Support Found for U.S. Role in Population Control Efforts

Americans generally view world population growth as a problem and support U.S. efforts to slow the increasing numbers of Earth’s inhabitants, according to a poll released Wednesday.

But Roman Catholics and Protestants who attend church regularly are less likely to support specific policies such as legal abortion and family planning programs than other sectors of the electorate, the poll shows.

The poll, released during a briefing at the United Nations, was commissioned by the Pew Global Stewardship Initiative. The briefing occurred in the final days of the Preparatory Committee meeting for September’s International Conference on Population and Development, to be held in Cairo.

The findings could provide moral and political support for the Clinton Administration’s aggressive involvement in the population and development debate--an involvement that has turned the U.S. policy of the last 12 years on its head, reversing the government’s stance at the last international population conference in Mexico City 10 years ago.

That stance has set the United States at odds with the Vatican and a handful of mostly Central American nations such as Honduras and Nicaragua, where the governments have close ties to a conservative Catholic hierarchy that fiercely opposes much of the draft plan of action being prepared for the Cairo meeting.

The key to U.S. attitudes on population appears to be freedom of choice, with vast majorities of Americans apparently agreeing that all men and women in the world who want birth control should be able to get it and that people should feel free to have as many children as they can properly raise.

According to the Pew poll, in a random sample survey of 2,080 individuals who reported voting in the 1992 presidential election, nearly half--48%--rated population growth as a “very serious” problem. That ranks the issue on a par with the spread of nuclear weapons and above threats to the world’s environment but somewhat below disease and hunger in other countries.

In the poll, 52% said they believed population growth will have a negative impact on their own quality of life while 55% said population growth may harm international economic development.

Asked whether they agree with those who say nature will take care of balancing the Earth’s population or with those who say there is a need for human intervention, 64% said they agree with the interventionists, while 29% agreed that nature will balance the scales.

A majority--55%--said they favor U.S. sponsorship of programs overseas to help other countries slow population growth, with 19% “very much” in favor and 36% “somewhat” in favor. Among the 42% opposed, 23% said they were somewhat opposed and 19% said they were very opposed.

The poll results released April 20 also broke down the respondents by whether they were Protestant or Roman Catholic and whether they frequently attended worship services.

Generally, Protestants and Roman Catholics are typical of the U.S. population, said Vince Breglio, a Republican pollster and one of three pollsters that conducted the survey.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 designating a “very serious” problem, Protestants gave rapid population growth a 7.0 rating, while Catholics gave it a 7.2 rating. Frequent churchgoers--both Roman Catholic and Protestant--rated rapid population growth somewhat lower, giving it a 6.9 rating.

The general population rated the population growth issue at 7.1.

Catholics and Protestants generally favored U.S. involvement in population programs, but that support diminished with the frequency of church attendance.

Asked if they favor U.S. sponsorship of voluntary family planning programs in developing countries, 57% of Protestants and 58% of Catholics said yes. But 52% of those describing themselves as frequent churchgoers said yes.

Overall, 59% of those polled said they favor such programs.

On the volatile issue of abortion, the survey asked participants how well their feelings were described by the statement, “I believe all women should have the right to choose abortion.”

Among Protestants, 51% answered “very well,” 16% said “somewhat,” while 7% said “not well” and 25% responded “not at all.”

Among Catholics, responses were 53% “very well,” 17% “somewhat,” 9% “not well” and 19% “not at all.”

Frequent churchgoers answered 37% “very well,” 17% “somewhat,” 9% “not well” and 35% “not at all.”