What’s wrong with this picture?
By Tom Quiner
A big road project was held up near us a few years ago because of a bug or a rodent.
I forget which, but it was on the endangered species list. Its tiny, tiny eggs or preborn rodents, whichever they were, were protected by law.
A million dollar “impact” study had to be conducted to see if the planned location of the road would work without hurting the critters. After months of delay, they were able to figure out how to carry off the project while co-existing with a few endangered species.
Interestingly, only seven states have birthrates ABOVE replacement, as you can see in the accompanying map [SOURCE: National Vital Statistics Reports]. The replacement birthrate is 2.1 per woman; in the U.S., our rate has dropped to 1.9.
We have a problem. Without immigration, we’re dying. Demographic stagnation is the kiss of death to an economy and to lavish government entitlement programs. Someone has to pay for them, and in this country, it is the next generation who is made to pick up the tab for these underfunded, over-promised programs.
This leads to the meme above. In the face of a looming demographic crisis, why do we protect the lives of bugs, rodents, and other endangered species, and not the human being in the womb, when our country is in such desperate need of the human fetus?
So you think people should have more children than they want for the sake of the economy?
I think people are good and that laws should protect the human being in the womb from conception to natural death.
I think people are good and that laws should protect fully developed sentient beings, especially given the fact that in countries where abortion is illegal, women still seek unsafe terminations and harm both themselves and the potentially independent human beings in the process. If you want to cut abortion numbers, campaign for better access to contraception and better sex education. It’s the only evidence-based way to do it as far as I’m aware. Do you have any facts to the contrary?
Yes, from the Alan Guttmacher, Planned Parenthood’s research arm: “More than half of women obtaining abortions in 2000 (54%) had been using a contraceptive method during the month they became pregnant.” Ann Furedi, the former director of British Pregnancy Advisory Service, explains the rationale: “Often, arguments for increased access to contraception and for new contraceptive technologies are built on the assumption that these developments will bring down the abortion rate. The anti-choice movement counter that this does not seem to be the case in practice. Arguably they are right. Access to effective contraception creates an expectation that women can control their fertility and plan their families. Given that expectation, women may be less willing to compromise their plans for the future. In the past, many women reluctantly accepted that an unplanned pregnancy would lead to maternity. Unwanted pregnancies were dutifully, if resentfully, carried to term. In days when sex was expected to carry the risk of pregnancy, an unwanted child was a chance a woman took. Today, we expect sex to be free from that risk and unplanned maternity is not a price we are prepared to pay.
It is clear that women cannot manage their fertility by means of contraception alone.
Contraception lets couples down. A recent survey of more than 2000 women requesting abortions at clinics run by BPAS, Britain’s largest abortion provider, found that almost 60% claim to have been using contraception at the time they became pregnant. Nearly 20% said that they were on the pill. Such findings are comparable to several other smaller studies published during the last decade… It is clear that contraceptives let couples down… The simple truth is that the tens of thousands of women who seek abortion each year are not ignorant of contraception. Rather they have tried to use it, indeed they may have used it, and become pregnant regardless.”
Obviously, sentience has nothing to do with it, since the Left protects non sentient insect and rodent life at the same time they refuse to protect human life in the womb.
Why don’t you learn from the countries with the lowest abortion rates in the world?
The Netherlands – lowest abortion rate in the world
” A reduction of unwanted pregnancies has been accomplished through successful strategies for the prevention of teenage pregnancy (including sex education, open discussions on sexuality in mass media, educational campaigns and low barrier services) as well as through wide acceptance of sterilization. The Dutch experience with family planning shows the following characteristics: a strong wish to reduce reliance on abortion, ongoing sexual and contraceptive education related to the actual experiences of the target groups, and low barrier family planning services.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7971545
Switzerland: unrestricted abortion and one of the lowest rates in the world
” A low abortion rate goes hand in hand with a low rate of unwanted pregnancy. So what puts Swiss women in a stronger position when it comes to control over their fertility? Sexual health experts point to three main factors: education, contraception and socioeconomic level.”
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/fertility-matters_the-secret-of-switzerland-s-low-abortion-rate/33585760
The last thing we need is to be more like Switzerland or the Netherlands when it comes to replacement birth rates. Those two countries are dying like most of Europe is. The Netherland’s replacement birth rate is 1.66, and Switzerland’s is even worse at 1.54. Europe is dying using the policies you encourage. It is a matter of decades before these countries are dominated by Muslim immigrants, whose birth rates are nearly double those of the rest of Europe. Demographics is destiny.
Great responses, Tom. Spot on!
In the developed world, are there STILL people that dont understand birth control and how children are made? With all the safety nets of our generous society, can women not see any other way to deal w/ this? I know excellent, educated people standing in line to adopt for YEARS. Selfishness is the word for this in country like ours.
Spot on the fall in birth rate in europe is frightening to me, having 3 daughters i am genuinely apprehensive about the direction the continent will take in the next 50 years or so.