Why Britain Is Lost

Chapter 3,481

timesonline.co.uk

DR PIPPA HAYES, a Devon GP, has a conscientious objection. She believes couples should restrict their families to two children - and says she would not help to provide fertility treatment for women who want to have exceptionally large families.

Hayes, who underwent sterilisation after the birth of her second son, despite wanting a daughter, believes that large families place an insupportable burden on the planet’s resources. She states her beliefs on the website of her Exeter-based practice.

This weekend she said she would formally decline to help certain patients.

“If a mother of four came to me and said, ‘Will you refer me for fertility treatment so that I can have a fifth baby’, I would say, ‘Sorry, this is something which is against my beliefs, but I suggest you go and see one of my partners’. I believe I would have a right to be a conscientious objector if it happened.”

She said of her decision to sacrifice the chance of having a daughter: “I always knew two were the limit. That is all we are entitled to.

“I elected to have a female sterilisation a year or so after baby number two. I had no doubt it was a final decision. The question we always ask patients is, ‘What if your family is wiped out?’ but I don’t tend to think like that.

“I wanted a daughter in the first place but my lot was to have boys and I have got two lovely sons. My husband originally thought a nice big family was what he wanted, but he was happy to go along with my beliefs.”

Hayes is a member of the Optimum Population Trust, a campaign group that tells couples to “stop at two”. Membership of the group has doubled in the past 12 months to about 1,000 and it aims to double its membership to 2,000 this year.

This month an international group of scientists and academics is launching a campaign called Global Population Speak Out to publicise the “fundamental link between the size and growth of the human population and environmental degradation”.