One tactic used by pro-choicers in their defense of abortion is the argument that if abortion were banned there would be so many people on the Earth that we could not feed, much less, house everybody. The planet would be overpopulated. Although this reasoning fails to defend abortion on it's own merit, allow me the liberty of further denigrating the argument to oblivion.
There are currnetly 6,706,993,152 (July 2008 est.) people in the entire world.
Rhode Island has the Surface area of 1,214 square miles.
This means that the entire world population could fit in the U.S. state of Rhode Island leaving 4.5 sq, ft. per person. Now look at a globe and see if you can pick out Rhode Island. As you scan the rest of the globe in search for this tiny speck, you will certainly notice how much land that leaves available for livestock, agriculture, fresh water, and especially elbow room. Africa has the potential to supply enough agriculture to feed the whole world by itself.
Now this isn't meant to be a real world scenario, by all means go find a ranch and a few acres to retire on and stretch your legs. It does show how little use we are making of the land available to us though.
You may ask why is there famine, especially in Africa? The problem is with the government, not the resources. The Dictatorial governments squander the food supplies as well as the relief supplies for themselves and allow their own people to starve.
So maybe there isn't a problem right now, but what about future generations?
That is a fair question. It is estimated that by 2050 we will have a population of nearly 9 billion. In response I offer the nearby state of Maryland. Feel free to expand. There is still much land available. But what about 50 years after that? Or 100, or 1000 years down the road? The movie "Logan's Run" comes to mind. Their solution to population control was to demand the suicide of everyone at the age of 30. Turns out there was a huge world available right outside their little bubble.
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