Birth control pill inventor laments demographic "catastrophe"

[RuneX2]

Birth control pill inventor laments demographic ‘catastrophe’

The chemist who made a key discovery leading to the invention of the birth control pill has written a commentary calling demographic decline in Europe a “horror scenario” and a “catastrophe” brought on in part by the pill’s invention.

...Birth control pill inventor laments demographic ‘catastrophe’ (http://beeqube.com/article/birth)

- interesting. Reminds me of Jane Roe (Norma Leah McCorvey) whom later became pro-life activist. However this decline in fertility would likely have happened regardless of the pill. Wasn’t it already full underway when the pill was first introduced? Although it seems inevitable that some European (and others around the globe) due the baby bust cannot continue to exist in anything resembling their current form.

[Galileo]

The pill is not th blame for the demographic fall in Europe, take a look in france woman use a lot pills but we have a high rate of birth rate.

[Matrix33]

The pill is not th blame for the demographic fall in Europe, take a look in france woman use a lot pills but we have a high rate of birth rate.

Well, could you elaborate littlebit more? What is the rate in corelation to ethinicity for example?

[Galileo]

elaborate ourself what did you mean by ethnicity? (I think I see our idea but explicit it clearly)

[RuneX2]

It has been suggested that the high birth rates in France is due to Muslim immigrants. Wasn’t that disproved by the numbers though? Btw. Muslim immigrants in Denmark have approx. the same birth rate as ethnic Danes. I think the clear dividing line in European fertility rates goes between countries with some basic level of welfare state - kindergardens and such - and countries without. Scandinavian countries and France have high fertility (relative) while Italy, Spain, Greece have low.

[Rictor]

Surely all forms of contraception are equally responsible. We'll never really know what the demographics of Europe and North America would have looked like had condoms not come into widespread use, but the smartest thing right now would be to introduce contraception to the rest of the world (or parts thereof) ASAP.

[Britboy]

Populations remaining at the same level, or even a slight decline over time, would not be a bad thing. It'd allow us to maintain or even improve the standard of living - there are only finite resources and space in this world and population growth is not helping it.

The only 'drama' about population steadiness/decline in Europe and Russia is the concern about other states, who have rising populations, are going to be looking for greater resources and space for those populations, leading to friction. Take the Russian-Chinese border for example, a lot of Chinese on one side of the border and not very many Russians on the other...

Yes this is concerning to some extent, but what we need is not to increase our own populations in order to have some sort of 'growth parity' with others, but to encourage them to slow down too. If we tried to boost population growth then everyone would be in a race to outdo each other, and it would at some stage come to a point where I doubt Earth can handle that many people. What we need is rampantly-growing populations to calm down.

How to do this? Well, number of children per family is normally higher in undeveloped countries vs wealthy countries, so economic development in other places is a possibility. There again, undeveloped countries have a higher rate of infant mortality, famine etc etc so maybe removing that through development would actually speed up the process! Perhaps encourage contraception use, but there again there can be religious/cultural views in these countries which run contrary to that...

Or you could just wait until these countries realise they are having difficulty supporting a growing population - wouldn't put much hope on that however, seeing as, if they lose a certain %age of kids to X, Y or Z, they will then see that as rationale for having more kids so that more survive - a lot of suffering in that route too, plus you may get to the stage when they have an excess of young people fed up with where they are and wanting to emigrate to pastures greener, which could create a certain problem in terms of illegal immigration or pressure on other states borders.

I think the entire planet does not need more people, but we do need to get other states and cultures to understand this in order to avoid some shortages, suffering and potential conflict down the line. Its certainly a challenge.

Besides, the pill is wank - a housemates GF started on the pill and put on a stone in weight ****to! Plus if she misses taking one, thats bad juju. Fvck that, we are going for the implant.

[dacanadianbomb]

and what is this doing in the general discussion part of a military site?
OTH

[benbach]

IMO
the population of the planet is/has been accelerating and growing at an alarming rate for quite some time. Over population is a real issue, especially with respect to the resources on this planet, we only have one of them, unless you're an end times believer, then all the blessed get whisked away to Happy Land, which is one reason why some people have no problem with population control and destroying the planet. Everybody in the world should better understand the grand consequences of population overgrowth and large scale resource depletion.

As for someone blaming fertility rates on a pill, that makes no sense. One has to look at the social and economic conditions within a country. Young people don't want to have kids right away because they want to run wild a little before they get old. Rates dont need to go back up anyway.

[Walter Sobchak]

Surely all forms of contraception are equally responsible. We'll never really know what the demographics of Europe and North America would have looked like had condoms not come into widespread use, but the smartest thing right now would be to introduce contraception to the rest of the world (or parts thereof) ASAP.

Unfortunately, in some of the developing world, the lack of any old-age pension or other support system means people have a bunch of kids. This guarantees that they will be cared for in old age, but it keeps the nation impoverished and poor.

[budgie]

In Japan where the birth control pill still has a stigma attached to it - people still believe it causes cancer - the birth rate is dropping regardless. In fact withdrawal is as widespread as condom use and they are still have fewer children every year. It is a facet of wealthy modern societies that people wait longer to start families and have fewer kids when they do.

[Britboy]

In Japan where the birth control pill still has a stigma attached to it - people still believe it causes cancer - the birth rate is dropping regardless. In fact withdrawal is as widespread as condom use and they are still have fewer children every year. It is a facet of wealthy modern societies that people wait longer to start families and have fewer kids when they do.

God, wouldn't like to see their STD rates...

Unless you are talking inside a relationship proper?

[Hollis]

One of the big mantras in the 60's and 70'd was ZPG. Zero Population Growth, keeping one's family small. Unlike the force of law in China to do so, it was a heavily promoted as a social choice. There is a lot of reasons to it. Especially in trying to keep over population in check.

[Kit]

Call it catastophe, I call it control.

What's wrong with having a balanced population? No state in recent memory, has fallen due to low birth rate or shrinking population. After the Plague and a 3rd of Europeans got wiped out, the Renaissance kicked into gear, which led Europe from backwards feudalism, to an economic and intellectual powerhouse.

Europe has had this decline for sometime and I don't see Europe spiraling into the dark ages, but rather the opposite. The United States has a high population growth, and the Euro surpassed the Dollar.

I see this as a good thing for now.