Free Republic

A troubling trend observed in America over the past decade grew significantly worse in 2023. The CDC just announced that the birth rate in America fell to just 1.62 births per woman. That's the lowest reproduction rate recorded in the United States since the government began tracking this data early in the 20th century. It also represents a two percent decline from the already-low rate recorded in 2022, meaning the rate fell by more than half in a single year. In other words, even if every single woman in the country were in a potentially reproductive relationship with a man,...

Some commentators object to the way in which fertility clinics make pornography available to men as an aid to masturbation when those men produce sperm for evaluation, storage or IVF. These objections typically rely on claims that pornography is generally harmful to women, unnecessary and dissociates sexual acts from conception. In light of these objections, certain commentators want fertility clinics to divest themselves of pornography… …Both the porn industry and sperm retrieval are predicated on metaphorical surrogacy. In both cases, a substitute takes the place of a human body and thereby severs the ancient link between orgasm in intercourse and...

Four out of five Americans are being exposed to a little-known chemical found in popular oat-based foods — including Cheerios and Quaker Oats — that is linked to reduced fertility, altered fetal growth, and delayed puberty. The Environmental Working Group published a study in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology on Thursday that found a staggering 80% of Americans tested positive for a harmful pesticide called chlormequat. The “highly toxic agricultural chemical” is federally allowed to be used on oats and other grains imported to the US, according to the EWG. When applied to oat and grain crops,...

Let me suggest 5 major drivers: 1. Meritocratic civil service exams encouraged heavy investment in education. China institutionalised this first, but the system then spread across East Asia. Education became seen as the pathway for social mobility. 2. Education fever has spawned an arms race of intensive parenting. 3. Within China, fertility fell earliest in the more individualist northeast, where there is less onus on lineage. 4. Economic development has spawned cultural liberalisation, weakening pressure to bear multiple sons. 5. Given heavy expectations of parenting and cultural liberalisation, one child is increasingly seen as enough. To understand all these interactions,...

As per the Tweet below, China’s fertility rate is currently 0.88 children per woman. This is LOWER than South Korea AND UKRAINE!! Big if true! In 1960, more than 30m Chinese babies were born annually. In 2023 only 7.8m were born annually.

American conservatives fell in love with Poland and Hungary. The two countries stand as models for what all right-wing governments should be. Not only do they keep migrants out, they also promote pro-family policies designed to boost birth rates. Many of their fans want America to adopt these same policies to fix our fertility woes. But the two countries are not quite the paragon of fecundity some may believe. Hungary did boost its fertility from the lowest in Europe after implementing pro-natalist policies, but its total fertility rate (TFR) still remains low. Poland’s TFR continues to rapidly decline in spite...

I’ve been trying to put my finger on the Taylor Swift phenomenon for some time now. Evidently people pay obscene amounts of money to see her, and she is breaking world records on her latest tour. By all accounts (well, not quite all) it’s worth seeing, as Miss Swift parades out on the stage in outfit after outfit and dazzles swarms of people with a show like Superbowl halftime on crack.What’s going on here really, though?

Falling fertility rates in the United States will trigger a "calamitous effect" on the economy if it hasn’t already, experts told Fox News Digital. According to CDC data, between 2007 and 2022, the U.S. birth rate fell by 22%. Not a single state reported an increase in birth rates, although some experienced a slower decline than others.

A woman's fertility normally decreases by her late 30s with reproductive function eventually ceasing at menopause. It is known that a small molecule called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) plays a critical role in this decline, and scientists have revealed how this happens and have identified potential new approaches to enhance reproductive longevity. NAD+, which is present in all cells throughout the human body, begins to decline with age and maintaining optimal levels is vital for key cellular functions and healthy aging, said Perrone. Recently, it became clear that the same decline was occurring in the ovaries, contributing to the natural...

A team of reproductive biologists has found that spermidine, a polyamine metabolite, helps oocytes clear away damaged mitochondria in mice, thereby improving mitophagy during female reproductive aging. Prior research and anecdotal evidence have shown that many animals experience declining fertility as they grow older. In this new effort, the research team found a link between spermidine levels in aging mice and fertility issues. The researchers began by measuring spermidine levels in ovarian tissue samples of mice of different ages—they found that as the mice grew older, their levels of spermidine were reduced. They also noted that the quality of oocytes...

