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FERTILITY IN AMERICA has been declining for years. According to the Pew Research Center, the nation's birth rate hit an all-time low in 2011 – just 63 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age. It was almost twice as high – 123 births per 1,000 women – at the peak of the Baby Boom in 1957. As babies and children disappear from a society, what takes their place? One answer, as journalist Jonathan V. Last observes in a forthcoming book, "What to Expect When No One's Expecting," is pets. In surveys taken from the 1940s to the 1980s, fewer...

The old adage "be careful what you wish for" is an apt reminder in light of this week's news that the U.S. birthrate has dropped to its lowest level on record. For years, population hysterics have tried to convince Americans to aim not just for zero population growth in the U.S. but its complete reversal. Many of the groups pushing this view have also been in the forefront of the anti-immigration movement -- NumbersUSA, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and Negative Population Growth (NPG). They don't like immigrants -- even legal ones -- because immigrants, especially Hispanic immigrants, traditionally...

Sick children are being discharged from NHS hospitals to die at home or in hospices on controversial ‘death pathways’. Until now, end of life regime the Liverpool Care Pathway was thought to have involved only elderly and terminally-ill adults. But the Mail can reveal the practice of withdrawing food and fluid by tube is being used on young patients as well as severely disabled newborn babies.

... While some researchers have suggested that fetuses yawn, others have disagreed and claim it is simple mouth opening. But the new research clearly distinguished 'yawning' from 'non-yawn mouth opening' based on the duration of mouth opening. The researchers did this by using the 4D video footage to closely examine all events where a mouth stretch occurred in the fetus. Using their newly developed criteria, the research team found that over half of the mouth openings observed in the study were classed as yawns. The study was carried out on eight female and seven male fetuses from 24 to 36...

Cleaning out papers, I found this that I had written and distributed without effect during the Clinton years. It was a 'back to the future' moment re-reading it today. "A group of people are bonded by a love of this country, gratitude and respect for those who have served to protect it, and concern for its future. Many of us were silent during the 1960's when revolution overtook America. We basked in freedoms bought by strangers, neighbors, and loved ones. We are the WAR BABIES. Born and raised in an atmosphere of trust that powers-that-be more or less kept everybody's...

“When a wise man has a controversy with a foolish man, the foolish man either rages or laughs, and there is no rest.” —Proverbs 29:9 I was going to title this column, “How Not to Be a Smarmy, Bellicose, Horse-Toothed Dork Like Biden.” However, upon deeper contemplation I thought I’d direct it toward parents as an attempt to save the next generation from the insufferable effects of the boorish Biden bug. To call Biden an ass-clown after last Thursday’s debate with Rep. Paul Ryan is to insult bottoms, donkeys and Bozos far and wide. I’m surprised Joe didn’t fart loudly...

OSAKA — Explosions at a chemical plant in Hyogo Prefecture on Saturday killed a firefighter and injured dozens of people, the Japan Times reported, citing local fire department and police officials said. Global production of diapers could be affected because the plant made a key ingredient in a resin used in them, Japanese media reported. A fire broke out about 2 p.m. after an abnormal chemical reaction at Nippon Shokubai Co.'s plant in Himeji, the Japan Times said. The first explosion occurred about 2:40 p.m. as firefighters were spraying an acrylic acid tank with water, and the second followed shortly...

A Carthaginian burial site was not for child sacrifice but was instead a graveyard for babies and fetuses, researchers now say. A new study of the ancient North African site offers the latest volley in a debate over the primary purpose of the graveyard, long thought to be a place of sacred sacrifice. "It's all very great, cinematic stuff, but whether that was a constant daily activity ― I think our analysis contradicts that," said study co-author Jeffrey Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh....

Hi Folks! Just read about this warning regarding Bumbo Seats — little seats that look even safer than normal seats because there’s a big, hmmm, I guess “bumbo” in front of the crotch, wedging the child in. (See below.) About 4 million — that’s 4,000,000 — have been sold. And now they are being recalled for retooling — basically adding a safety belt — after reports of 2 baby skull fractures. (Two, that is, while the seat was on the ground. Another 19 occurred when the seat was on a raised surface and presumably the child fell out or off.)Now,...

