What the pope is saying is that we the world's population per capita is growing very rapidly. Because of this threat to our available natural resources, governments are tempted to take drastic measure to control this boom. This can include the children laws of China, abortion, and birth control.
Webster defines the meaning of harsh, basically that governments will be "grim or unpleasantly severe; stern; cruel; austere" in order to control this dilemma. This has some good value for society. We can see the horrible treatment of children in China, due to the over population. Couples sometimes even abort their offspring in order to have a specific gender. This completely defines the word harsh. However this could be avoided by the same measures that are deemed harmful. Birth control allows for couples to have a very large control over when they have children, or how many they have. By fighting against the very notion of a way to stop a nation from becoming like China, its allowing it to happen.
This can come with many unforeseen consequences. If people resist the "harsh" ideas that the public will be coaxed to try, then there is no fix for the issue at hand. Its is obvious that because this is even a fear, that man is already in a way out of control with his body. If he was following sternly to the pope's beliefs, there would be no fear or need for population control. This can lead to social pressures to have abortion measures that are not sanctioned by medical science. If their is no prevention, since man cannot control its own population (why its in a boom) we will eventually run out resources. While adhering to the pope's idea that a population out of control will lead to harsh ideas (China), we must not reject humane means of controlling population, such as birth control. It is population control,
I think that there is strong argument for contraceptives when it comes to the topic of population control. China being the case, overrides any religious justification, one because Catholicism is not the official religion, two even if it was I would doubt that the country would be under theocracy. Another aspect of many countries on the brink of overpopulation is the fact that the governments will issue policies that its sees fit, regardless of any religious resistance. Politics will simply override religion, if religion becomes threatening to political cause.
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