Abstract
This book is about a forgotten issue: the relationship between the legal system and increases in the number of Americans. Population size was a topic of considerable public concern in the period from 1969 to 1972, and during that time the legal aspects of population control attracted attention. Unfortunately, there has been no sustained interest in the legal implications of domestic population increase. However, it is very likely just a matter of time before the United States adopts a population policy — a policy in which law will play a central role. Population increase is not a major issue today, but the problem still exists and is not improving.
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Notes
See generally Charles F. Westoff & James McCarthy, Population Attitudes and Fertility, 11 Family Planning Perspectives 93, 94 (1979).
Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, Estimates of the Population of the United States and Components of Change: 1940 to 1978, Current Population Reports, Series P-25, No. 802, at 8 (1979); Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, Estimates of the Population of the United States to January 1, 1980, Current Population Reports, Series P-25, No. 878(1980).
Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, Projections of the Population of the United States: 1977 to 2050, Current Population Reports, Series P-25, No. 704, at 86 (1977).
Declaration of the International Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (Colombo, Sri Lanka, 28 August-1 September 1979), reprinted in 5 Population & Development Review 730, 731 (1979). Legislators from fifty-eight countries, including the United States, participated in the conference.
Id.
Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, Estimates of the Population of the United States and Components of Change: 1940 to 1978, Current Population Reports, Series P-25, No. 802, at 8 (1979).
Id. at 3.
National Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Department of Health, Education, & Welfare, Fertility Tables for Birth Cohorts by Color: United States, 1917–73 4, 124 (DHEW Pub. No. (HRA) 76-1152; Washington, D.C.: U.S. Gov’t. Printing Office, 1976); Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, Fertility of American Women: June 1978, Current Population Reports, Series P-20, No. 341, at 32 (1979).
Bureau of the Census, supra note 8, at 10; Bureau of the Census, supra note 6, at 3.
Between 1970 and 1978, the number of Americans of childbearing age (i.e., 15 through 44 years old) increased from 85 million to 100 million. Americans 20 through 29 years old increased from 31 million to 38 million. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, Estimates of the Population of the United States by Age, Sex, and Race: 1976 and 1978, Current Population Reports, Series P-25, No. 800, at 5, 6, 20 (1979).
Tomas Frejka, Demographic Paths to a Stationary Population: The U.S. in International Comparison, in Demographic and Social Aspects of Population Growth 623, 633 (Vol. I of the Research Reports of the U.S. Commission on Population Growth & the American Future, Charles F. Westoff & Robert Parke, Jr., eds.; Washington, D.C.: U.S. Gov’t. Printing Office, 1972).
Bureau of the Census, supra note 6.
David Heer, What is the Annual Net Flow of Undocumented Mexican Immigrants to the United States? 16 Demography 417 (1979).
J. G. Robinson, Estimating the Approximate Size of the Illegal Alien Population in the United States by the Comparative Trend Analysis of Age-Specific Death Rates, 17 Demography 159 (1980).
E.g., David M. Heer, Marketable Licenses for Babies: Boulding’s Proposal Revisited, 22 Social Biology 1 (1975).
Kurt W. Back & Nancy J. McGirr, Population Policy and Models of Human Nature, 2 Journal of Population 91, 97 (1979).
McCulloch v Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 405, 423 (1819).
Id. at 404, 423; Hurtado v California, 110 U.S. 516, 536 (1884).
McCulloch v Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) at 415.
The Constitution does not expressly authorize judicial review of the constitutionality of governmental action, but the Supreme Court inferred such authority from it in 1803. Marbury v Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803).
United States v Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 316 (1941).
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Barnett, L.D. (1982). Introduction. In: Population Policy and the U.S. Constitution. Kluwer · Nijhoff Studies in Human Issues. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2718-1_1
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