I agree with where you are going with this one... But I'm probably not as big as you, when it comes to applying these principles to my loved ones and myself I can't be so objective...
I guess the reason I am posting is because I just wanted to put forward a couple of other considerations to the point that you are making.
While we talk about saving lives and the associated growth in population thanks to modern medicine, I think we also have to remember that modern medicine is also restricting population growth through birth control in the western world. Does the population reduction that birth control delivers cancel out the population growth that modern medicine delivers by saving lives?
In countries such as India and China, where one could say the population is out of control, I suspect that their immunisation rates and medical intervention is dramatically lower than the western world, as is their use of birth control. Their rates of infant and child mortality are probably much higher, and their average life expectancy is much lower (this is me projecting, I don't know facts and figures). But, does the theory apply here? When we talk about disease and death as a form of population control it doesn't seem to work so well in the most populated countries in the world...
Again, this is just me thinking out loud, I'm not an expert and haven't done the research, just working off of my understanding of the world and wanting to contribute to what I think is a very interesting and thought-provoking debate (that is a bit off topic).
I am not an expert, but here goes from my understanding.
China took the very dramatic and unique step many years ago, 1979 in fact, of limiting the number of children a couple could produce to one. Only. Ever.
This is a MASSIVE step in social change and structure for so may reasons. Primarily it was borne out of a desire to get some handle on being able to feed the huge population and tackle the projected issues socially and economically with such a massive population growth tht would have happened.
The policy has reduced the population by 250 MILLION. That is a massive number.
The reasons it was implemented etc etc are too many to go into here and really are for another thread lol but have a read of this China it really is fascinating.
However, one of the major reasons the population increased so rapidly (1953-1970 = 250Million more people) was due to a lowered death rate - which was a result of less war, and less epidemic illness among other things. The birth rate jumped from .3% to 2.8%
It is just an example, but it is a major reason as to why death rates are falling, birth mortality rates decreasing, are causing issues with population - and this increased population poses many problems as they will procreate and exponentially increase the population. (This is why population growth has been massively accelerated in the last 2000 years.)
Anyway, I don't know the answers, I don't pretend to, but there are considerations to be addressed, I don't have the figures to answer you in regards to birth control etc, although I would guess that it nowhere near equitable to the number of lives saved.
OT here now I think! lol
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