Environmental Degradation and Subversion of Health - Dag ...

90 Mira Shiva
sovereignty is being denied in every other sphere, a heavily foreign-funded
present-day population policy will have the interests of the 'poor suffering
people of India', especially the women, at heart.
Population policy can no longer be one of curtailing the fertility of ignorant,
indisciplined Indians. It has to be seen as a consequence of the failure of
other policies—economic, education, health, and so on—at a national
level, and of gross economic imbalance induced by the biased and unjust
trade policies of the rich North. Coercive family planning measures, with or
without incentives, peddled and imposed as a panacea for women's health
problems, are no longer acceptable, just as technological fixes for environmental
hazards are no longer credible.
Notes 1. Lacey, Richard W., and Dealler, Stephen, F., 'The BSE Time Bomb? The
Causes, the Risks and the Solutions to the BSE Epidemic', The Ecologist, Vol.
21, No. 3, May-June 1991, pp. 117-122.
2. Skjei, Eric, and Whortan, M. Donald, Of Mice and Molecules: Technology and
Human Survival, Dial Press, New York, pp. 131–41, 1063.
3. Bang, Abhay and Rani, The Lancet, June 14, 1989.