Americans witnessed a remarkable drama this week when some of our most exalted politicians frantically scrambled to reassure voters that they, too, believed that the United States ought to permit the deliberate killing of at least some innocent human beings. They apparently did so to persuade the public they are caring, compassionate and -- above all -- reasonable people. The drama started when Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican nominee in the U.S. Senate race in Missouri, expressed his view that no innocent human being ought to be deliberately killed. However, that was not the only thing Akin expressed. "What about...

An experiment five years ago suggested that babies are equipped with an innate moral compass, which drives them to choose good individuals over the bad in a wooden puppet show. But new research casts doubt on those findings, demonstrating that a baby's apparent preference for what's right might just reflect a fondness for bouncy things. The researchers who conducted the original study stand by their results and interpretations, pointing to some discrepancies in the new study. In the original study, conducted by Yale researchers in 2007, groups of 6-month-olds and 10-month-olds watched a puppet show with neutral wooden figures, where...

Members of Operation Save America, a Texas-based anti-abortion group, have posted online video of Virmani challenging protestors to “adopt one of those ugly black babies” and get them “off the taxpayers’ money.”

A woman has been hailed a hero after details of her astonishing work with abandoned children has emerged. Lou Xiaoying, now 88 and suffering from kidney failure, found and raised more than 30 abandoned Chinese babies from the streets of Jinhua, in the eastern Zhejiang province where she managed to make a living by recycling rubbish. She and her late husband Li Zin, who died 17 years ago, kept four of the children and passed the others onto friends and family to start new lives. Her youngest son Zhang Qilin - now aged just seven - was found in a...

Go vote for a well deserved family who submitted the best looking shot of their grandchild on "Disney Baby". Voting ends tomorrow at 11am, and I wanted to lend a hand.

Naydeline Blanco made history this morning as the first baby delivered in the new Marian Regional Medical Center. The hospital opened to emergency room patients at 7 a.m., and Marian staff and volunteers began moving patients from the old hospital into the new facility at 8 a.m. The little girl was born at 10:50 a.m. in one of the hospital’s labor and delivery rooms on the third floor, according to Marian spokesperson Jessa Brooks. Her mother, Elva Blanco, was visiting the area from Mexico when she went into labor, according to Brooks.

A lot of weight rides on the name you choose for your kid. And every year when the Social Security office releases the data on the most popular baby names, parents get upset. As a Michele who faced the extreme popularity of my name way back when, I'm here to tell you that if your child's name is on this list, it's going to be just fine. In fact, take pride in knowing your baby name choice won't be ridiculed.

WROCLAW, Poland, March 13, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Polish woman endured 75 days of labor lying in a nearly upside down position to save the lives of her two premature babies after the first of three triplets was born prematurely and died. Joanna Krzysztonek was pregnant with triplets when she went into labour at 21 weeks. Her first baby was born prematurely and did not survive. Dr. Mariusz Zimmer, head of the Wroclaw obstetrics and neo-natal clinic where Krzysztonek gave birth, intervened with medication to stop contractions and told the expectant mother that the babies might be saved if she...

On Tuesday night, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) appeared on GBTV’s 'Real News From The Blaze' to attack government mandated insurance coverage for contraception, which she claimed could lead to the "health care dictator" limiting the number of babies born per family. Rep. Bachmann said: “Going with that logic, it isn’t far-fetched to think the President of the United States could say…we need to save health care expenses…the federal government will only pay for one baby to be born in the hospital per family. Or two babies to be born per family. That could happen.”

Frightening images of babies as young as two weeks old being flung around a therapist's head have shocked millions around the world. And now the Russian woman filmed spinning the babies by their wrists and ankles has confirmed she hopes to bring the practice to the UK. Lena Fokina can be seen flipping a baby over her head in her bizarre 'baby yoga' routine which has been banned from a number of websites for fear that it glorifies child abuse. Many viewers believed the moves must have been performed on dolls but the 51-year-old says they are definitely real babies...

The IL General Assembly destroys audiotapes of its floor debates after transcripts have been written. That is why there is precious little audio, if any, of Barack Obama as state senator making any speeches. But a pro-life sleuth has found a short audio clip on the Chicago Tribune website of Obama arguing on the IL Senate floor on April 4, 2002, against Senate Bill B1663, a companion bill to the Born Alive Infants Protection Act that would have required an abortionist to call a second physician to assess a baby aborted alive.