c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is publisher of RNS and serves on the board of World Vision International.)

UNDATED _ On Tuesday (Oct. 12), baby No. 6 billion was born into this world. His or her birth was mostly a public relations event, a symbolic occasion to raise the visibility of world population issues.

On the same day approximately 24,000 babies and young children left this world. Most died from lack of clean water, decent food and adequate sanitation.

No PR firm was hired to announce their deaths. After all, nearly 24,000 had died the day before and the day before that. In developing countries, 10 percent of all babies born never reach their fifth birthday. But who’s counting?

Their mothers are. From the Sahara to the Amazon, women around the world are joined by the agony of lost children. Despite diverse languages, cultures, religions and politics, women who have lost children share a common experience and sorrow.

I have met some of these women. With them I have visited freshly dug graves, and I have listened to their stories. I will never forget one African woman who held up two hands and named a child for each finger. Then she dropped all but four fingers to tell me how many children remained.

I have no doubt that this woman would be happy for the mother who bore the 6 billionth baby. Women who have lost babies are especially happy to celebrate new life. But I think she and many others would be surprised to hear all the”good news”about population growth.

Experts tell us that the population of the world will start leveling off in about 50 years.”This is one of the 20th century’s remarkable success stories,”said Robert Engelman, head of Population Action International, in the Washington Post.”We’ve virtually conquered infant and child death. That’s one of the main reasons population has blossomed.” I know Engelman is dealing in billions, but the loss of 24,000 infants and young children each day hardly seems like a success story.

Furthermore, he goes on to say that the real problem lies with the women in developing countries who continue to have too many children.”More than 95 percent of future growth will happen in the poorest countries of the world,”he notes.

Engelman and others want to find ways to contain such growth, especially in regions where the economy cannot support a large population. This is certainly a prudent approach, and most world hunger and relief groups support some form of family planning.

But the overwhelming reality is that many women in the poorest developing countries lose more children than live beyond their fifth year. Family planning for them means having as many children as possible just to increase the odds that they will have any children left at all.

To discuss population issues without acknowledging this reality is to diminish their pain and to ignore the very simple solutions that could lead to a reduction in infant and child mortality.

When women meet one another, no matter what the setting, talk often turns to families. Through translators and in sign language I have been asked the same question the world over: How many children do you have?

In developing countries a second question soon follows: How many have you lost?

I have lost only one baby, a fact that strikes women in developing countries as a sign of good fortune.”Allah has been good to you,”a Mauritanian woman told me.

Yes, God has been good to me. But any woman who has lost a baby knows one is still too many, especially if the death could have been prevented.

As we focus on the larger issues of population, we must never forget the awful reality that still exists in this world. Too many babies still die every day from problems pathetically curable.

While we celebrate the birth of baby 6 billion, let us never forget to grieve for the 24,000 who still die every day.

DEA END BOURKE