Sean Hannity’s Falsehoods About John Holdren

Sean Hannity, on his attack against so-called “czars,” or advisers, has targeted John Holdren with the following bit of misinformation:

HANNITY: So we know the White House sought out Van Jones, which begs the question: How many more like him are serving in our government? Is Van Jones just the tip of the iceberg? We know for example there’s John Holdren, the science and technology adviser, who has advocated compulsory abortion. And then there’s Cass Sunstein, the Harvard law professor, who wants to ban hunting and grant rights to livestock, wildlife, and pets. Now we can only conclude that it’s time to take a much closer look at who exactly this president has now serving in our government.

What the heck is Hannity talking about. Apparently Holdren co-authored a book on environmental sciences over 30 years ago that discusses “compulsory control of family size” for countries populations with expanding birth rates that cannot be curbed by “milder methods.” That is not the same thing as “advocating compulsory abortion.” PolitiFact gives this claim “pants on fire” status.

Here is a statement from Holdren’s office:

The quotations used to suggest that Dr. Holdren supports coercive approaches to limiting population growth were taken from a 1977 college textbook on environmental science and policy, of which he was the third author. The quoted material was from a section of the book that described different possible approaches to limiting population growth and then concluded that the authors’ own preference was to employ the noncoercive approaches before the environmental and social impacts of overpopulation led desperate societies to employ coercive ones. Dr. Holdren has never been an advocate of compulsory abortions or other repressive means of population limitation.

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