Margaret Battin (“Sex and Consequences: World Population vs. Reproductive Rights”) makes the case for the use of certain types of contraceptives as a way to manage problems of world overpopulation. She distinguishes between “current use” contraceptives and “automatic” contraceptives, and she proposes that automatic contraceptives are more efficient for the purpose of controlling population.

Currently pregnancy results in about one of five times when persons have intercourse. With automatic contraceptives, this number could be reduced to close to zero. Battin uses the expression “automatic default” to refer to intercourse that does not result in pregnancy; by this she means that non-pregnancy is the ordinary outcome of intercourse when automatic conraceptives are used.

Some automatic default contraceptives are already available to women. Two examples of automatic default contraceptives are the IUD (intrauterine device) and the subdermal implant. Automatic male contraceptives are in the process of being developed.

Battin stipulates that two criteria must be met before her proposal may be considered a moral practice. These criteria are universality and guaranteed reversibility. Assurances must be in place that no individuals or vulnerable groups will be targeted to receive automatic contraceptives. In this way, the criterion of universality will be met. The criterion of reversibility will be met when the automatic contraceptive can be removed to allow an individual to choose pregnancy.

Although Battin’s argument may ­appear to be a classic libertarian position, she is closer in this argument to a moderate deontologist in the Kantian tradition. Her criterion of reversibility places emphasis on the choice of individuals. The automatic contraceptive, Battin contends, must be reversible and the individual should be free to choose to have the contraceptive device removed. In addition, the criterion of universality aims to avoid the coercion of particular peoples—minorities, for example—to receive automatic contraceptives. The avoidance of coercion is a characteristic of classic libertarianism, but Battin is balancing individual liberty with the general welfare or social stability achieved through limiting population. Her argument in this case is closer to a moderate deontological position.