Politics and religion should have no influence on population policy

Our choice to reproduce – or not – is a fundamental human right, and decision-makers must consider it in this context alone

Human rights are universal. Few people would deny that everyone should be healthy and well fed, treated equally, and able to live in an environmentally sustainable way.

Similarly, regardless of political or religious allegiance, few would disagree that current population growth levels in many countries across Africa and Asia are unsustainable, while ageing populations are also causing challenges for the future of more developed economies, such as those in Europe, Japan or Russia. And few would deny that any abuse of human rights is reprehensible.

Despite the clarity on what the international community should aim to protect, decision-makers at all levels across the EU disagree on how we should do this.

Some believe their own personal religious beliefs should shape the development policies of the international community. In countries such as Poland, Hungary and Romania, where abortion is in danger of becoming illegal, even for victims of rape, or women whose lives are at risk, these groups believe that governments should use the moral power of religion to strengthen the family and control people’s personal choices.

They believe women should not have access to modern family planning methods; they seek to deny them an understanding of their reproductive system, and in turn they deny them control of their bodies and their destinies. They also fail to recognise that a citizen’s religious freedom should be a matter of personal freedom, and that their philosophies are, therefore, inappropriate for those who follow another system of beliefs.

In Asia, Africa and in Europe throughout the 20th century, oppressive political regimes have taken control away from women over how many children they have. Consider China’s one-child policy, or the orphanages of Romania, filled with children born to mothers refused access to contraception at the end of the 1980s – these are images of human rights’ abuses that should not be allowed to happen again.

The sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) community, with the backing of the scientific community, has shown that individual human rights can readily be both the objective and the means in population policies.

For population growth can be brought into line with what humans want and what the environment can handle by educating and empowering women, providing them with education and family planning services, and what it will mean for them.

The unprecedented economic growth in South Korea following the introduction of a coherent and modern population policy in the 1960s and the lack of progress during the same time in the Philippines, where no such policy was passed, clearly illustrate this fact.

The SRHR community is not a political movement. It is a human rights movement whose membership spans all other ideological divides. The European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development is a network of parliamentarians from 28 countries across Europe who are committed to empowering and protecting women in their reproductive health choices, and its burgeoning membership reflects the political reality in Europe.

Our members come from all major political parties, and share a common belief that by protecting, educating and empowering women in their reproductive rights and choices – and educating men about these rights and choices – we can bring population growth in line with the levels that are required to live in an ecologically and economically sustainable way.

Until now, the population variable has been largely left unspoken in all geopolitical matters. But it is central to the future of humanity in so many ways, in relation to the environment, climate change, energy consumption, employment creation and social development. And yet until now the international community has failed to address it in the concerted, coherent and far-sighted way that it requires.

On World Population Day on Monday, policy makers must remember they have the responsibility to look beyond the duration of their mandate and make the blueprint for the future of humanity. And this future should not be dictated by an individual’s personal religious or political convictions: it must have human rights at its heart.

• Neil Datta is secretary of the European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development