Piel Says Present Contraceptives Cannot Check Population Growth

The United States should not meddle in the population problems of other nations, Gerard Piel '37, publisher of Scientific American, said last night.

He told a capacity crowd in the Leverett House Junior Common Room that "birth control begins at home," and that underdeveloped nations are suspicious of our efforts to regulate their fertility.

Methods of contraception now in existence are too complicated, expensive, or medically dangerous for use in non-industrialized countries, he said. He added that population control in these areas can only result from the invention of a simple, aesthetic contraceptive, or from economic development.

As the rate of economic change increases, fertility control becomes the habit of the entire population rather just of the upper ranks of society, he said.

Piel said that the United States had "a profound and heavy moral obligation to the people of underdeveloped countries to use its surpluses to aid economic development, and to apply its scientific capabilities to the invention of usable contraceptives.

"It is perfectly plain, however, that the population of India, Africa, and China are fated to double or triple no matter what the United States does in the near future," he noted.

Industrialization and contraception alone will not solve the population problems of the world, Piel continued. He pointed out that in spite of a high standard of living and widespread use o' birth control techniques, the population of the United States is increasing at the rate of 1.8 per cent each year.

The time is drawing near, he said, when parents will have to limit family size in the name of human welfare.

Piel said that this social motivation to population control can only emerge from a feeling of involvement in nature and a sense of ecological balance.