Help control the human population. Have your Spouse Spayed or Neutered. This woman believes that she aborted her pregnancy for the good of environment!
UK Daily Mail:
Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers - and a voice calling her Mummy.
But the very thought makes her shudder with horror.
Because when Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet.
Incredibly, so determined was she that the terrible “mistake” of pregnancy should never happen again, that she begged the doctor who performed the abortion to sterilise her at the same time.
He refused, but Toni - who works for an environmental charity - “relentlessly hunted down a doctor who would perform the irreversible surgery.
Finally, eight years ago, Toni got her way.
At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to “protect the planet”.
Incredibly, instead of mourning the loss of a family that never was, her boyfriend (now husband) presented her with a congratulations card.
While some might think it strange to celebrate the reversal of nature and denial of motherhood, Toni relishes her decision with an almost religious zeal.
“Having children is selfish. It’s all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet,” says Toni, 35. (emphasis mine)
“Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population.”
Continues
That she is not having children for “the environment” implies that if it wasn’t an issue then she would have no problem with bearing her unborn child. Taking her argument at face value one could assume that she wanted her baby but she just couldn’t bear it - for the sake of our planet.
Thanks Toni. If only her lack of reproduction meant her stupidity would die with her. But it won’t because she’s simply responding to a common idea: we’re dooming ourselves.
My feeling is that Toni simply doesn’t want children (as is her choice and I have no problem the decision itself). Perhaps she doesn’t want children truly because of the environment, or maybe she needed a way to justify to her parents why she has decided to abort the pregnancy - a reason that didn’t include all the expectations and pain of childbearing. For her to think that somehow she is doing the planet a favour is shifting the attention away from her guilt of the abortion. Just an excuse to make her seem altruistic while she is anything but. Plain fact is that she didn’t wanna be a momma. She actually reveals her own selfish motivations later in the article…
“I’ve never doubted that I made the right decision. Ed and I married in September 2002, and have a much nicer lifestyle as a result of not having children.
“We love walking and hiking, and we often go away for weekends.
“Every year, we also take a nice holiday - we’ve just come back from South Africa.
“We feel we can have one long-haul flight a year, as we are vegan and childless, thereby greatly reducing our carbon footprint and combating over-population.
So there it is. They love life without the responsibility of a little rascal. Many couples have made the same decision to not have children for lifestyle reasons, but they simply say they don’t want children. Toni saying she is saving the environment by not having kids is like people who say they turning off the lights when they leave the room to saves the environment, when the real reason they turn off the lights is simply to save on the electricity bill.
The reason she has given is rubbish and pure fantasy. Her “sacrifice” has little practical benefit or consequence for the planet.
Although I do give the babies=pollution premise some credence. Certainly human kind is causing a stress on the environment, and I don’t dispute the environmental issues. Reproduction of our species does result in of more use of land, fuels, trees, and more creation of pollution and greenhouse gases. And in her words, “adds to the problem of over-population.”
If she was taught her baby would ruin the world, then so too can we be taught that there needs to be global reformation or there will be global death. Not only is our own species’ future at stake but so too is all life on Earth. If the Earth’s biosphere is in jeopardy and our rootin’ tootin’ pollutin’ will actually result in the death of our planet, and everything on it, what is the only moral thing to do?
If she indeed aborted her child and was sterilized for the environment then what we are seeing in Toni is a volunteer who has sacrificed her genetic contribution at the altar of sustainability, and has been fooled into sterilizing herself. This story could be an footnote the nexus of environmentalism and population reduction. Is this what happens when you accept the premise that humans are bringing about planet-wide destruction? That the only way to solve the problem is to remove humans from the equasion? That is stark.
If science feels it can prove that humans are the plague of Earth, and if they feel they can prove that we are bringing certain death to ourselves and everything else, then the only moral thing to do is quickly and mercifully reduce our entire population. If we are killing our planet, to the point where there will be no life on Earth, then is it not paramount and moral to dispose of the unwashed masses? Are you willing to accept that human kind needs to die to save the planet?
This is the final solution when you believe humans will inevitably cause environmental catastrophe. This concept described by Finnish environmentalist Pentti Linkola in a metaphor in which limited seating on a life boat would cause drastic but necessary action.
“Those who hate life will try to load it with more people and sink the lot.” while “those who love and respect life will take the ship’s ax and sever the extra hands that cling to the sides of the boat,” Linkola said.
That’s hardcore.
Are we truly clamoring for a seat on a sinking boat? I’m not willing to accept that. I don’t believe the doom sayers. I smell what could be an agenda. After all, in the overfilled boat who weilds the ax?
The environment is being trashed and we need to fix the way our lifestyles impact the environment, but for us to think that the world would be better off if there were simply fewer of us doesn’t address the solutions we have available. There are methods of efficient, clean uses of resources and technology.
We can not continue to blame individuals for consumerism. It is the structure of society on a whole, a consumerist society, and we are their byproducts. We have learned to hate our society, and ourselves for even existing, while those who have put us in this position are let off the hook.
There is a billboard that has Canadian ecologist David Suzuki. He is holding a new energy efficient lightbulb with the phrase, “You have the power.” To do what?
Do you have the power to turn off the factories and shut down the systems of poison? Can you reverse affects of millions of cars? Can you stop China or India from developing? Do you have the power to replace factories with cleaner ones? Do you have the power to convince everyone to abandon plastic waste?
Our authorities are the ones who are fostering these problems, waiting for our reactions, and providing us with their solutions. If you buy the premise that, if left unchecked, the human species is inevitably going to kill Earth, do you realize that is enough justification for mass genocide to become a viable option once all other attempts have failed?
In November 1991, Jacques-Yves Cousteau in an interview with UNESCO Courier.
Interviewer: “Some snakes, mosquitoes, and other animal species pose threats or dangers for humankind. Can they be eliminated like viruses that cause certain diseases?”
Cousteau: “Getting rid of viruses is an admirable idea, but it raises enormous problems. In the first 1,400 years of the Christian era, population numbers were virtually stationary. Through epidemics, nature compensated for excess births by excess deaths. I talked about this problem with the director of the Egyptian Academy of Sciences. He told me that scientists were appalled to think that by the year 2080 the population of Egypt might reach 250 million. What should we do to eliminate suffering and disease? It’s a wonderful idea but perhaps not altogether a beneficial one in the long run. If we try to implement it we may jeopardize the future of our species. It’s terrible to have to say this. World population must be stabilized and to do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. This is so horrible to contemplate that we shouldn’t even say it. But the general situation in which we are involved is lamentable.” Bahgat Elnadi and Adel Rifaat, “Interview With Jacques-Yves Cousteau,” The UNESCO Courier, November 1991, p. 13, source
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