Is it possible?! Too many kids?! Yes, it is possible, for example when the families that have those kids don't have the means to care for them. And that, unfortunately, is the case of Haiti. Every child should be born into a family with the means to provide the basic necessities. But there are over half a billion children in the developing world who live in absolute poverty (Child poverty in the developing world, p. 31). "Absolute poverty is defined as: ... a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to social services." (ibid, p. 5).
It's one thing to have the means to care for a child at the time the child is conceived, and then to lose those means (through sickness, death, loss of a job, etc.); it's another thing altogether to conceive a child with no capacity to care for him or her. Unfortunately humans, like all other animals, are programmed to reproduce, and will often have sex without giving thought to the consequences (such as raising a child for eighteen years or so). The young are especially vulnerable to this: young girls are raped, or pressured into sex against their will, or lured/coerced/forced into prostitution; often the victimizers are older men (so we can't blame the young!). One of the most painful consequences is an unrelenting supply of unwanted children.
We in the United States have seen skyrocketing rates of teenage pregnancy (2004: 34% of teenage girls in the U.S. are becoming pregnant at least once before the age of 20), often pregnancies between two school mates, where almost by definition the parents don't have the means (maturity, education, jobs) to care for their children.
Methods of birth control exist which allow humans to have sex without worrying about pregnancy, but some religions (e.g. Christian Catholicism) deny access to these methods to their practicianers (while preaching against premarital sex, or encouraging other -- "natural", but less effective -- methods of birth control, such as the so-called "rhythm method".).
Now to Haiti: Haiti is 80 percent Catholic. Hence, at least 80 percent of Haitians receive the message that the most effective means of birth (aside from abstinance from sex) is morally forbidden. This leads to an excess of unwanted births and births to parents incapable of caring for their young.
On the Geo-political side, the Bush Administration has withheld funding for family planning programs, because of the current regime's opposition to funding for any program which has any association with abortion. In the "cut off your nose to spite your face" category, the United States refusal to fund family planning means millions upon millions of impoverished children will be born, and will one day be crying out for food, shelter, protection from despotic governemt, etc.: and then the United States will pay a higher price.
I'm reminded of a trip that I took to Niamey, Niger, while in the Peace Corps in the late '80s. We were playing in a softball tournament, with teams from all over West Africa. As we drove to Niamey, and I surveyed the desolate land, I asked myself how it could possible support millians of people (now 12,894,865 million people?
The answer was partly "Food for Peace", a program of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). And as long as that aid program functioned, there was some security. But what would happen, I asked myself, when the U.S. decided that they didn't want to fund the program anymore? There was certainly no way for the land to support that many people. These people were on a life-line that could be severed at the pleasure of a foreign power. Take about insecurity....
I can't resist one additional little story about the trip: we were surprised to arrive and find a beautiful grass field with smooth dirt infield. We'd become accustomed to playing on rocky, semi-level spaces. Not only that, but it was lined! Where did they get the chalk? Then one of my buddies bent over, looked at the line, wet his finger, picked up some of the line, and licked it. "Flour", he said. "Food for Peace", said one of USAID team members....
Links: