“They ask for bread and we give them contraceptives!”

— Malcolm Muggeridge

In response to the eugenic question, http://books.google.com/books?id=pV0eAQAAIAAJ&q=%22eugenic+question%22+overpopulation&dq=%22eugenic+question%22+overpopulation&hl=en&sa=X&ei=V1hcVN_dH4aoyAS-94LADQ&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBAWhat "What about overpopulation?" Seeing Through the Eye: Malcolm Muggeridge on Faith (2005), Cecil Kuhne (Ed.), introduction by William F. Buckley, Jr., Ignatius Press, p. 227. http://books.google.com/books?id=vTFa4eHUw4UC&pg=PA227&dq=%22when+I+was+young,+people+used+to+say+the+poor+had+too+many+children%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NXRQVOjiDcqAygTX2YCYBA&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22when%20I%20was%20young%2C%20people%20used%20to%20say%20the%20poor%20had%20too%20many%20children%22&f=false
Context: You see, when I was young, people used to say the poor had too many children. Or, at the time of the famine in Ireland, they would say that the Irish had too many children. We were taking the food from Ireland, and the Irish were starving, and we said they were starving because they had too many children. Now we who are sated, who have to adopt the most extravagant and ridiculous devices to consume what we produce, while watching whole vast populations getting hungrier and hungrier, overcome our feelings of guilt by persuading ourselves that these others are too numerous, have too many children.
They ask for bread and we give them contraceptives!
In future history books it will be said, and it will be a very ignoble entry, that just at the moment in our history when we, through our scientific and technical ingenuity, could produce virtually as much food as we wanted to, just when we were opening up and exploring the universe, we set up a great whimpering and wailing, and said there were too many people in the world. It's pitiful.

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Malcolm Muggeridge 37

English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist 1903–1990

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“They ask for bread and we give them contraceptives!”

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Malcolm Muggeridge 37

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