One of the Government's leading environmental advisers, Sir Jonathon Porritt, has called for British couples to have no more than two children to stop the planet becoming overpopulated.
John Bingham, The Telegraph 2 Feb 09;
He accused parents with more than two offspring of being "irresponsible" and criticised green groups for shying away from the issue in debate.
But family campaigners likened his remarks to China's one-child policy and suggested they could encourage a further rise in abortions.
His comments were also dismissed as "absolutely barmy" by the Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe, who said that Britain's problem was not too many children but too few.
The former Green Party politician, who is now chairman of the Government's Sustainable Development Commission, accused other environmentalists of "betraying" their members by not openly voicing calls for people to limit the number of children.
"I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate," he said.
"I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible.
"It is the ghost at the table, we have all these big issues that everybody is looking at and then you don't really hear anyone say the "p" word," - a reference to population.
Pointing to the example of Singapore, where efforts to limit people to two children had to be abandoned, Miss Widdecombe said: "At a time when we have all the worries of too elderly a population, depending on fewer and fewer people of working age, it seems an absolutely ludicrous proposition."
Josephine Quintaville, founder of the pro-life group Comment on Reproductive Ethics (Core), said that past efforts to limit the size of families had led to girls being ill-treated or abandoned.
"This seems to be the same old thing: save the world but kill a human."
She added: "As far as I understand it, it is the most affluent nations that are doing the most damage to the world, not the countries that have got the most children."
Andy Atkins, executive director of Friends of the Earth said: "It is the impact of the people who are alive today that will determine whether we can meet the immediate climate change challenge.
"There is a debate to be had about population - and Friends of the Earth is currently reviewing its position on this issue.
"We welcome Jonathon Porritt's contribution to this topic."
