Human beings perform 46 million abortions annually around the planet. Year in and year out! That's 46 million women requesting and accepting an abortion of their fetus. According to the World Health Organization, 96 percent of those abortions represent a secondary form of birth control. That means they did not have access to birth control on the front end. It means they either couldn't feed a child, shelter it or provide for it-or they already had birthed too many children they couldn't feed or care for.

At the same time, eight million adults and 10 million children under the age of 12 die of starvation and related diseases annually around this planet-18 million human beings. Year in and year out! In my world bicycle travels, I witnessed such massive human die-offs personally. I also witnessed living conditions that would turn the stomach of an average Canadian, European, American. (Sources: Time Magazine, World Health Organization)

Two billion human beings live on less than $2.00 per day and over 1.5 billion human beings cannot procure a clean glass of drinking water. Over 2.1 billion humans do not have access to or use of flush toilets with water sewage treatment plants. In India, 1,000 children under the age of 12 die of dysentery, diarrhea and other water borne diseases every day of the year. (Source: <http://www.populationmedia.org>www.populationmedia.org) Yet, without birth control, India grows by an added 12 million annually, net gain, on their way from 1.2 billion to 1.6 billion in 39 years. The Ganges River, which I witnessed, flows into the ocean loaded with raw sewage, chemicals and cremated human bodies. It forms a 10,000 mile dead zone at its mouth-where few marine creatures can survive the polluted waters. Today!

Another impoverished nation, Haiti, long before the earthquake, suffered under 9.1 million people on a tiny island desecrated by human overload. They cut 98 percent of their trees. Remember Easter Island's human population fiasco? Result: extinction of their civilization! Haitians run billions of gallons of raw sewage into the ocean. They live in utter poverty, and yet, because the Catholic Church curtails any birth control, Haiti, already living in appalling human misery-expects to add another 3.1 million onto that island within another decade or so. Because of the lack of birth control, Haitian women birth thousands of children they cannot feed, care for or house. Illiteracy: almost 100 percent. Definition and cause of their poverty: illiteracy, religious mandates and babies.

The third world adds 80 million children annually, net gain. Fact: 57 million humans die off around the planet every year. Humans birth 57 million to replace them while birthing another 80 million to create a net gain-on our way to adding 2 to 3 billion more humans within 40 years.

In other words, the human race seems to love its suffering, its deaths by starvation via all religions that stand against birth control and family planning.

Here in the USA, according to Dottie Lamm, Denver Post last Sunday, "A full 69 percent of African-American children are raised by a single parent, usually the mother."

They birthed those children because they either didn't have money or access to birth control. Cost to U.S. taxpayers in Aid to Dependent Children: billions since 1965 when government programs paid for those women to be non-responsible for their actions. White, Black, Hispanic-no difference! Current food stamp usage: 43 million Americans too uneducated, too poor, or incapable of holding down a job to buy food! (Source: Reuters News)

Current high school dropout rates across the nation: 76 percent in Detroit, Michigan; 50 percent in Denver, Colorado; 55 percent in Los Angeles; and most other major cities. Result: 7,000 teenagers per day drop out of high school, 1 every 26 seconds-total of 1.2 million annually-illiterate teens hitting our streets. (Source: Brian Williams, NBC News, CNN)

We may prefer to ignore these sobering statistics, but they will not ignore us or our civilization-given enough time-complete breakdown of our welfare, educational, medical and prison systems.

THE GREAT ABORTION DEBATE

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted down funds for International Family Planning as well as in the United States, i.e., birth control, family counseling regarding "wanted births" as well as termination of pregnancy. They removed the very funds that could alleviate human suffering by providing birth control and family counseling for millions of America's and third world poor.

Let me be clear: I am not in favor of abortion. Used as birth control, it remains insensible!

Common sense: I am in favor of birth control so that abortion would become largely obviated.

If the House carries through with its 'charge' to stop family planning, sex education and family size counseling-its collective choice will generate added millions to that 46 million annual abortions. At the same time, it will cause millions more starvations of adults and children that do become born. It will add to environmental devastation now taking place around the planet as we add 80 million humans annually.

CONSIDER THESE FINANCIAL OUTLAYS ON TOP OF HUMAN DEGRADATION

Cost of International Family Planning: $130 million annually. Planned Parenthood in the USA: Less than $50 million.

Cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars: $12 billion every 30 days. That's correct; we pay out $12 billion every month to kill people. We killed millions in Korea. We killed over 2.1 million in the Vietnam War. We masterfully snuff out lives in other countries. We have killed hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan while displacing 2.5 million as refugees.

I must ask: how many rational people reading this column think it's okay to kill, maim and displace THAT many people in other countries-spend THAT much money on human death-and stand by to witness THAT much misery around the planet, as well as accelerating environmental carnage, while the majority of scientists assure us accelerating backlash by Mother Earth?

You find those actions unconscionable don't you. Yet by refusing to speak out, you remain complicit in denying to support birth control for women that desperately need it in the USA and abroad.

Tell me-and your friends-why you support the Pope's advocacy against birth control when you see the poignant results in Haiti, Mexico and every other Catholic-dominated country. The same goes for Islam, Buddhism, Hindus and other religions. What malady within humanity propels human wretchedness over common sense?

When will we Americans face up to the fact that it's better to proactively prevent conception rather than abort a fetus at the back end of that conception? When will we come to our senses and support birth control rather than do everything in our power to stop it-yet stand gasping in anger at the abortion rates?

You're invited to get off your 'righteous indignation' and get down to reality. Get down to reasoned thinking! Get down to the nitty-gritty of how fast our civilization fails to deal with reality.

As these children grow into illiteracy, poverty, misery, drugs, ghettoes and welfare-you pay the bills. We're losing the 'quality' of our citizens. Every human being wants and deserves to be successful. We need their positive impact on our country, not the other way around. Wouldn't it be better for the House of Representatives to vote in $140 million for birth control for the whole year rather that $12 billion for killing people every 30 days in Iraq and Afghanistan? Discrepancy: $144 billion for war versus $140 million for birth control. What's your choice? When will you speak up?

Next in Part 2:  Humanity's Future, Morals, Ethics, Choice, Environment