 VHEMT rejects government-mandated human population control programs in favor of voluntary population reduction, supporting only the use of birth control and willpower to prevent pregnancies. Knight states that coercive tactics are unlikely to permanently lower the human population, citing the fact that humanity has survived catastrophic wars, famines, and viruses. Though their newsletter's name recalls the suicide manual Final Exit, the idea of mass suicide is rejected, and they have adopted the slogan "May we live long and die out". A 1995 survey of VHEMT members found that a majority of them felt a strong moral obligation to protect the earth, distrusted the ability of political processes to prevent harm to the environment, and were willing to surrender some of their rights for their cause. VHEMT members who strongly believed that "Civilization [is] headed for collapse" were most likely to embrace these views. However, VHEMT does not take any overt political stances.
