I am appalled.
This is really part of a larger discussion which no one seems to want to have. Why the rampant infertility? In my day, we certainly did not have any trouble conceiving and bearing children. Perhaps that is because we were much younger. Indeed, we had the opposite problem, and that is why we are seeing this problem now.
Today, society is shocked if a couple marries before 30 (they're so young) and further shocked if the wife gives up her career to bear children before 38, or older. No wonder they are infertile! Our next "problem" will be how to handle a generation children orphaned at 15, when their 65 year old mothers and fathers suddenly pass away.
Why do couples wait so long to start their families? Several reasons:
1) society requires more education to launch a career
2) society is highly upwardly mobile -- unwilling to settle for anything except the finest weddings, houses, cars, furniture, etc.
3) the economy requires both members of the marriage to work full time -- indeed modern society looks down on homemakers and soccer moms as useless appendages
4) the pill and other forms of birth control (as well as popular mores and public school education) have removed the shame and embarrassment out of pre-marital sexual activity
5) the "pill" and the "patch" does not protect women from STDs, thus rendering many young couples infertile before they ever decide to have children
Anybody around here remember the old TV commercial where a voice booms over the background music, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature..."
Modern generations have been trying to "fool" Mother Nature for the last 40 years -- and the results are definitely NOT NICE.
Why the rampant infertility?>>
Most likely complications from abortions and STD's, both leave scar tissue and waiting too long to conceive, many couples, would rather wait until they are financially stable.
There was a medical study in the past few years which theorized long term use of hormonal birth control immunizes the body against pregnancy. Even though a woman may stop using in order to get pregnant, the body has been trained not to get pregnant.
A plausible theory IMO.