By one recent count, President Obama has now appointed 34 “czars” to manage a host of projects. One of the most troubling of these is the new
White House science czar, Dr. John Holdren. In 1977, Holdren teamed with the long-discredited “population bomb” scientist Paul Ehrlich to write a
book titled, Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment. Here are some choice quotes from this landmark work:
“Compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the
population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society … It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have
abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society … Adding a sterilant (a drug that would produce
infertility) to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility
control.”
And in case anyone thinks Holdren now regrets these statements, consider his comment earlier this year in an exchange with U.S.
Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) in public testimony: “Population growth brings some benefits and some liabilities; it’s a tough question to determine which
will prevail in a given time period.” “Liabilities?” Of what kind, Dr. Holdren — and would such liabilities ever justify the kinds of things
(coerced abortions, sterilants in the water supply) you advocated in past years? Holdren has even called the United States “the meanest” of
industrialized nations. Really? No people are more generous than the American people — study after study demonstrates how ordinary citizens have
sacrificially helped the impoverished and war-torn of other nations. Dr. Holdren is now working in the White House shaping national policy.
Tony Perkins heads the Family Research Council. This article was excerpted from the Washington Update that he compiles for the FRC.
