Population expert sees dangers as U.S. birthrate falls below replacement

Washington D.C., Apr 8, 2010 / 06:37 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.S. birthrate fell from 2007 to 2008 and is now below replacement rate. One population expert, noting that children are the “only future a country has,” warns that a scarcity of children condemns a country to stagnation, bankruptcy and eventually death.

The U.S. National Vital Statistics Report for April 2010 shows that the U.S. birthrate fell two percent from 2007 to 2008. It is a drop below the replacement fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman.

In 2008 there were 41.5 births per 1,000 teens aged 15 to 19, also a two percent drop. The report also indicates that more U.S. children are being born out of wedlock than ever before.

According to the Washington Post, an October survey by the Pew Research Center said that 14 percent of Americans ages 18 to 34 and eight percent of those aged 35 to 44 said they postponed having a child because of the recession.

CNA discussed the report in a Wednesday e-mail interview with Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute (PRI).

Asked whether the drop in births could be attributed to the economic downturn, he replied:

“Children are an expression of hope in the future. With the downturn in housing prices, and the upswing in the unemployment rate, it is not surprising that many couples decided to defer having children until the economic downturn had corrected itself. We will, I predict, see a bigger drop in the birthrate in 2009, when the unemployment rate closed in on 10 percent, 9.3 percent according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

He said birth rates have fallen in Europe and other developed countries, “for the same reason.”

CNA asked whether an increase in the abortion rate could have been a factor in the falling birth rate.

Mosher said “anecdotal evidence” suggests Americans are “increasingly aborting babies who were unfortunate enough to be conceived during this economic recession.”

He reported that more men and women are having themselves sterilized and contraceptive use is also up.

Asked about the broader consequences for a country below a replacement birth rate, Mosher commented:

“Look at present-day Greece, which is going over a demographic cliff because of a scarcity of children. Too few young people are entering the work force to replace retiring workers, entitlement spending is increasing at the same time that tax revenues are leveling off, and the government is technically bankrupt.

“Children are the only future a country has, and countries that fail to provide for the future in the most fundamental way--by providing the future generation--are condemned to stagnation, bankruptcy, and death.”

“You still don’t get it. The point I was making was, China’s finances are not in any worse shape than ours or Britain’s, and certainly a heck of a lot better than California’s “Greece’s Spain’s, and the finances of most western countries.”

This is true. However, the same was said of Japan 10 years ago, and look at them now. They are in the same death spiral which will soon afflict China. It won’t matter how much savings they have, they will do the same as Japan did to try to keep their economy humming.

USA on the other hand has a future.

Allowing them to breed themselves into a majority will inevitably bring about the complete demise of the free United States of America.

Remember that the people you are talking about, however indolent, irresponsible or ignorant, are human beings. As a fellow human being, and a father of nine with one on the way, I will fight or die to protect families and their right to grow and exist. No State "allows" me to make love to my wife. And no State, like China, may intrude on our bodies to make us infertile. I can think of no issue, save an infraction against Christianity, that would make me more furiously militant. In fact, controlling our right to reproduce would be a heinous infraction against God Almighty's first command to "be fruitful and multiply".

I am with you 100% on cutting ALL forms of welfare, including and especially government schools. But if you are worried about being outnumbered by Muslims, Mormons, Mexicans or morons, then have more children and/or encourage your children to have more children.

I’m not interested in being pressured into entering a breeding contest with lowlifes, under the threat that “if you don’t outbreed them, they’ll take over the world”. I’m also not suggesting the government should be engaging in prior restraint, but once someone has seriously abused, neglected, or killed a child (their own or someone else’s) or has committed some violent crime (e.g. murder) that obviously renders them unfit to be parents, we shouldn’t feel that it’s “violating their rights” to prevent them from having children. If we keep sitting idly by and letting more and more of them be born, this guarantees a descent of our whole society into socialism and fascism, and then you will have no further protection against government forcibly preventing you from having children if it doesn’t like your political views or religious beliefs.

We’re constantly seeing news stories about children who are brutally abused and/or killed by mom or mom’s boyfriend, or neglected to the point of severe physical and neurological damage, and the end of the article notes “she has three older children who were already in foster care”. If someone has had their day in court, and the court has found them unfit to keep the children them already have, letting them breed more and keep those until they do something horrible to them is just insane, and also shows a callous disregard for the extreme suffering many of these children endure.

Here’s a story from today’s Salt Lake Tribune. http://www.sltrib.com/ci_14870617?source=most_viewed Do you really think it’s okay for this woman to go on reproducing?

Yes, there are cases which are in the “grey area” and we need to err on the side of freedom in those cases. But we’ve got many thousands of kids born every year to parents whose past misdeeds are definitely not in any “grey area”.

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