
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, August 28, 1994                   TAG: 9409010035
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: D2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

POP. CULTURE

THOSE WHO closely follow trends in population policy, which should be a larger number of people than it is, note that the proper terms of debate change, just as they do in any field.

"Population control" is verboten, for example - smacks too much of authoritarianism and the powerful imposing their will on the less powerful (including, of course, women, Third-World countries and nonwhites).

Similarly, "birth control" might imply coercion to some in the Third World - indeed, has involved coercion in China and elsewhere. So population diplomacy nowadays demands discussion of "slowing" or "stabilizing" world growth by means of "family planning."

Such distinctions may cause eye-rolling among those grown weary of politically correct usage, who are tired of selecting every word as if it were a potential weapon, shooting home some subtle threat, real or imagined. If by family planning one means limiting the number of children a couple will produce by controlling conception, then birth control may seem a defensible term, whatever deconstructionists say.

Some of these terms, though, connote distinctions with a real difference. Coercive strategies to control population, for instance, besides being unethical and politically incorrect, don't work as well as efforts that empower (excuse the word) families to determine their destiny.

What's more, insights can be gained by considering how differently words' meaning is taken by various groups or, in the case of the upcoming Cairo population conference, various countries.

Immigration is becoming a negative in the United States, where waves of newcomers are seen as a drain on resources that threatens a comfortable lifestyle. But in underdeveloped countries, the idea of migrating often has the same positives attached to it - the daring to grab for a new life where it's possible to provide for your family - as it had when many of our ancestors came to America.

In appreciating such differences, the United States and other industrialized countries, happily wallowing in consumerism, can try to glimpse population issues from the perspective of developing nations. While the world's "have's" wring their hands about overpopulation, some "have not's" resent being regarded as so much excess baggage on spaceship Earth.

Stabilizing population growth is a crucial goal, but understanding is a precondition for reaching it.

by CNB