If You Are Contracepting, You Are Part of A Very Big Problem

Madrid Blogspot ^ | January 27, 2009 | Patrick Madrid

[NYer]

Global aging, combined with plummeting birth rates, is a catastrophically dangerous menace that only a few people seem to be waking up to. You may not be familiar with terms like “global aging” and “demographic winter,” but you will be soon.

I've been giving public lectures on the problem of global aging for the past 7 years or so, and my audiences are always shocked and dumbfounded as I explain how the West's ever expanding population of old people (due, thank God, to the ever-improving capabilities of bio-medical science), while a good thing in itself, will soon become a prime target for the forced-euthanasia crowd as the decline in birth rates among women of child-bearing age throughout the West (as well as major non-Western countries like Japan and Russia) forces an ever-shrinking number of younger, working citizens to shoulder the economic burden of paying for the retirement benefits consumed by the ever-expanding population of retired, old folks.

This is a lethal combination that will, I am certain, begin playing itself out with horrifying new consequences within the next 10, 15, 20 years. Perhaps sooner. It's hard to predict. What we do know for sure, though, is that the West has been marinating for decades now in the bloody serum of legalized abortion, and it breathes the toxic atmosphere of ubiquitous pornography, consumerism, and the contraception mentality. What would have been unthinkable to Americans a mere 50 years ago (gay marriage, a billion-dollar abortion industry, the rise of euthanasia, etc.) has become commonplace and increasingly  unremarkable in this generation.

Where are we headed?

American economist Peter G. Peterson, in his book Gray Dawn: How the Coming Age Wave Will Transform America and the World (Random House, 1999), predicts: “Global aging will become the transcendent political and economic issue of the twenty-first century. I will argue [in this book] that — like it or not, and there's every reason to believe we won't like it — renegotiating the established social contract in reponse to global aging will soon dominate and daunt the public policy agendas or all the developed countries” (p. 5).

What Peterson means by “renegotiate the established social contract” is: You retired people, as well as all you who expect to retire in the next decade or two, don't expect that you'll be taken care of by the rest of us the way you now are or expect to be taken care of. Safety nets like Social Security and Medicare may have to be drastically downsized or even, if things get economically bad enough, eliminated. In other words, we may not be able to continue paying for the burdensome expenses old people impose on an ever-shrinking younger workforce (Thanks, contracepting couples! Thanks, abortion industry!). And what happens then? 

I've been saying for years now what is being reported yet again in this article. What is now known as the “right to die movement” is steadily morphing into what will soon become the “oblicagtion to die movement.” 

The politics of “young versus old” is rising, slowly but surely, and we will live to see its pernicious effects. Soon enough we will begin to see how the demographic winter results in an intergenerational struggle. The younger people, who have lived their entire lives learning from the media and our culture as a whole that other people are only useful or valuable insofar as they do one or more of a few things: give sexual pleasure, provide entertainment, make money, or produce some kind of product or service.

30+ years of legalized abortion has hardened millions of younger Americans into seeing unborn children as “parasites” who should be eliminated because they are inconvenient and unwanted.  50 years of the mainstreaming of pornography (thanks, Heff!) have educated a wide swath of Americans to look at others as objects for pleasure. And the aggressive cult of scientism has successfully swayed many people to look at unpleasant realities such as aging, pain, and lonliness as intolerable conditions that must be eliminated at all costs. 

So, barring some miracle (and while I do believe in miracles, I also believe in Divine Justice), I predict that the next step in the morbid evolution of the West's enmeshment in the culture of death will entail such horrors as forced euthansia and cloning human beings for body parts. This will begin to take shape as soon as enough people who have no belief in God and no regard for the value of human life begin to realize what “demographic winter” means for them financially.

With that in mind, please consider the chilling points made in this LifeSite article:

Celebrated columnist and pro-family leader Don Feder gave a jaw-dropping presentation on the coming 'Demographic Winter' at the Rose Dinner which closes the official March for Life festivities every year. Speaking to hundreds of attendees, Feder suggested that the demographic problem of worldwide declining birthrates "could result in the greatest crisis humanity will confront in this century" as "all over the world, children are disappearing."
 
"In the Western world, birthrates are falling and populations are aging," said Feder. "The consequences for your children and grandchildren could well be catastrophic."
 
Feder noted, "In 30 years, worldwide, birth rates have fallen by more than 50%. In 1979, the average woman on this planet had 6 children. Today, the average is 2.9 children, and falling."  He explained the situation noting, "demographers tell us that with a birthrate of 1.3, everything else being equal, a nation will lose half of its population every 45 years."
 
Beyond an inability to pay for pensions, it is likely that euthanasia will be one looked-to solution to the aging crisis, he said.

