-By Kevin Roeten
The ‘left’ must be shaking in their boots to see the latest trends of the pro-life juggernaut. More and more people consider themselves pro-life, and favor more restrictions on abortion. The lean towards being pro-life is growing, especially with the young adult.
They understand babies begin sometime, and realize the most obvious answer is at conception. Men, especially, know if they’re in the woods hunting deer and they hear something, prudence dictates to wait and make sure it’s a deer. But it’s already known to be a baby if a woman’s pregnant.
The now commonplace practices of birth control, abortifacient use, late-term abortion (all 3 can be abortion), same-sex marriage, and sterilization were not typically thought of 100 years ago.
With birth control, the uterus is always made inhospitable for implantation, whether the fertilized embryo comes for a visit or not. If the fertilized embryo does visit, it usually can’t implant and is aborted. With same-sex marriage and sterilization, there’s only one purpose–and it’s not population generation.
All mentioned procedures cull the population. Each woman has a set number of eggs she can offer to become children. During the fertile years fewer than 500 of these eggs will be released into the fallopian tubes. Age, or other variables, can dictate how many eggs are left. Previous abortions will affect the number available, especially if it has spurred the onslaught of breast cancer, which will shorten the woman’s lifetime. AIDS/HIV, and the elimination of DDT (tens of millions get malaria without repulsion or death of mosquitoes) count for millions of deaths each year.
Things will get more dramatic, and time will seem to accelerate. People will start to realize that population could actually top out in the year 2050. Remember the eighties, when everyone thought world population would spiral out of control? But Defusing the Population Bomb | Stephen Moore | Cato Institute … factually obliterates “Bomb”—with the latest population information.
One can physically see that a woman’s fertility rate must be at least 2.1 babies to just replace existing population. The global fertility rate was 6.0 in 1970, but in 2000 it was only 2.9. In WORLD POPULATION TO 2300, the UN says the population will top out (stop increasing) in the year 2050. Now, all that’s changed.
In 2009, the UN revised its population forecast to show a 2.05 fertility rate for the US. By 2050 the US “medium variant” will be 1.85, and the world’s fertility rate will be 2.02 [UNdata | record view | Total fertility rate (children per woman)]. That’s the believed likely scenario, not the worst. And that’s below the minimum replacement rate of 2.1.
Very recent information dictates population will peak at around seven billion in 2030, and then begin a long descent, essentially within the UN Population Division’s (Nov ‘96) “low variant” prediction.
When population tops out or maximizes, growth completely stops. Unfortunately, after that, it will begin to spiral downward. One does not realize how contraception, an ageing population, and usual treatments for AIDS/HIV and malaria accelerate a falling fertility rate. If one is using contraception, sex is only a toy, and there’s no intention to increase population.
Abortion in the US peaked in 1990 (1.6 million fewer lives/yr). Even though abortions dropped to 1.2 million thanks to pro-lifers, PP abortions doubled. For 15 years straight, the number of abortions has risen at PP from 8% to 27%. Their plans usually don’t involve parenthood, and their number of abortions-to-adoption referrals is 340-1 (www.NRLC.org; 2/2011 edition). Yet they take >$360 million/yr of taxpayer money.
Already, most European countries know their dilemmas, and know their populations are dying off. Even Russia is paying their citizens to go home and have babies.
As one ages, possibilities of conception become dimmer. With abortion and life longevity increases, there are much fewer able to conceive. With AIDS/HIV and malaria prevalent, there will be significantly fewer people available, and even fewer able to conceive in upcoming years.
Steve Mosher reiterates parts of the above in Too many people? Not by a long shot. Peoples and countries already exist now that know the problem of low fertility rates, but will not do what needs be done to increase population. But by time they realize the actuality of population extinction, it’ll be too late.
We know that our minds extending fifty years into the future can be accomplished. The difficulty is changing the way we do things in twenty. That, will be a monumental leap.
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Kevin Roeten has written columns for over 10 years, after being a Chemical Engineer with Dupont for 20. A devout Catholic and staunch conservative, he loves to marry the ‘third rail’ of religion and politics into many of his articles.
Kevin Roeten can be reached at roetenks@charter.net.