http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/02-15-03/cultural_1.asp

Population implosion

Many nations are aborting their future generations, creating a
worldwide underpopulation crisis

Population implosion

Many nations are aborting their future generations, creating a
worldwide underpopulation crisis

http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/02-15-03/cultural_1.asp

http://forums.prolife.org.ph/yabbse/index.php?PHPSESSID=87094d4778b268132c3a0e41cac29b42&topic=321.msg568


Population implosion

Many nations are aborting their future generations, creating a
worldwide underpopulation crisis

By Gene Edward Veith

The president of Estonia goes on national TV to urge his countrymen to
have more children. Russian President Vladimir Putin warns his
parliament about "a serious crisis threatening Russia's survival": the
nation's low birth rate. The government of Singapore is trying to
reverse that country's birth dearth by sponsoring a massive
taxpayer-funded matchmaking service.

The United States is rare among its peers in keeping its fertility rate
at around the replacement level of 2.1, according to the Population
Reference Bureau, which provided the fertility data cited here. Europe,
though, is shrinking. Germany's rate is 1.3. Despite the stereotype of
large Catholic families, France has a fertility rate of 1.9 and Italy
has one of the lowest in Europe, 1.3. At this rate, there will be only
about half as many Italians in the next generation. There will also be
fewer Russians, whose fertility rate is 1.3.

Even nations that were once notorious for booming populations have
drastically slowed down in reproducing themselves. In the last 20
years, India's fertility rate has gone from over four children per
woman to about three. Mexico has gone from over four to just under
three. China has a fertility rate of 1.8.

African nations continue to have very high fertility rates, up to five
or six children per woman, but those lands are ravaged by AIDS, which
is decimating their population. Muslim nations, on the other hand, tend
to have booming population growth-Yemen's fertility rate is 7.2
children per woman.

Demographers predict that the world's population will level off at 9
billion, reports The Wall Street Journal. Then it will start dropping.
There may well be nearly 500 million fewer people by 2075.

Isn't this a good thing? Why are so many governments panicking at the
drop in their populations?

Although radical environmentalists like Mr. Ehrlich see human beings
only as "consumers of the earth's resources," human beings are in fact
the most valuable resource of all. Citizens are not just consumers but
producers. Having fewer people can wreak havoc on an economy, creating
both a labor shortage and a shortage of buyers.

A government with a
shrinking population faces a smaller military and fewer taxpayers.

Dwindling populations have always signaled cultural decline, with less
creativity, energy, and vitality on every level of society.

Already Japan- fertility rate 1.3-is facing the problem of having
fewer taxpaying young people to support the burgeoning number of
retirees, something that will hit the generous welfare states of Europe
especially hard.

Already Europe has had to import large numbers of immigrants to bolster
the labor force,

most of them from the Middle East.
Fewer and fewer
native Europeans-along with the dwindling influence of
Christianity-and more and more Muslims raise the prospect of the
Islamification of Western Europe.

One reason "old Europe" is not
supporting the United States in a war with Iraq is that politicians in
France and Germany fear the reaction among their Muslim voters.

Why the population decline? The worldwide collapse of what are,
literally, family values. Thanks to contraceptive technology, sex has
become separated from childbearing. With women pursuing careers of
their own

and men getting sex without the responsibilities of marriage,
why bother with children? For many women and men, pregnancy has become
an unpleasant side effect, something to prevent with contraceptives or
easily treat with a trip to the abortion clinic.

The dirty little secret of the population implosion, one seldom
mentioned by demographers, is that the world is aborting its future
generations. China has shrunk its fertility rate by its cruel policy of
forced abortion. (The website of the International Planned Parenthood
Federation has only good things to say about China and does not even
mention how the government coerces women to have abortions. So much for
"choice.")

In the United States, abortion ends between one-third and one-fifth of
all pregnancies, and the U.S. abortion rate is relatively low. In
Russia, the average woman may have as many as four abortions in her
lifetime. There are two abortions for every live birth. That is to say,
Russians kill two-thirds of their children before they are born. That,
Mr. Putin, is the "serious crisis threatening Russia's survival."

http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/02-15-03/cultural_1.asp

http://forums.prolife.org.ph/yabbse/index.php?PHPSESSID=87094d4778b268132c3a0e41cac29b42&topic=321.msg568


Population implosion

Many nations are aborting their future generations, creating a
worldwide underpopulation crisis

By Gene Edward Veith

The president of Estonia goes on national TV to urge his countrymen to
have more children. Russian President Vladimir Putin warns his
parliament about "a serious crisis threatening Russia's survival": the
nation's low birth rate. The government of Singapore is trying to
reverse that country's birth dearth by sponsoring a massive
taxpayer-funded matchmaking service.

