The Connection between Reproductive and Animal Injustice with Nandita Bajaj

Despite the many victories in the contemporary animal rights movement over the last 50 years, the number of land animals slaughtered globally increased from 12 billion to 80 billion. The dwindling wildlife and freshwater populations have encountered similar results. Human expansionism – through our voracious consumptive patterns and our growing population which has doubled since 1970 – is the leading driver of animal exploitation.  However, our exclusive focus on consumption with a failure to account for the rapidly growing population has undermined our incredible animal advocacy efforts. Destructive coercive population control efforts in the past and present have made talking about overpopulation a taboo subject.  This presentation, however, will use a humane education framework to explore the links between anthropocentrism and pronatalism - the unjust and often coercive societal pressures to procreate, and their collective impacts on reproductive, ecological, and intergenerational justice. This will be an interactive presentation and Nandita will facilitate an open discussion to unpack these complex topics together. About Nandita Bajaj  Nandita Bajaj is the Executive Director of Population Balance that offers education and solutions to address the impacts of human expansionism on the planet, people, and animals, where she also co-hosts The Overpopulation Podcast. As faculty with the Institute for Humane Education at Antioch University, Nandita teaches two courses - Human Rights as well as Pronatalism and Overpopulation, a first of a kind course that she has designed to explore the intimate links between pronatalism, anthropocentrism and overpopulation and the resulting impacts on social, reproductive, ecological, and intergenerational justice. She serves as the Advisory Board Chair for Stable Planet Alliance, an Advisor and Board Member for the Fair Start Movement, and a Board Treasurer for the Canadian Society for Humane Science. Previously, Nandita worked as Director of Admissions at University of Toronto Schools, a high school Physics and Math teacher in the Toronto District School Board, and an Aerospace Engineer at Bombardier Aerospace. She has a B.Eng. (Aerospace Engineering) from Ryerson University, a B.Ed. from University of Toronto, and an M.Ed. in Humane Education from Antioch University.