Procreation isn't just for fun in long run

We are beginning to choke our own world.

Its taken us "10,000 generations," Al Gore pointed out at the United Nation's Conference on Population and Development, to "reach 2 billion (people), and then in one human lifetime (ours), we leap from 2 billion toward 10 billion," accordin g to Tuesday's Los Angeles Times.

The conference started on Monday in Cairo, of all places, and seems to focus mostly on side-stepping around the abortion issue. The Vatican, probably uninvited, jumped all over that issue even before the conference started, as did, the Los Angeles Times reported, "at least four Muslim countries" that will boycott the U.N. conference.

Why, if there is a god, would He (or She) want to take away a possible solution to the world population problem. If He (of She) is so all fired good, so omniscient, so omnipotent, would He (or She) allow anyone to have more children than it takes to populate the world and perpetuate the species?

Abortion is not a pretty thing, agreed, but the freedom over one's own body mu st remain paramount.

We are vehemently against governmental regulation of any person's lifestyle ... barring, of course, convicted felons, the insane and a select few politicians. Governments looking to suggest a few answers is another thing.

T he purpose of the conference is to help find solutions to a growing trend: us.

Education, we feel, is the key to finding any solutions to this tangled skein, and that, at least, seems something the U.N. conference agrees with.

The Los Angeles Times reported that a "broad international consensus" on improving health care and expanding family planning to include everyone in need has been reached already. It's surprising to us that it has taken this long.

Balance, harmony, knowledge and ho pe; the conference might just be heading in the right direction, but let each of us hope that the abortion issue or perceptions of some immaterial supreme being do not trip up the effort to deal with the problems that will be a reality if population ra tes continue at today's pace.