Abstract
It is generally recognized that voluntary family planning is essential for the lives and health of individuals in today’s world. What is less frequently acknowledged is that family planning has decreased the growth of human population over the past decades. Despite many wonderful advances since the industrial revolution, humans have caused massive deterioration of the natural world. Examples include climate disruption caused by the increase in greenhouse gases and the sixth mass extinction of species. Without modern, voluntary family planning, these negative effects would have been greater. This chapter recommends increased attention to the global public health benefits of family planning by reducing the numbers of unintended births and thus the number of people contributing to our environmental deterioration.