Abortion and Population

[SimpleCaveman]

I started this thread (and I will try to keep up on it) because Ahriman is right in her post below. And it’s not a hypothetical scenario. It’s already happening.

Uh, maybe I used the wrong word. I'm suggesting a hypothetical scenario in which too many people get abortions (perhaps because it's too accepted) and this jeopardizes human survival.

There are countries like China, Italy, Spain and India whose population is or soon will be declining. For China it is in large part because of their one-child policy, which included forced abortions for pregnancies after the first. Now they have removed the policy and are trying to get people to have more children.

In India, the number of children peaked more than a decade ago and is now falling.

Currently, the demographics research says that the population is expected to continue to grow for the next few decades, but one site (Our World In Data) says that it will peak by the end of this century. Where there is growth, it will be (according to the UN) “concentrated in eight countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and the United Republic of Tanzania.”

The reason for this is lower fertility rates. (In case someone doesn’t know, the fertility rate is the number of live births per woman. The replacement fertility rate is the number of births per woman needed to maintain a population’s size.) Here’s a quote from a UN report.

In recent years, fertility has declined in nearly all regions of the world. Even in Africa, where fertility levels are the highest of any region, total fertility has fallen from 5.1 births per woman in 2000-2005 to 4.7 in 2010-2015.

Europe has been an exception to this trend in recent years, with total fertility increasing from 1.4 births per woman in 2000-2005 to 1.6 in 2010-2015.

More and more countries now have fertility rates below the level required for the replacement of successive generations (roughly 2.1 births per woman), and some have been in this situation for several decades. During 2010-2015, fertility was below the replacement level in 83 countries comprising 46 % of the world’s population. The ten most populous countries in this group are China, the United States of America, Brazil, the Russian Federation, Japan, Viet Nam, Germany, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Thailand, and the United Kingdom (in order of population size).

Is this lower fertility rate tied to abortions? Not entirely. But by definition abortion reduces the fertility rate. Except in China, this lower fertility rate has been voluntary. People, countries, agencies have bought into the Malthusian lie that our population will outrun our resources. According to them, my gas-based car should be a terrarium.

So, you can be for abortion if you want. But don’t argue based on population levels.

[Pat Mustard]

I started this thread (and I will try to keep up on it) because Ahriman is right in her post below. And it’s not a hypothetical scenario. It’s already happening.

If abortion is causing population shrinkage, why is the world's population increasing at a rapidly growing rate?

Or are you one of those great replacement idiots who think non-whites aren't people.

[brewer]

But by definition abortion reduces the fertility rate

Um.......... not quite right. Fertility is the ability to create viable gametes and conceive. I think you mean birth rate.

[Fake Messiah]

People, countries, agencies have bought into the Malthusian lie that our population will outrun our resources.

Abortion has nothing to do with Malthus or you or anyone else except a pregnant woman and her choice. It is a private thing so you can fuck off.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I started this thread (and I will try to keep up on it) because Ahriman is right in her post below. And it’s not a hypothetical scenario. It’s already happening.

[...]

Currently, the demographics research says that the population is expected to continue to grow for the next few decades, but one site (Our World In Data) says that it will peak by the end of this century. Where there is growth, it will be (according to the UN) “concentrated in eight countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and the United Republic of Tanzania.”

You are contradicting yourself here. Population shrinkage cannot be "already happening" if the population is still growing and expected to continue doing so for decades.

As scenarios go, aborting humanity into extinction is laughably unlikely. Not that a reduced population would be a bad thing, for the Earth and long-term survival of our species both. We are shitting up the only planet we know we an survive on, and that is largely because our population requires enormous food supplies, energy supplies, and so on. But abortion is no way to address that.

So, you can be for abortion if you want. But don’t argue based on population levels.

Of course not. Abortion should be legal, in my opinion, because the government has no business usurping the bodily autonomy of an adult human being so long as that human's behaviors are legal.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I’m on the thin edge of moving this thread to ‘Stupid Things Religious People Say’.

Boru

[Silver]

I’m on the thin edge of moving this thread to ‘Stupid Things Religious People Say’.

Boru

But is the OP religiously motivated?

Admittance: I did not read it.

[arewethereyet]

I’m on the thin edge of moving this thread to ‘Stupid Things Religious People Say’.

Boru

Can't think of a good reason not to.  j/s

[SimpleCaveman]

But by definition abortion reduces the fertility rate

Um.......... not quite right. Fertility is the ability to create viable gametes and conceive. I think you mean birth rate.

I think we’re both right here. Yes, abortion reduces the birth rate. It also reduces the fertility rate, which is the number of live births per woman. That’s how the UN, demographers, and others (probably sociologists, too!) who study this define it.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Um.......... not quite right. Fertility is the ability to create viable gametes and conceive. I think you mean birth rate.

I think we’re both right here. Yes, abortion reduces the birth rate. It also reduces the fertility rate, which is the number of live births per woman. That’s how the UN, demographers, and others (probably sociologists, too!) who study this define it.

And yet, you yourself used ‘fertility’ and ‘fertility rate’ interchangeably. That’s a no-no.

Boru