NANDITA BAJAJ

'I  am the Executive Director of Population Balance and I came into the  sustainable population movement from a humane education framework after  working in the fields of engineering and education for 15 years. As  faculty with the Institute for Humane Education at Antioch University, I  teach a course that I have designed called "Pronatalism and  Overpopulation" to explore the impacts of the pervasive pressure on  women to have children and its resulting impacts on them, their  families, non-human animals, as well as the planet.

I’ve come to see human overpopulation as an issue that inextricably  intersects with human rights, animal protection, and environmental  restoration. Population growth is not only a cause of immense suffering  for marginalised human and ecological communities, present and future,  but it is premised upon oppressive power structures. Current pronalist  structures around the world are mired in a type of population control  that pressures, and often coerces women into procreating. Driven by  patriarchal, religious, cultural, political, or economic ideologies,  such pressures prevent women and couples from making liberated,  informed, and responsible family size decisions, including how they  define family.

I feel an urgent need to pierce through overpopulation denial so that we  can collectively begin to dismantle the power structures that are  threatening all life on earth.'

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