World Congress of Families Congratulates Beckhams on Birth of Fourth Child - Asks for Honest Population Debate

LONDON, July 22, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- British population-control fanatics and radical environmentalists are once again showing their irrationality and true totalitarian colors by using the birth of a fourth child to English football star David Beckham and his wife to climb on their over-population soapboxes.

Simon Ross, CEO of the Optimum Population Trust, calls the Beckham family "very bad role models."  Ross insists, "There's no point in people trying to reduce their carbon emissions and then increasing them 100% by having another child."

If this guilt and fear mongering weren't enough, Ross then calls for changing government "incentives" to encourage smaller families despite the data that shows family-size is already decreasing in every region of the world.

World Congress of Families Managing Director Larry Jacobs congratulated the Beckhams for "giving the gift of life to another precious child.  Unlike the myths propagated by radical environmentalists, feminists, secularists and socialists, the facts are that the number of children in the world continues to decrease.  In fact, worldwide, there are 6 million fewer children (6 years of age and younger) today than there were in 1990."

Jacobs continued: "Groups like Optimum Population Trust play on fear and ignorance. Over-population is based on a long-discredited 1960s paradigm and Paul Ehrlich book, 'The Population Bomb.'  The world's population may be temporarily on the rise, but, worldwide, birthrates have fallen by 50% since the 1960s.  Today, almost half the world's population lives in countries with below-replacement birthrates – in many cases, well below replacement. In Europe, the number of children under 6 has fallen by 36% since 1960.  According to the United Nations Population Division, if current trends continue, by 2050 there will be 248 million fewer children in the world under 6 than there are today."

Jacobs warned, "Optimum Population Trust won't have to worry about so-called carbon footprints when there aren't enough people (what economists refer to as human capital) to keep modern, industrialized societies functioning."

The WCF Managing Director called for a frank discussion of the realities of the birth-dearth and the importance of families.  He also called on the media to present more than one side in the population debate and to present the societal benefits to encouraging the "natural family."

World Congress of Families sponsored the world's first demographic summit, "Moscow Demographic Summit: Family and the Future of Humankind" at the Russian State Social University, June 29-30. The Summit brought together demographers, economists, researchers and leaders to discuss the pending de-population crisis. Click here for more details.

World Congress of Families VI will be in Madrid, May 25-27, 2012.  World Congress of Families VII will take place in Sydney in 2013.  Demographic Winter will play a prominent role in both.

To schedule an interview with WCF Managing Director Larry Jacobs contact Don Feder at 508-405-1337, [email protected], or Lisa Youngblood at 815-964-5819, [email protected].

The World Congress of Families (WCF) is an international network of pro-family organizations, scholars, leaders and people of goodwill from more than 60  countries that seek to restore the natural family as the fundamental social unit and the 'seedbed' of civil society (as found in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948).  The WCF was founded in 1997 by Allan Carlson and is a project of The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society in Rockford, Illinois.  To date, there have been five World Congresses of Families – Prague (1997), Geneva (1999), Mexico City (2004), Warsaw, Poland (2007) and Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2009).  World Congress of Families VI will be held in Madrid, Spain in May 25-27, 2012.

SOURCE World Congress of Families