'Bible Answer Man' slams Bill Nye's suggestion of penalizing parents for having 'extra kids'
Hank Hanegraaff, also known as the "Bible Answer Man," has denounced Bill Nye's suggestion that families should be penalized for having "extra kids."
In the 13th episode of the Netflix show "Bill Nye Saves the World," Nye and several panelists discussed the issue of population growth and how it affects the earth.
During the discussion, Nye asked the panel, "Should we have policies that penalize people for having extra kids in the developed world?"
Travis Rieder, a bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University, responded by saying he believed it was a good idea that should be considered. Earlier in the discussion, he claimed that children in developed countries like the United States typically used 160 times more resources than those elsewhere.
Hanegraaff, who has 12 children, took to Facebook on Thursday to criticize Nye for asking the controversial question.
"Bill Nye raised his anti-science rhetoric to a new decibel level in the final episode of Bill Nye Saves The World--suggesting that people (like me) living in the developed world should be penalized for having 'extra kids.' Why? Because in his view we are woeful contributors to climate change," Hanegraaff wrote.
"In truth, whether one has 2 or 12 (as in our case) is less important than whether my children grow up to be selfless producers as opposed to merely selfish consumers," he added.
Hanegraaff has previously stated that he has received many questions about whether people should control the number of children that they have.
In a 2010 article for the Christian Research Institute, he narrated that he initially did not want to have a huge family because he wanted to focus on his ministry, but his wife did. He said he was glad that he listened to his wife because he "cannot imagine life" without his kids.
Other panelists on Nye's show shared their concern about penalizing families for having more children.
Dr. Rachel Snow, chief of population development of the United Nations Population Fund, took issue with the idea of incentivizing fewer or more children.
Nerys Benfield, an abortionist who practices at the Montefiore Medical Center in New York City, pointed to the history of compulsory sterilization in America, which was in place as recently as the 1970s. She said that the issue of sterilization had not been approached from a position of "justice" in the past, and she asked whether it would be just if it is applied today.
In an interview with CNN last week, Nye defended his views, saying he wanted people to address the issue of climate change so that everyone can participate in taking care of the planet.