Sir Roy Calne, the distinguished Cambridge transplant surgeon and father of six children, has now become so deeply concerned about the world population explosion and the resulting depletion of natural resources that he has written a book about it illustrated with his own paintings and drawings. The introduction is by Terry Waite.

Calne points out that in the developing countries science this century has bestowed the dubious gift of death control without birth control, and that unless the two are brought into balance "wars, pestilence and starvation seem to be the most likely way in which population numbers will be controlled in future." Indeed, we can see this happening already with all its attendant political, social and human problems, as migrants from the poverty stricken countries understandably attempt to smuggle themselves into the affluent countries to find work and sustenance. Since the publication of this book, the World Health Organisation has published a report (Bridging the Gap) stating that one fifth of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty and that one third of the world’s children are undernourished, and that twelve million children under five years die each year. Despite this, the Pope supported by Muslim Fundamentalists thinks it right to denounce birth control and abortion at every turn.

Professor Calne has come to a conclusion that is now being echoed by more and more people that the rich western countries should make the availability of effective birth control a condition for giving aid to underdeveloped overpopulated nations, while at the same time curtailing their own consumption and wastage. He makes a number of other useful suggestions of a more long term nature. He recognises the importance of raising the status of women if birth control is going to take root. In the light of this, there is something perverse about the fact that the leader of the British delegation to the UN Conference of Women at Beijing is anti-abortion activist Ann Widdicombe MP, who has recently been received into the Roman Catholic Church. Despite Professor Calne’s best efforts, it looks as if war, pestilence, starvation and superstition may win.

Madeleine Simms