The US Birth Rate Is Bouncing Back From the Pandemic (marketwatch.com) 145
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MarketWatch: When the pandemic hit, the stay-at-home orders didn't give American families more babies, instead, it generated a "baby bust." Now, economists found that the so-called bust recovered just as quickly as the economy picked up. Recessions and a decline in birth rates go hand-in-hand in history -- as seen with the 2008 financial crisis and the 1918 influenza, when the pandemic started in early 2020. Similarly, economists predicted that a sharp decrease in jobs and household spending would result in a fall in conception rates.
Job cuts and business shutdowns resulted in 62,000 "missing births" in the U.S. from January 2020 to May 2020, the paper found. The lowest dip in approximate conception numbers happened in April, when the country saw the highest COVID-era unemployment rate at 14.7%. But the "baby bust" was short-lived due to a rebound of 51,000 conceptions later in 2020, driven by fast growth in the labor market and the arrival of government relief programs to individuals and households. The paper, which was distributed this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research, used five years of monthly birth data from October 2016 through September 2021, the most recent month available when the researchers conducted their analysis.
The immediate drop in conception rate in the U.S. at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak was part of a bigger global trend for countries with higher incomes. Arnstein Aassve, professor of social and political science at Bocconi University, has found that seven out of 22 countries with higher incomes experienced a sharp decline in birth rates at the beginning of the pandemic. He attributed the explanation to a sense of uncertainty. "You may not forego childbearing totally, but at least you might postpone it until you see that times are a bit better," Aassve told Scientific American. He also attributed the sentiment to people's unfamiliarity with a new disease at the time. Kearney said the NBER findings confirm this pattern. By comparing data from different states, she pointed out that although the number of COVID-19 cases in the region also contributed to the reduction of birth rates early in the pandemic, people started having more babies later in the year regardless of the number of new COVID-19 cases. However, Levine said that the changes in 2020 are "far less significant" compared to the general U.S. trend in the last 15 years, which results in a roughly 20% drop in births. The decline in birth rates indicates a challenge ahead for labor supply.
Job cuts and business shutdowns resulted in 62,000 "missing births" in the U.S. from January 2020 to May 2020, the paper found. The lowest dip in approximate conception numbers happened in April, when the country saw the highest COVID-era unemployment rate at 14.7%. But the "baby bust" was short-lived due to a rebound of 51,000 conceptions later in 2020, driven by fast growth in the labor market and the arrival of government relief programs to individuals and households. The paper, which was distributed this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research, used five years of monthly birth data from October 2016 through September 2021, the most recent month available when the researchers conducted their analysis.
The immediate drop in conception rate in the U.S. at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak was part of a bigger global trend for countries with higher incomes. Arnstein Aassve, professor of social and political science at Bocconi University, has found that seven out of 22 countries with higher incomes experienced a sharp decline in birth rates at the beginning of the pandemic. He attributed the explanation to a sense of uncertainty. "You may not forego childbearing totally, but at least you might postpone it until you see that times are a bit better," Aassve told Scientific American. He also attributed the sentiment to people's unfamiliarity with a new disease at the time. Kearney said the NBER findings confirm this pattern. By comparing data from different states, she pointed out that although the number of COVID-19 cases in the region also contributed to the reduction of birth rates early in the pandemic, people started having more babies later in the year regardless of the number of new COVID-19 cases. However, Levine said that the changes in 2020 are "far less significant" compared to the general U.S. trend in the last 15 years, which results in a roughly 20% drop in births. The decline in birth rates indicates a challenge ahead for labor supply.
Anti-children establishment. (Score:4, Informative)
The US would have better birth rates if the private medical insurance companies were not so anti-children.
If you have private medical insurance, try to find their very well hidden public plan documents listing the stuff that their plans do not cover and you will be charged 100%: Anything related to trying to safely conceive a child.
Are you no longer a young healthy teenager and think you have saved enough money to raise a child ? Not so fast - If there's any medical issue preventing a healthy pregnancy, you are looking at $100K+ out of pocket with the most expensive PPO plans.
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Well, golly, given your grandmother, child birth is certainly not hard.
You: I can prove all men are bald.
Me: Ok.
You: A man with one hair is still bald. If a man with n hairs is bald, then a man with n + 1 hairs is still bald. Hence all men are bald.