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb, panicking the
world with dire predictions of a population explosion. By the year
2000, he predicted, the world would be so crowded that hundreds of
millions would die of starvation. Although Mr. Ehrlich's prophecies
have turned out to be almost comically wrong, PBS has produced a
documentary taking him seriously, and philanthropists like Ted Turner
still donate millions to combat population growth.

But the problem today is not overpopulation; it's underpopulation. For
a population to reproduce itself, the fertility rate must average 2.1
children per woman. (The .1 allows for child mortality.) The fertility
rate today among major developed nations is only 1.6.

The United States is rare among its peers in keeping its fertility rate
at around the replacement level of 2.1, according to the Population
Reference Bureau, which provided the fertility data cited here. Europe,
though, is shrinking. Germany's rate is 1.3. Despite the stereotype of
large Catholic families, France has a fertility rate of 1.9 and Italy
has one of the lowest in Europe, 1.3. At this rate, there will be only
about half as many Italians in the next generation. There will also be
fewer Russians, whose fertility rate is 1.3.

Even nations that were once notorious for booming populations have
drastically slowed down in reproducing themselves. In the last 20
years, India's fertility rate has gone from over four children per
woman to about three. Mexico has gone from over four to just under
three. China has a fertility rate of 1.8.

African nations continue to have very high fertility rates, up to five
or six children per woman, but those lands are ravaged by AIDS, which
is decimating their population. Muslim nations, on the other hand, tend
to have booming population growth-Yemen's fertility rate is 7.2
children per woman.

Demographers predict that the world's population will level off at 9
billion, reports The Wall Street Journal. Then it will start dropping.
There may well be nearly 500 million fewer people by 2075.

Isn't this a good thing? Why are so many governments panicking at the
drop in their populations?

Although radical environmentalists like Mr. Ehrlich see human beings
only as "consumers of the earth's resources," human beings are in fact
the most valuable resource of all. Citizens are not just consumers but
producers. Having fewer people can wreak havoc on an economy, creating
both a labor shortage and a shortage of buyers. A government with a
shrinking population faces a smaller military and fewer taxpayers.
Dwindling populations have always signaled cultural decline, with less
creativity, energy, and vitality on every level of society.

Already Japan- fertility rate 1.3-is facing the problem of having
fewer taxpaying young people to support the burgeoning number of
retirees, something that will hit the generous welfare states of Europe
especially hard.

Already Europe has had to import large numbers of immigrants to bolster
the labor force, most of them from the Middle East. Fewer and fewer
native Europeans-along with the dwindling influence of
Christianity-and more and more Muslims raise the prospect of the
Islamification of Western Europe. One reason "old Europe" is not
supporting the United States in a war with Iraq is that politicians in
France and Germany fear the reaction among their Muslim voters.

Why the population decline? The worldwide collapse of what are,
literally, family values. Thanks to contraceptive technology, sex has
become separated from childbearing. With women pursuing careers of
their own and men getting sex without the responsibilities of marriage,
why bother with children? For many women and men, pregnancy has become
an unpleasant side effect, something to prevent with contraceptives or
easily treat with a trip to the abortion clinic.

The dirty little secret of the population implosion, one seldom
mentioned by demographers, is that the world is aborting its future
generations. China has shrunk its fertility rate by its cruel policy of
forced abortion. (The website of the International Planned Parenthood
Federation has only good things to say about China and does not even
mention how the government coerces women to have abortions. So much for
"choice.")

In the United States, abortion ends between one-third and one-fifth of
all pregnancies, and the U.S. abortion rate is relatively low. In
Russia, the average woman may have as many as four abortions in her
lifetime. There are two abortions for every live birth. That is to say,
Russians kill two-thirds of their children before they are born. That,
Mr. Putin, is the "serious crisis threatening Russia's survival."

http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/02-15-03/cultural_1.asp

http://forums.prolife.org.ph/yabbse/index.php?PHPSESSID=87094d4778b268132c3a0e41cac29b42&topic=321.msg568


Population implosion

Many nations are aborting their future generations, creating a
worldwide underpopulation crisis

http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/02-15-03/cultural_1.asp

http://forums.prolife.org.ph/yabbse/index.php?PHPSESSID=87094d4778b268132c3a0e41cac29b42&topic=321.msg568


Population implosion

Many nations are aborting their future generations, creating a
worldwide underpopulation crisis