Garrett Hardin's Open Letter to the ACLU

Dear Mr. Glasser:

Your carefully written 8-page letter of recent date is full of common sense with which I agree. I will not spend time here saying "Yes!" to the points of agreement. At the risk of turning out an unbalanced letter I will focus on the points of difference between us. The basic point is this: I am concerned primarily with the future, and I foresee areas in which the verbalization you now adopt will cause problems in the future.

On page 1 you say that the basic struggle of our time is this: Freedom vs. Authoritarianism. I submit that we are reaching the point at which the basic struggle will be: Individualism vs. Communitarianism.

On page 3 you refer to the fact that "some women decide to terminate their pregnancies," making it clear that you think individual choice is enough to justify whatever decision a woman may make.

You surely have noticed that there is a widespread disapproval of habitual welfare beneficiaries who have baby after baby at public expense. I think this is a majority position. Many who hold it seem unable to verbalize the reasons therefore, but I submit that they are something like this.

As of 1850 one could have supported both (1) the decision to have and (2) the decision not to have, a baby. In a non-welfare state the economic burden of having children falls almost entirely on the parents. But now, 150 years later, we live in a welfare state in which most of the economic burden of children in the poorest families falls on the nation. If a desperately poor woman decides to have another baby, the major economic cost will fall on the community. (Even middle class families have much of the costs of rearing and educating children pushed off onto the community—which includes, but is not limited to, the child-producers).

A medical abortion, particularly in the early stages, costs only a fraction as much as a medically supported childbirth—not to mention the costs of education and other social services to the child for 18 years. So: when a woman elects to have a child, she is committing the community to something like $100,000 in expenses for the bearing and rearing of that child.

Is it wise to extend individual rights that far?

As far as community economic interest is concerned, abortion is an asymmetrical problem: the community suffers almost not at all from allowing freedom to have abortions; but the woman who decides to have another baby thereby imposes great expense on the community. (Curiously, the so-called "conservatives" of our time welcome community impositions, while wanting to outlaw practices that leave the community purse in better condition.)

Ultimately, as economic times worsen, the ACLU may recognize the unwisdom of a morally symmetrical attitude towards abortion and childbirth. If that is a correct prophecy, the ACLU is now laying up trouble for the future by espousing individualism always.

Even more difficult problems lie ahead, since what is at issue is "the population problem." There is much confusion in public thinking about this. To clarify it, let us agree that:

a. Birth control is an individualistic act. The individual can use, or not use, contraceptive technology.

b. Population control is an act of the community. A non-growing modern community would have 2.1 children per couple—but this is an average only, since it is not possible to produce 0.1 of a baby. The community must decide both the average number to be sought, and the means by which the community will is to be imposed on individuals.

This last necessity is obviously a frightening one to face. But we will be better prepared to face it when the time comes, if in the meantime we have not generated a lot of rhetoric that leaves no room for community decisions and action.

As a matter of fact, there is one important area in which we have already been trapped by rhetoric chosen a century before we understood what is involved. And I’m sorry to say that the ACLU has not yet perceived this danger.

On page 6 of your letter, you express alarm at the political move to "change the terms of citizenship itself, denying citizenship for the first time in our history to children born in America of parents who are not themselves citizens."

I have been informed that the U.S. is the only nation that honors such a claim of citizenship. Now it may be that 95% of the world’s peoples are all wrong and immoral, while we saintly 5% are the only ones who have the right answer. But the asymmetry should shake our confidence.

A full recognition of all facts should shake our moralistic pride. Here in Southern California we are daily confronted with hordes of highly pregnant Mexicans coming across the border at the last minute and having their babies in American hospitals—at American expense—following which there are three consequences: (1) By law and judicial decisions, the baby is forever an American citizen; (2) Out of compassion and concern for "family values" the U.S. never tries to expel the mother, alien though she is; and (3) By a further extension of "family values", the father then finds It easier to be admitted to American citizenship, following which the grandparents and various in-laws have an easier time getting in. The current residents of the U.S. are victimized by this tender rhetoric to the extent of some 0.5 million to 1.5 million new U.S.-born alien babies per year. (And the economic costs must include all the other family members.)

I’m sorry to have to say it, but I think it Is doubtless true that the present stance of the ACLU, as described in your 8-page letter, is soon going to impose unbearable costs on our nation. Despite the many excellent things you have done in the past, I cannot support you in the future.

Sincerely,

Garrett Hardin
Santa Barbara, California

cop. to numerous friends