.”
Women on their choice to be childfree
“In university, I took a course in gender studies and psychology where I first learned that this idea of a biological instinct, or maternal instinct, was a social construct and not a universal biological drive. That really resonated with me. I didn’t have any deep desires to be a parent.”