Meeting for Sufferings: Quaker Concern Over Population (QCOP)

'One Friend asked if the minute could request anyone concerned with QCOP to send ‘proper detail’ of their complaints.'

by Rebecca Hardy 7th June 2024

After some routine business accepted on draft minute, the room turned to its first main item of the day: whether or not to renew Quaker Concern Over Population (QCOP) as a Quaker Recognised Body (QRB). Discernment on this had been postponed from the last Meeting. Also for discernment was the question: Is it time to review the QRB system, including guidance and its underpinning processes? Some concerns about QCOP had been raised, explained Robert Card, [principally that worrying about population growth in the global south was connected to racist tropes]. But ‘the issue for us is whether we are prepared to recognise it as a QRB, not to come to a decision of what the Quaker position on overpopulation is.’