The letter suggests reducing worldwide fertility rates by simply expanding “family-planning services,” and achieving “full gender equity” for women. Or, put more bluntly: We need more abortions to save the planet.

In 2016, academics at Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University more thoroughly explored the idea of population control in a paper titled “Population Engineering and the Fight against Climate Change.” In the paper, environmentalists Colin Hickey, Jake Earl, and Travis Rieder outlined several population-control policies that they said are “pragmatically and morally justified” and necessary to save the planet. The authors evaluate each option using a “coercion spectrum.”¹²⁰

The least-coercive side of the spectrum contained policies similar to that of the letter signed by 11,000 scientists previously referenced. (Hickey, Earl, and Rieder label expanding access to abortion as “choice enhancement.”)

Further down the coercion spectrum is “preference adjustment,” which aims to change cultural norms and encourage people to have fewer children through the use of propaganda. The authors envision the use of mass media, radio, TV, billboards, information campaigns, “assemblies in public schools,” celebrity endorsements, and more to convince people to stop having kids.

The researchers also recommended policymakers consider “incentivization.” Under this category, the government would use the tax code to “incentivize” people into having fewer children—effectively punishing families for having kids and awarding people for remaining childless.

In a free society, these moral questions are left to individuals, who can choose whether to have children based on any criteria they want—including crazy environmental fears and doomsday scenarios. But under a socialist system, such decisions are inevitably put in the hands of the collective and the people they put in positions of power. Given all the insane things the Left has said in recent years about population control efforts, this shouldn’t just concern you; it should terrify you. If it doesn’t, it’s time to get your head examined.