13846 Birth-control
IELTS Writing Task 2
Essay Question: Family Planning
Example Answer by Jeenn Lee Hsieh
ielts360toefl@hotmail.com
IELTS Essay Topic:
Deciding the size of one's family is personal preference. In your opinion, should the government intervene in the rights of the individual with regard to family planning? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Sample Essay (Jeenn Lee Hsieh):
In most cases, overpopulation will hinder a country's economic development, so the business of any government is to encourage birth-control. Given that deciding the size of one's family is the individual's responsibility, the world as whole may face a range of problems, particularly the food shortages, unless population is under control at a reasonable level monitored by the authorities concerned. It behooves each country, rich or poor, to mind its own business, with regard to family planning.
For fear of overpopulation, family planning programs make as good sense in poor countries as in rich countries. On the one hand, without proper public policies, overpopulation in poor countries tends to keep them as poverty-stricken as ever, or even worse. On the other hand, overpopulation in rich countries tends to undermine the life-support capacity of the entire planet because of excessive consumption of mostly limited and non-renewable natural resources such as fuel. In either case, birth-control is necessary, and it begins from families, although it is the government's job to regulate population growth in tune with its ability to keep the national economy growing. Understandably, when people are in pursuit of better quality of life (e.g. health care and social security), birth-control should be considered as a means to the end.
More people; more mouths. On top of many problems related to overpopulation is that people need to eat, hence the danger comes when the global food supply may not meet the demand of expanding population. For that matter, all family planning programs pushed by the government must respond to the cruel reality facing the world when demand exceeds supply. It is because overpopulation would make it next to impossible for the planet to sustain itself in terms of supply of food, let alone other resources. The good news is that human beings may be the only intelligent species that know how to practice birth-control. The bad news, however, is that on the global level, it is not yet practiced widely enough, meaning they can do more in order to have fewer babies.
Planning a country's economic future depends in part on family planning because family is the basic unit of a society. Although the size of one's family is personal preference, it is advisable for people in rich countries or poor countries alike to keep in mind the best interests of the family as well as the country. That said, should the government step in to regulate population growth? (Essay created by Jeenn Lee Hsieh> ielts360toefl@hotmail.com )
