Whether or not you agree with hunting, you will probably agree that managing wildlife population is very important to our ecosystem.

Human population is "controlled" by accidental death, sickness, attrition or natural disaster. We're overcoming limitations to population growth every day.

Even just a thousand years ago, human population was limited by the carrying capacity of the environment.

Today we have welfare support for children who can't be supported by their parents. We have people who move into the desert and cry "pump more water to us." People in the flood plain are crying "build more levees." We build cities wherein a shred of foliage can't be seen by inhabitants in any direction.

To what end?

The idea is that we are propogating our species. The problem is that we triumph in eliminating natural population checks and then assume that there isn't something being given up.

Reality check: the environment is paying the price for our "advancement." Expansion of cities, homes in deserts and flood plains, and forgotten waste sites are all a direct result of our regard for the elimination of population checks as a triumph.

Forget about a solution to that problem. Barring near-extinction of human life, we need chicken farms and genetically altered high-grow crops to continue to be accountants and engineers. We need those things in volume, and what is the cost? The environment.

If we continue on this explosive track of growth and expansion, well, the consequences will be staggering to the environment. And guess what? When the environment goes, we go.

Consider this: most drugs are synthesized from naturally occurring patterns or formulae. Take a few pieces (i.e. species) out of the puzzle, and we could have an incurable epidemic that would make the plague look like a common flu-bug.

The solution does not lie in cutting rainforests to "propogate our species." The solution lies in controlling human population. That's a tough pill to swallow, but either we do it, or else a future epidemic or food shortage will do it for us.

Now for the hard part: how do we do it?

We presently have a few unnatural methods, and this is fine, because we have an unnatural problem. First, I'm glad all these men are proclaiming that they are gay. There's a group who won't be having kids.

Another unnatural mechanism is abortion. Like it or hate it, it helps control population growth.

Becoming "alive" is like being admitted to the University (hang in there).

I'm sure we all agree that if all applicants were allowed to enroll as students, our University would not thrive as it does. We don't have the resources to support a three-fold increase in enrollment. Our student population control mechanism is called "admissions."

A poor method for the control of the number of applicants that are admitted would be a random "dice roll." It would be a poor method because high school achievement would be irrelevant, but it would control the numbers, agreed?

Consider female eggs as candidates for enrollment for a moment. Abortion is a random way of limiting human population. But unlike the admissions parallel, an embryo's previous achievement is, of course, an oxymoron. Ergo, rolling dice to determine which particular embryos don't make it is not unfair.

My good friend, Joel Anstrom, argues that a genome is unique, and therefore precious. I rebut that snowflakes are too, but we don't make attempts to preserve them. To me, a snowflake, houseplant, and embryo are all beautiful, but no different because they all lack sentience. They all contribute to the ecosystem by dying.

Applicant number 142-68-9845 was rejected, but what do we care? It's as though he/she never existed to the University community. If embryo John-Doe-to-be disappears by any mechanism, natural or unnatural, it will be as if John Doe never existed. It exerted no influence on any person. And it did not further tax our ecosystem.

Although children exert little influence on anyone but their family, they are sentient. I say life begins with sentience. Joel responds, "Oh, Admir Mesalic's opinion of what life is is what we should go by to determine the fate of embryos that can't voice their opinion on the matter."

My response has two parts. First, if embryos could speak, they wouldn't be saying anything. They haven't formulated a thought yet. Secondly, it isn't my opinion that should decide the fate of John-Doe-to-be, nor is it Joel's. The choice should belong to the mother-to-be. Has the embryo exerted any influence on her? If not, it can be eliminated like an applicant, and it will be as though it never existed.

As our intelligence and sophistication expand, there will come a day when we will more naturally limit the population. The mechanism of the future will hopefully be an approach of either abstinence or birth control.

It is my sincere hope that societies will see the need for population control in the absence of a disaster or famine.

It is clear that we are still in a dark age. We need a means for population control, lest nature provide a harsh one for us.