Same-sex couples have to pay thousands of pounds before they can access IVF fertility treatment through the NHS in contrast to the process for heterosexual couples which has been labelled as a “Gay Tax”, according to a report. As reported by the BBC, NHS England funds IVF for heterosexual couples who have been trying to conceive, unsuccessfully, for at least two years whilst other details such as age and weight status. However, campaigners are aggrieved that same-sex couples face a different process in that they need to prove their infertility before the NHS will commit to IVF but as part...

Moreover, the rabidly anti-natal propaganda of the policy has helped to create a culture in which children are no longer valued but rather rejected as expensive luxuries. When the government finally ended the one-child policy in 2016, it rosily predicted that the total fertility rate — defined as the number of births per woman over her reproductive lifetime — would rebound to 1.8. But China’s birthrate not only did not recover, it continued to fall. In 2022, only 9.56 million children were born.

Without unrestricted immigration, nations like the United States cannot survive unless women have about 2.1 children each (the .1 reflects women who do not have children). The bad news is that the U.S. is falling short in reproducing itself. Occasional exceptions such as the Baby Boom aside, U.S. fertility rates have dropped over the last two centuries and show no sign of rising to the 2.1 replacement level. We are currently at 1.6.The baby shortfall has huge consequences beyond potentially filling the nation with immigrants. An aging population brings higher healthcare costs, budgets devoured by pensions, shrinking tax bases, labor...

The Israelis are constantly told that one reason they need to accept a “two-state solution” is so that they can preserve a state that is “both Jewish and democratic,” which will not be possible if the Arab citizens outnumber the Jews. There is a need, so they are told, to create a new state where not only Palestinian Arabs, but also many Israeli Arabs, will want to live. They are assured that otherwise, if they hold onto all of Judea and Samaria, they will soon be swamped demographically by the Arabs – both Israeli and Palestinian — who, it is...

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — From Zimbabwe, where many must work at night because it's the only time there is power, to Nigeria where collapses of the grid are frequent, the reliable supply of electricity remains elusive across Africa. The electricity shortages that plague many of Africa's 54 countries are a serious drain on the continent’s economic growth, energy experts warn. In recent years South Africa's power generation has become so inadequate that the continent's most developed economy must cope with rolling power blackouts of eight to 10 hours per day. Africa's sprawling cities have erratic supplies of electricity but large swaths...

Remote work may boost marriage rates and encourage women who are already parents to have more children, a new paper found. Economist Adam Ozimek and demographer Lyman Stone, analyzing the survey data of 3,000 American women between the ages of 18-44 from the Demographic Intelligence Family Survey, hypothesize that “remote work during COVID made a positive contribution to the U.S. and potentially other developed countries’ fertility rates.” The findings come after the U.S. reported the lowest fertility rate on record in 2020.

In the more traditional, more oral culture of Indonesia, very poor peasant farmers can still have a better family and working life than most Westerners. To what extent can we restore what we have lost?

In 2010, Bill Gates famously articulated a four-part equation to reducing the world’s carbon output. Seemingly bizarrely, his first component was reducing the population — through vaccination. “The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s headed up to about nine billion,” bemoaned Gates in his now infamous TED Talk. “Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10% or 15%.” Until recently, I thought this must have been a gaffe. After all, how could vaccines reduce the world’s population? Well, enter the COVID jabs – if...

A German study has linked the experimental COVID-19 shots mandated by many governments, companies and institutions over the last two years to a plummeting fertility rate. The results come from Germany's Federal Institute for Population Research, which reported a "strong association between the onset of vaccination programs and the fertility decline nine months after." Self-described sociologist/criminologist Josh Guetzkow posted links online to the information: He reported that the study explained the fertility drop happened only after the "so-called vaccines" were introduced. Consumers now know that the shots themselves are suspected of causing a multitude of additional problems, including a wide...

In most religions, fertility goddesses are depicted as the culture's epitome of beauty, like Aphrodite of ancient Greece or Venus of ancient Rome. The Aztecs took a different approach, however. Tlaltecuhtli was a terrible monster that was responsible for all life, but paradoxically, could only be satiated by human sacrifice. In Aztec mythology , four worlds had existed before ours, each wiped out by a great flood . Tlaltecuhtli was a great sea monster deity that lived in the oceans created by the fourth great flood. She was described as having the skin of a crocodile, huge sharp fangs, and...