Me: Ok Einstein.
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Also, you know, his grandmother died at 31 after popping out 9 kids because that is basically hell on your body especially without medical care. So it's more like:
You: I can prove all men are bald.
Me: Ok.
You: A man with one hair is still bald. Also if you have a bunch of hair, you're probably bald. You might lose it anyway so even if you have hair you're bald. Also babies, they're bald.
Me: Ok Einstein.
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Finances is exactly the reason fewer people get married and have kids. Since it's pretty much mandatory for everyone to work (stay at home mom? What is this, the 1950s? Where can the average Joe get a job that feeds a whole family these days?), there is no such thing as "ok, I'll stay home for at least a few months to have a baby" for most couples even.
We're at the point where kids have become a luxury most wannabe parents can't really afford.
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Young black men have no home life because single mothers can get more money out of government aid than child support.
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Ok, not in this world, but I'm sure somewhere in your head it does.
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There is a fascinating analysis at https://www.brookings.edu/rese... [brookings.edu] . It blames most of the increase on the decline of "shotgun marriages", pregnant women socially and fiscally compelled to marry the fathers of their children. And the study ties this directly to the increase in birth control, including the availability of abortion.
It's a counter-intuitive result, and strongly implies that removing abortion will reduce the number of teen pregnancies and unwelcome children if shotgun marriages are re-establi
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I'd like to see just how many people couldn't even afford to get rid of the fetus and thus had no other option than to deliver.
It's kinda funny that we don't have that problem over here in Europe. Maybe because we don't try to bullshit our kids into "abstinence" sex ed, because contraceptives are cheap or even free (frankly, I don't know) and abortions, too.
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If so then it would also imply that since the legalisation and easier access to abortion, the numbers of teen pregancies and unwelcome children increased. Did that happen?
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That and how many men are just choosing not to do get married or for that matter, have no girlfriend at all. In this day and age, it's too dangerous to just blindly approach a woman, the chances of being charged for harassment are too high.
I have no answer to that last one other than possibly telling women that if you want that guy, you're going to have to do the hard work instead because as men, we ain't going to do it anymore. The price is too high these days.
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I think there are even more factors than the "relationships are a legal minefield for men" factor (though that certainly is one). For example, women are turning their noses up at prospects as well, due to a widespread lack of financial attractiveness [nypost.com] in the available men. I have read many interpretations of this, ranging from "women make more money now so the supply of matched candidates has shrunk" to "men are all broke losers now," but the end result is the same: women are also opting-out, rather than s
It's a tragedy of the commons situation (Score:5, Insightful)
The reasons this has happened is that child raising is suffering from a tragedy of the commons scenario. Because we are moving away from the community paying for children towards individual parents being responsible, those who don't have children get to save more money over their working life than those who do have children. At retirement, the folks who didn't have children have more wealth with which to buy the labour output of the children who have now grown up and are the future workers. But they didn't have to pay to bring them up! This is a huge financial win for them, and a huge financial loss for those who had the children.
Hence it makes sense at an individual level to not have children. But at a societal level, if almost nobody has children, then when all those childless people retire they will find that there are not enough doctors, amazon delivery drivers, chefs around, so everyone in society will actually be poorer. However at a relative level they will still be better off than those who had children. It's really quite stupid really. It's like being arrogant about how you 'earned' your business class seat while the airplane is hurtling to the ground because nobody spent any money on maintenance.
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"if almost nobody has children"
We are nowhere near [worldometers.info] the point where "almost nobody" is having children. We have the exact opposite problem in the extreme: overpopulation and unsustainably high birth rates.
Annual global births have plateaued and are beginning to fall, and if it weren't for the high birth rates of the less-developed world, we'd already be below replacement rate. The only reason that the total population is still rising is because the population skews young, because of quickly-rising birthrates of a few decades ago. If current birthrates remained constant, we'll peak out at about 11B global population. In actuality, the peak will be lower than that -- probably we'll never get to 10B -- and then
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You mean to tell me every country has an independent and unrelated low birth rate?
https://www.weforum.org/agenda... [weforum.org]
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BETTER birth rates? The world is overcrowded, suffering ecological devastation from this, and birth rates are STILL rising globally! Why in the world would even higher birth rates be better???
It's still below sustainability (Score:4)
And every single country on the planet is going the same way as soon as they modernize. Even China and India's birth rates have hit sustainability or below. So we're not going to be able to just bring in immigrants to fix our aging population even if that was politically viable. Other countries aren't going to want to let us have their young people. They'll either incentivize them to stay or force them to at the barrel of a gun.
We're kind of at a crossroads. We're either going to become a dystopia or Utopia. I'm not sure which yet though.
And for anyone saying we'll just force people to have children there are plenty of countries that have tried that and it doesn't work. Women still get abortions and both men and women still get access to condoms and birth control pills. The only difference is every now and then those countries throw someone in prison for life or execute them.
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It's not the size of the population that matters (Score:3)
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I'm not worried about this for decades and decades. The world population in 1800 was 1 billion.
The population is going to peak in 30 years or less, then begin to decline, and when it does our current social safety nets are going to be screwed. That's going to happen even earlier in rich countries, and some countries in Europe are already starting to get seriously concerned about it. Maybe automation will make that a non-problem, but if not, it's going to be a big problem within our lifetimes.
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It not sustainable but the other way around.
I recommend to see the lesson "The Greatest Shortcoming of the Human Race Is Man’s Inability To Understand the Exponential Function." from Albert A. Bartlett.
Western countries like the USA may have a dwindling birth rate which compromise the eternal growth myth without immigration. But as a whole the world population is growing exponentially. This isn't sustainable at all. It's a bet when the boat is full (technological inventions may shift this line), but o
Immigration won't solve this problem (Score:2)
What this means is that those countries have declining birth rates too. Even India and China have hit sustaina
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Thank you for the good news. I hope these projections are grounded in reality and actually pan out. Overpopulation is a quick route to extinction. Curtailing our population growth is the long game. As with any long game, there are some short term hardships to endure. But even then, they are preferable to the hardships associated with overpopulation.
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Well when you look at the growth rate until now it has all the attributes of an exponential curve. It's nice if your prediction of 2.1 babies per woman by 2070 comes true, but it's still a prediction very far away. In a chaotic, nondeterministic environment.
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What social security do kids provide that you had no money for to give them a sensible education, who will be struggling themselves to make ends meet and who will at best hope for you to die soon so they can sell your wheelchair for the 20 bucks they are short this month for the rent?
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Also we were supposed to have a baby boom from people being locked up with nothing to do but fuck.
No, a few people who ignore externalities came up with that theory. In reality when people were locked up, out of work, struggling to make ends meet, etc, depression is a real downer on sex life.
Also when you're in financial shit you may think twice before skipping that condom even when you do fuck like rabbits.
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We're kind of at a crossroads. We're either going to become a dystopia or Utopia. I'm not sure which yet though.
As long as corporatism is involved the only likely outcome is fascism.
We don't need to increase our birth rate. Just let in more of these refugees we've helped to create.
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Other developed countries are already grappling with this. Canada's got both a very huge boomer generation and a very low birth rate, but has decided to double down on immigration as the solution. It's now the easiest place to immigrate to. Related... Canada quickly opened its borders to any Ukrainians displaced by the war who want to immigrate to Canada, with no limits.
In terms of encouraging people to have more children, Scandinavian countries have had some luck by implementing policies that make it ea
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It will be difficult for the US because the only way to address this is to make having children easier, i.e. more affordable and with jobs fit around childcare needs without penalty.
That's way too socialist for many.
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Young people aren't having kids. They're also having a lot less sex. Working too many hours for too little pay.
Teenagers are also having a lot less sex, and that clearly has nothing to do with either work or pay. I think the most likely culprit is the wide and easy availability of porn, which make masturbation a much easier outlet for sexual desire.
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We're living in a time of unprecedented abundance. We have more than enough to feed, cloth, shelter, and educate everyone on the planet.
So why do we still have poorly educated starving homeless people? The reasons are complex, but it all comes down to good old fashioned selfishness and greed in the end. We're a very sick people.
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My goodness, this again. I think you fail to understand the difference between money, wealth, and value.
A wealthy farmer doesn't actually own a bunch of food that they're hoarding. They own the land, equipment and know-how needed to produce food. You can't just go to a farm with a bunch of thugs, take all their stuff, and distribute it to the starving people of the world. They don't need those tractors... they need a farm that produces a constant supply of food. You also can't just put a gun to the far
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I should point out that we we purposefully destroy a lot of food. It's shocking how much, really.
Farmers are also not the perfect libertarian ideal that you seem to think they are. No only are the very dependent, like all of us, on a functioning society, we heavily subsidize farms. They are about as far from your platonic vision as it's possible to get! If we, the tax payers, are supporting their efforts, we're justified in demanding some portion or some measure control over the results.
You already agre
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I never said I thought greed was a virtue.
The productivity of the farm is directly related to the farmer's, as you call it, "greed". [...] You call it greed, but this self-interest is what drives all the abundance.
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The idea that humans are born purely selfish brutes is an armchair philosophe notion used to spin grand schemes for the improvement of society based on nothing but supposition. If you've actually been a parent, and an observant and involved one, you'd realize that humans are born complicated. Generous impulses in young children seem to arise spontaneously; as parents we do encourage that somewhat, but not as much as the philosophe might think; young children are more thoughtless generous than most parents
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"Complicated," indeed. It's hard to say anything at all about human nature without harmful oversimplification, in fact.
Be that as it may, I will harmfully oversimplify and submit that nearly all humans naturally experience "disutility of labor," which means that useful productive work includes an unpleasant expenditure of effort that people would prefer to avoid (even when there is that "feeling of productivity" reward at the end). This feeds fears that one's own generosity will be exploited (it's a doubl
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I don't know how many people are out to deliberately screw others (would rather sleep outside in the rain, just to deny someone else an umbrella), but as a general rule, people are selfish and lazy.
If I put in the time and effort to work (let's assume that my work in some way benefits others, that's why they pay me), I expect to be compensated for it. Now, if I ever decide that I have enough I'll stop working or at least reduce my hours to have more free time. It's pointless to spend my time and effort to w
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as a general rule, people are selfish and lazy.
The problem is that too many people think that everyone is lazy and entitled but themselves. It's how the right convinces people dependent on social programs to vote for politicians who want to see those same programs abolished. For some reason, there are a lot of people that really hate the idea of someone they don't know getting something that they don't "deserve".
I don't know how many people are out to deliberately screw others
I don't want to believe very many people are like that either, but the evidence doesn't support that conclusion. "Red meat" legislation that
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I think I can explain some of them.
For some reason, there are a lot of people that really hate the idea of someone they don't know getting something that they don't "deserve".
It's usually the belief that it would cost "me". For example, I understand welfare as a "safety net" for people down on their luck, but then there are people who abuse it ("work? why would I work, I get enough money for doing nothing"). Every such person in an increased load on the system, which either means that taxes go up (it costs "me") or that others, who really need it, do not get enough.
This is why "real" Communism would never work at a large scale. "From each accor
Opposite-land (Score:2, Informative)
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That's maybe because people in Norway can actually afford having a family and took the opportunity to sit down and plan their future together.
First World Problems (Score:2)
It is normal for wealthy, well educated nation to have a birth rate dip below the legal immigration rate [breitbart.com]. Consider it a good sign that women have education and economic opportunities here that aren't available in poor countries due to circumstance or backwards countries due to theocracy. Of course the consequence (or benefit) of women being able to live their own lives, pay their own bills, and make their own choices is that the birth rate goes down. Consider the drop in birth rate to be an indicator of an
huzzah huzzah (Score:2)
Flash! US declining birth rate to be addressed by forthcoming Supreme Court ruling.
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... there is nothing special about home grown babies except to their families
You make that sound irrelevant. It is anything but. Many, many people have desire to have children. As a matter of fact I'd go as far as saying that it is the natural thing to do. It's only because of higher brain functions and reasoning that we talk our way out of having kids.
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Then have kids, but don't force me to.
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The thing about letting more immigrants in: they work, they learn, they have babies, and before you know it, they are ready for those high-level jobs. Funny how humans evolve, eh?
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Indeed. And next step: With higher standards of living, their birth-rates decline.
We do _need_ that birth-rate reduction. Long-term sustainability is somewhere around 50% or less of current western population and if the developed wold wants western standards, a lot lower overall. Yes, I do get that the religious fuckups think that more babies means more victims for their deranged fantasies and hence push for as many as possible. That way extinction lies.
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When the immigrants' children's fertility rate declines, that doesn't negate the value of the labor those immigrants contributed to the economy. And if you need more of that kind of labor, you just let more people in.
People talk about controlling immigration as a critical part of sovereignty, and fair enough. But controlling it *to what end*? They're afraid of being replaced, but that's unavoidable both personally and culturally. Trying to stop one kind of change, you inevitably create another.
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And next, these babies then find that they don't want to have babies and instead want to have a career... damn, we need more immigrants.
Then again... do we really have a shortage of people? We still have unemployed, we still don't have a surplus of houses, why exactly that demand for more warm bodies?
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people to pick fruit and change diapers in nursing homes.
We can use robots for that.
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Robots are more expensive and a risk. A worker that gets sick gets fired, a worker that dies isn't my problem. A robot that malfunctions down needs to get fixed at my cost, and one that breaks down needs to be replaced at my cost.
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Your comment is a perfect example of short-term thinking.
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The short term is important. As is the mid-term and the long-term.
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Ok, then point out the long term effects, please.
Preferably in a way that the average quarter-report-thinking manager doesn't laugh out the office.
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The long term effects is a lower cost of operations.
I'm not just saying this, it is based on facts otherwise no factory in the world would ever want to get automated. And those that do would soon revert to human workers.
I'm not saying all jobs can be automated, but the more powerful CPUs and GPUs get, the more sophisticated and complex "A.I." gets, the easier it gets to replace more complex jobs.
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You'll find that automation is strongest in areas where workforce is expensive. Why do you think the vanguard of robotics was in Japan? Just because they have a hardon for giant robots?
As long as slave work is dirt cheap, why bother with automation?
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Indeed. Also: "non-decline of birth rates presents a challenge ahead for species survival"
Re:import (Score:5, Informative)
You want more people, let them come into the country
Don't worry, the Supreme Court and many states are hard at work to ensure that there'll be more US babies than anyone ever expected or wanted fairly soon now.
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There are the old guides from before the 1950s, stretching back centuries, on how to induce miscarriages. This has been the norm in human civilization, and it's only recently that this has become illegal, or even considered immoral. Sure those old methods aren't safe, but as long as we're already instituting an unenlightened and unscientific view of medicine it's likely to just continue in that path. Then we can go to the bad old days as well of also jailing women for having babies out of wedlock.
Step 1
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The same people who brag about their ghost guns and joke about the ATF are the ones expecting all women to fall in line when the abortion bans hit?
Abortions will still happen. It is just the matter of safe abortions. The richer people will just go to another state to have their procedures done, while the poorer women are left without recourse... or pre/post natal care.
In the US, there is no greater crime than to be poor.
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We'll believe you care about babies when you decide to raise your taxes to support them after they are born. Until then, you are just a miser.
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Interesting logic leap there: caring about babies = giving the government more money. The government has never been able to do as good a job of caring for babies, as mothers.
Pro-lifers do care about babies, and believe they are a baby already, before the actual moment of birth.
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Do you have a source for that?
Perhaps there are some pro-lifers who want to keep women under the control of men, just as there are some who are not pro-life who want to do the same. Pro-life does not imply male dominance.
If one believes that the unborn child is a living human, then it does flow logically that killing that unborn child is murder, regardless of the dominance of men or subservience of women. It's not about either of those things. You are simply quoting talking points by those who will not both
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The unborn child is not a woman's own body.
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43% of women are pro-life, source [gallup.com].
It's not "men dictating" anything to women. The issue is fairly evenly distributed along gender lines.
Your "male dominance" narrative is straight-up false, and harmful. Please stop spreading disinformation.
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Fuck off, forced birther.
That's a clumsy turn of phrase. Call them what they are: slavers. Slave owners were notorious for forcing slave women to have children.
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Interesting. I didn't state my position on abortion, I merely gave you stats on the demographics of supporters. You ASSUMED that I am pro-life.
Evidence suggests that you don't like having your intellectual flaws pointed out to you. I understand. Be that as it may, you are using fallacious reasoning, which tends to lead not only to incorrect beliefs, but also harmful action. I am sure that, deep down inside, you don't want to be harmful to the world around you, and would therefore suggest you educate yo
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Nope, I am not supporting their arguments in any way. I showed stats that it is not "male dominance," because many women are pro-life, and that's all.
Tell me, how is pointing out that 43% of women are pro life "rationalizing for the forced birthers?" 43% of women can still be wrong, can't they?
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Don't expect me to help you with that - I'm reasonably sure you're just being disingenuous
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Still no, my one and only point in giving that stat was to confute your false narrative that "men are dominating women" by making abortion illegal. That point, and only that point, is the one that I was arguing against. Successfully, I might add, as the stats I cited are solid.
I never attacked or supported the legality of abortion directly. You seem unable to separate these two points in your mind. Or unwilling.
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Re:Rowe Vs Wade (Score:5, Insightful)
And in actual reality, most unborn babies are aborted by the body itself. Hence everybody that has unprotected sex is a murderer several times over by your logic.
Fortunately your logic is deeply flawed and has no connection to reality.
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A natural death caused by a person's own infirmities or inability to survive, is a very different thing than intentionally ending a life. If a 60-year-old succumbs to cancer and dies, that's not murder, but if you shoot that person to spare the family of the costs of medical care, that is murder. Pro-lifers believe that babies are human, even before they travel down the birth canal, no different from the 60-year-old.
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When a couple procreates, it is not their intent to end a life, it is their intent to create and sustain life. There is no legal theory under which this could be construed as murder.
You say a fertilized egg is not a person. When exactly does it become one? Only after passing through the birth canal? Inside the mother = not human, outside = human?
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Your "argument" has no merit. If you do action X that results in dead body Y, you committed a very serious crime, unless there was no way for you to know. "Your honor, I did not mean to kill the person by ramming a knife in their chest!" does not cut it.
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Whatever.
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So you are asserting that fully half of America (everybody who disagrees with you) is irrational? I'd suggest that there is irrationality on both sides of this issue.
If, as pro-lifers do, you believe that human life begins before the actual trip down the birth canal, it logically flows that one cannot arbitrarily end the life of that baby, any more than one can arbitrarily end the life of an unwanted family member, even if they do have Down Syndrome or the family can't afford to care for them for whatever r
Re: Rowe Vs Wade (Score:2)
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OK, so let me see if I follow you.
So if a baby can survive outside the womb with only breast milk, the baby is human, otherwise not. Is that how you see it?
What about viability with medical assistance? Premature babies as young as 22 weeks can survive outside the womb with medical assistance. Is a 22-week-old premie a human? https://www.verywellfamily.com... [verywellfamily.com] If medical technology improves, allowing that viability age to be even younger, is that younger premie a person?
What about somebody who is old and can'
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killing babies up to 4 weeks old (proposed California bill, refers to no charges being filed or investigated for perinatal deaths)?
Great way to post FUD, fortunately, that isn't a true statement. https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
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And if I could get pregnant by sitting next to a woman who is, they would even have a point with that...
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Yeah, why worry about a disease running rampant among the people who don't consider it a problem that it can kill you. Or leave you with life long medical conditions. Hint: ladies don't care about the size of it, they care about what you do with it but more important for them is that there is someone behind it that actually cares about them.
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I don't think that's the correct interpretation of the stat. The parents don't generate an extra 58.6T of CO2 by raising a child (even if buying a lot of disponsable diapers does have an impact on CO2 generation ^^), this number represents half the child's total CO2 consumption in his own lifetime ("For the action 'have one fewer child,' we relied on a study which quantified future emissions of descendants based on historical rates, based on heredity (Murtaugh and Schlax 2009). In this approach, half of a
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At this point in my life I'm not sure if it's human arrogance or ignorance that we're all walking around thinking it will get figured out eventually. You can take steps to reduce your climate impact, that's a fact. One of those is not making more people.
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Having a war is faster and you don't have to place any unpleasant restrictions on anyone. Except for abled-bodied males under 25 years old.
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The numbers don't support this having anything to do with Biden, There was a huge drop from 1958 to 1978, then a slight uptick midway through Carter's term then most of the way into the Reagan years, then back to declining birth rates.
So if we're handing out awards and blame, awards go to Carter and Reagan, and blame goes to every single president since.
Applying your logic, Since the 1960s the Carter economy was the best for birthrates, followed by Reagan, and the