"Demographic Winter is the terminal stage in the suicide of the West - the culmination of a century of evil ideas and poisonous policies,'" he said.  Among them he listed:
 
"Abortion - As I mentioned a moment ago, worldwide, we're killing 42 million people a year. It's as if an invading army killed every man woman and child in Italy - then repeated the process every year.
 
"Contraception - For the first time in history, just under half the world's population of childbearing age uses some form of birth control. Some of us remember when births weren't controlled and pregnancies weren't planned. With all the wailing about man-made Global Warming, carbon footprints and the ozone layer, wouldn't it be ironic if what did us in wasn't the SUV but the IUD? . . . (read article)

 

[ga medic]

I assure you that I cannot afford to have more children. I have 5 now, and 2 on the way. It has been a struggle financially, and I truly don’t know how I am going to pay for 2 more, including my wife out of work for a couple months. This has nothing to do with an expensive house or a pool. It has to do with the fact that kids are expensive. Mine don’t wear $200 shoes, and we don’t have a pool. We have never been to Disney World. We are not afraid to make sacrifices, we just have very little left to sacrifice.

Right now, I am praying that my babies will be born healthy and my wife will be ok. I am praying that we will somehow manage to make this work. I don’t give a **** about the Muslim population’s reproduction rate. Until you have been where I am, you really know nothing about this.

[steve-b]

More gloom-and-doom nonsense, just like the New Ice Age and Global Warming.

[steve-b]

For most of human history the human population of the Earth was less than a billion.

And every great civilization of those times was, by these gloom-and-doom arguments, critically underpopulated.

[annalex]

I have 5 now, and 2 on the way

God bless you for that. I assure you -- I've been posting on these threads for a long time -- no one's comments here were intended to hoist any kind of perpetual breeding program on anyone. Each circumstance is different. The Catholic rule of thumb used to be 4 children, you are well ahead of me and most. The industrialized West's average is, I believe, 1.2 children and that is very sad. The remarks were addressing 1.2, not 5+2.

[steve-b]

This "economist" needs to get out more. Driving on the Beltway at 6 PM ought to be enough to shake the delusion that the problem is too few people.

[annalex]

The criterion of national health is not the absolute population numbers, but worker-to-elderly ratios. They are driven by birth rates.

[steve-b]

That’s virtually meaningless, given the number of other factors (death rate, changing definition of “elderly”, productivity per worker, and a plethora of others) that enter into the economic picture.

[annalex]

Who can disagree. Everyone inside the Washington Beltway should be on a cot in a re-education camp in Montana and not driving around posting on blogs.

[annalex]

I agree again! All these are factors. The birth rate is something most easily adjusted. You know how? Ask.

[cowtowney]

“I find that interesting considering the underclass is breeding like rabbits.”

Don’t blame them for doing the right thing. Your upperclass should be breading like rabbits, too, despite what Nancy Pelosi says. But, then again, how can you afford that new Beemer or pay off that college tuition loan and have children, too? Right?

[Antoninus]

I find that interesting considering the underclass is breeding like rabbits.

They're also aborting like Margaret Sanger's step-children. Visit a local abortuary and see who the primary clients are.

[Citizen Blade]

Eventually the more populated countries will slow down and the ratios will be more static

China's fertility rate is 1.77 children per woman, while India's is 2.76 (and plunging).

This demographic decline is happening everywhere in the world where living standards are increasing. The poorer the country, the higher the fertility rate.

[Antoninus]

True, I love kids and would have had more if I could have afforded to.

That's pretty funny. You live in the richest nation in the history of the world, and you claim you can't afford more children.

[steve-b]

Actually, the other factors are far more easily adjusted. Everyone wants to live longer and to produce more, so no social engineering is required — just good old-fashioned ingenuity.

[Sloth]

Ridiculous. The idea that I somehow owe children to society is as abhorrent as some of the leftist greenies' notion that we are morally obligated not to reproduce. How about I manage my own family and ALL of you collectivist tyrants just leave us alone?

[steve-b]

Yep. The demographic transition is a natural result of social and economic success. Complaints about it are just the usual whines that spew from elitists when people insist on doing what they think is best rather than doing what the elitists think is best for them.

[Citizen Blade]

Ridiculous. The idea that I somehow owe children to society is as abhorrent as some of the leftist greenies' notion that we are morally obligated not to reproduce. How about I manage my own family and ALL of you collectivist tyrants just leave us alone?

This is only an issue because we have set up a socialist pyramid scheme of pensions, medicare and the like.

With people living longer and having less children, a system where people get to retire at 65 and be supported by the working population is simply untenable.

[Antoninus]

More gloom-and-doom nonsense, just like the New Ice Age and Global Warming.

And yet, you still can't name for me one nation in history that thrived while undergoing a major population contraction.

[annalex]

I never experienced a need for extra ingenuity while making children.

[steve-b]

Huh? So, you are pinning your argument on the premise that Stalinism is superior to the (partly) free body politic of modern Russia, Comrade Antoninus?