Lord Brooke and the Malthusian Mind Virus in Our Time

Lord Brooke should be ashamed of himself

When Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe rose recently in the House of Lords to speak on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, one could not have anticipated the detour his remarks would take. Instead of focusing solely on the grave ethical questions surrounding assisted dying, Lord Brooke turned his attention to population growth and its supposed role in climate change. In words that startled many in attendance and later provoked widespread commentary, he declared:

…this century’s growth in the world population from 6.1 billion to 8.2 billion – a 25% increase in 25 years. Just think what the 2025 numbers would be if abortion had not been legalised or there had not been wide-scale usage and advocacy of contraception. Indeed, the growth of homosexuality throughout society has reduced the number of children that we would have had. Had the churches had their way, we would have had a very much bigger population than we presently have, facing the difficulties we have with climate change.

Some observers were horrified. Nikki da Costa, a former Director of Legislative Affairs at No 10, asked pointedly in a widely viewed and commented upon X post whether Lord Brooke was “advocating for assisted dying as a tool of population control” and noted that it was “an extraordinary contribution suggesting human life be actively sacrificed to prevent climate change”. The Spectator’s Madeleine Grant was even more scathing: “This was without doubt one of the most surreal speeches I have ever heard in my years covering Parliament,” she wrote, adding that “This peer’s Assisted Suicide speech was truly bonkers.”