Political science

Science | Obama science czar brings a potentially radical agenda to a ballooning science budget | Emily Belz

Associated Press/Photo by J. Scott Applewhite

WASHINGTON—Forced abortions and sterilization are generally practices eschewed by all but the most radical scientists—but President Obama's science czar, John Holdren, called them constitutional in a 1977 textbook he co-authored with Paul and Anne Ehrlich.

In Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment, they wrote, "[I]t has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society," though adding that the current population didn't justify the practices.

The authors continued: "Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce."