
In 1969, President Richard Nixon formally requested the formation of a commission to study the effects of population growth on the United States. On March 27, 1972, the group, called the Rockefeller Commission on Population Growth and the American Future, issued its report. Named for its chairman, John D. Rockefeller, and made up of an august group of Republican and Democrat lawmakers, policy wonks, scientists, sociologists, economists, and foundation heads, the commission’s recommendations left “scarcely any topic touching on family relations and the human right to life… unaffected.”