Unfortunately, I don’t have time to go into detailed response to your long carefully argued comment. There are several points I would like to correct or inform you of however. The 99% figure does not mean that 99% of women are using contraceptives regularly. I believe the statement is that 99% of women have used it at some time in their entire lifetime. A friend of mine says that whenever she orders a refill of here contraceptive pills, which she pays for, the insurance company manages to misplace the order. This does not happen to other things she orders, so someone is obviously tampering with her paid choice.
Malthus raised fears of skyrocketing population causing wars and famine. The Chinese responded with a Draconian one child policy. The result is a sustainable population in China and a growing economy. Ruanda’s population grew to an unsustainable level land and resources wise, and the resulting explosion resulted in over 1 million deaths. A large part of the Arab Spring has been driven by unemployment of the exploding youth population in Arab countries, which if they don’t have oil are in big trouble in the future with lack of water and food facing them. Only the agricultural revolution by men such as Borlag and Lundberg prevented major starvation catastrophes starting 30 years ago.
I have no idea where you come up with the statement that contraception is NEVER win-win, without unintended consequences. After 44 years of marriage during which we always used contraception, I had two planned pregnancies, and two healthy sons. Sounds like win-win for us. Also, most women I know use contraception and are mostly happy with it and the results. Enough, I have several days of heavy work to do.
Thank you for taking the time when you don’t have it. That’s usually hard for me, too.
The “99%” figure comes from Kathleen Sebelius, not from me, and it’s just a small piece of misinformation she spread on the day she spoke in the WH pressroom. She followed it with “98%” of Catholic women USE—not “used” or “have used at some time in their lives,” etc., which might have made the figures slightly more believable.
Malthus was talking of all population, including the UK’s and the rest of the civilized world. Without the western world’s science, manufacturing, free enterprise system and charity, he might have been correct. But those innovations count, as do, as you mention, war and famine and, I’m sure you’d have added, disease. Another factor, believe it or not, is religion. Some religions, especially when linked to governance, fail to accommodate the growth of its people. Think India, China, Japan, and just about all of Africa, and the Middle East. There’s a reason the West succeeded in sustaining its people.
China may find the one-child policy useful for a while, but it’s going to find itself in Japan’s position within this generation. It’s got an additional problem, thanks to abortion, though—and incredibly overweighted male population, which will reduce their reproduction rate even further. As Japan learned, the one-child policy not only doesn’t work in the safety-net society, it doesn’t work in an industrialized society; and China’s on that path. All that’s left for it at the moment is overmilitarization which won’t go to waste.
You were, in one sense, lucky with contraceptives. If the figure put out by several sources (i.e., not solely by Czar Kathleen) stating that 50% of abortions are performed on contraceptive-using women, then I think it’s safe to say that contraceptives (or their users) aren’t always that lucky. But that figure may also reveal that BECAUSE abortion’s available, diligence in following the instructions accompanying contraceptives isn’t always exercised.
Lastly, though, and I hate to go mystical here, you’re obviously content with the children you have; but you have no way of knowing whom you didn’t have.