Posted on Feb 20, 2009 | by Staff

WASHINGTON (BP)--Families should be restricted to two children, with abortion part of the population control effort to protect the environment, Britain's "green" adviser says.

"I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible," said Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the English government's Sustainable Development Commission, The Times of London reported Feb. 1.

"I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate," Porritt said.

American bioethics specialist Wesley Smith attacked Porritt's position.

"'[S]aving the planet' could come to be seen as so urgent as to justify a plethora of pernicious policies," including euthanasia and mandated eugenic infanticide, Smith wrote on his weblog Feb. 1. "[W]e wouldn't want the planet burdened with useless carbon dioxide exhalers, would we?"
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Compiled by Baptist Press Washington bureau chief Tom Strode.