^{Jane Goodall and Prince Harry}  

Britain’s Prince Harry, the proud new father of Archie, has sparked controversy by promising primatologist Jane Goodall to limit his offspring.

The Duchess of Sussex, aka the Prince’s wife, Meghan Markle, has edited the September issue of British Vogue. One of the articles features Ms Goodall interviewing Prince Harry. ‘Not too many!’ remonstrates Ms Goodall. He responds, ‘Two, maximum!’, adding ‘But I’ve always thought: this place is borrowed. And, surely, as intelligent as we all are, or as evolved as we all are supposed to be, we should be able to leave something better behind for the next generation.’

What a paradox! Both Prince William and Prince Harry are devoted to removing stigmas that lead to mental health problems. But now it seems that anyone with more than two children could be fair game for bullying for their alleged role in ‘killing the Planet’ – including people like their own grandparents, who had four children.

Voluntarily childless couples, once regarded as selfish, will be lauded as the epitome of virtue. And when they face a lonely old age, no doubt they will be lauded for making the ultimate sacrifice and having themselves euthanased for the sake of the Planet.

And yet as Prince Harry admits about his own experience of starting a family, having children gives people a direct investment in the future. The more children people have, the less money they have to spend on consumption, and the less strain they place on the Planet.

In the interview Prince Harry also complains about the racism that his mixed-race wife Meghan has endured. Speaking of the effect of ‘unconscious bias’, he warns that ‘people must understand how their upbringing and environment causes them to exhibit racism without realising it.’

He seems oblivious to the fact that the targets of population control often reflect the unconscious racism of bureaucrats, and that environmentalism is being used as a cover for it.

Jane Goodall, who has only one child, believes that ‘population growth...underlies just about every single one of the problems that we’ve inflicted on the planet’. She is quoted on the Population Matters website, which also quotes its patron, Sir David Attenborough: ‘All our environmental problems become easier to solve with fewer people, and harder — and ultimately impossible — to solve with ever more people.’

And what images of what kind of people festoon the Population Matters website? People of colour. The subliminal message for readers: the fewer of these the better.

It seems that even the Royals want to be ‘in with the in crowd’. But they should beware of jumping on bandwagons before they know where they are going.

In 2017 Prince William – who now has three children -- also warned that 'rapidly growing human population' risks 'having a "terrible impact" on the world’s wild animals'. He singled out Africa’s ‘rapidly growing human population’, predicted to ‘more than double by 2050 – a staggering increase of 3.5 million people per month’.

And yet despite their concern for wildlife, the princes, like their father and grandfather, have been very keen on shooting it.

They might say that killing pheasants helps to preserve the balance of nature and so preserves the Planet. But whatever their undoubted virtues – not least by providing entertainment for the upper classes by being shot – pheasants lack opposable thumbs and a decently sized brain and cannot save the Planet.

To my mind, this raises the question as to why abortion-minded environmentalists insist that killing innocent human beings will save it. Perhaps they would prefer it if the Royals shot peasants rather than pheasants. Goodall, Attenborough et al should stop trying to scare thoughtful young couples – including the Royals -- from having children.

Ann Farmer lives in the UK. She is the author of By Their Fruits: Eugenics, Population Control, and the Abortion Campaign (CUAP, 2008); The Language of Life: Christians Facing the Abortion Challenge (St Pauls, 1995), and Prophets & Priests: the Hidden Face of the Birth Control Movement (St Austin Press, 2002).