NPR reported last week that the U.S birth rate has dropped to its lowest level ever. According to the Pew Research Center, with the exception of a brief hump that peaked in 2007, the U.S. birth rate has declined steadily for the last two decades to an estimated low in 2011 of 63.2 births per 1,000 women.
Pew says the big correlation appears to be economic: the states hit hardest by the recession in 2007 and 2008 showed the largest fertility declines in 2008 and 2009.
Even in South Dakota, which experienced minimal recessionary impacts compared to other states, the birth rate dropped from 2009 to 2010 by 1.4%. (On the really good side, the birth rate dropped 9.1% among 15- to 19-year-olds.)
Not part of these declining birth rates: abortion. New CDC data show that abortion numbers and rates dropped 5% in 2009. In South Dakota, the number of abortions dropped more than 9% in 2009 and another 4% in 2010.
The coincident declines in the birth rate and abortions has a logical explanation: more people have access to birth control and are using it correctly:
...a government study released earlier this year suggest[s] that about 60 percent of teenage girls who have sex use the most effective kinds of contraception, including the pill and patch. That's up from the mid-1990s, when fewer than half were using the best kinds.
Experts also pointed to the growing use of IUDs. The IUD, or intrauterine device, is a T-shaped plastic sperm-killer that a doctor inserts into a woman's uterus. A Guttmacher Institute study earlier this year showed that IUD use among sexually active women on birth control rose from under 3 percent in 2002 to more than 8 percent in 2009.
IUDs essentially prevent "user error," said Rachel Jones, a Guttmacher researcher.
Ananat said another factor for the abortion decline may be the growing use of the morning-after pill, a form of emergency contraception that has been increasingly easier to get. It came onto the market in 1999 and in 2006 was approved for non-prescription sale to women 18 and older. In 2009 the age was lowered to 17 ["U.S. Abortion Rates down 5 Percent During Great Recession...," AP via CBS News, 2012.11.21].
Give people the tools they need to control their reproduction, and you won't see as many abortions.
* * *
By the way, according to the CDC's latest Abortion Surveillance report, 12 women died from undergoing abortions in the United States in 2008. From 2004 to 2008, there were 0.64 legal induced abortion-related deaths per 100,000 reported legal abortions in the U.S. Meanwhile, the United States has seen its maternal death rate double from 6.6 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1987 to 12.7 per 100,000 in 2010.
In other words, ladies, all other things being equal, your chances of dying from giving birth or just about 20 times greater than your risk of dying from undergoing an abortion.
what? preventing an unwanted pregnancy from occurring so abortion doesn't have to even be considered? What a concept!! Isn't that something that we can all get behind? and quit spending mega-amounts of money on abstinence only programs? Contraception sounds like money well spent to me - but then again, those pesky ole stats and facts get in the way, don't they?
Cleaning up some of the bureaucracy of the adoption process would help as well I'd think.
I don't mind making the process easier for parents who want to adopt, but does the complicated nature have anything to do with the birth rate or the abortion rate?
The bigger the hassle and the hoops you have to jump through, the less likely it is that a scared and easily influenced young woman will feel comfortable bearing the baby to term for an adopting couple.
Bree, are you intentionally ignoring Cory's point that pregnancy and childbirth are life threatening conditions, that there is a significant mortality rate, and that a woman who agrees to carry a child to term is putting herself in mortal peril?
Bill, there is probably a significant mortality rate from chewing gum (choking to death). Maybe if more women would go back to their midwives who have had children and know what they're doing instead of letting arrogant idiot males with letters after their names dose them down with drugs and strap them down on tables that mortality rate would drop. Hell will freeze over before I let some old man in a white coat "deliver" my children.
So, the answer is yes, then. Thought so. Thanks Bree.
Yes, Bill I think we should all stop having children period. We can just clone people in pods like they do in Sci Fi movies. Or were you suggesting we allow the human race to go extinct? That's one way to save the earth from industrialization. What precisely were we supposed to gain from recognizing Cory's point that occasionally women die in childbirth? Should we also recognize the point that sometimes people choke to death? We should all stop eating then.
Did you really have a point or were you just harassing a conservative again to get your rocks off? Yeah. That's what I thought.
No Bree, re-read your last two posts, you are harassing me. There's no reason for you to be sarcastic about this.
And yes, of course I have a point. And I have made it. So has Cory. You, in your turn, are trying to obfuscate and minimize it. It ain't workin'.
You must have misread my first post as an attack on you. Instead, take it for my strong feelings against the baby "delivery" industry.
I have no idea what you are suggesting about me trying to obfuscate your points. Cory makes many good points. I don't find this one relevant unless it was in article about ways to lower the maternal death rate; hence my point about midwives.
We've all come see child bearing as a just another bodily function like eating, breathing, etc., that we tend to forget that it's a serious life-changing, body-changing, and possibly death-causing situation.
Sometimes it's easy to tune out the overly excited, perhaps too cautious, overly worried expectant woman. That's wrong because it is a serious situation.
And the women that really consider the possibilities of this serious situation should have the right to decide what's best for their bodies before and after sex.
Oh I see your point now Bill. You're saying abortion is safer for the mother statistically than childbirth, and so therefore we should kill 100,000 children in order to save the lives of 12 women. That's the kind of math I would expect from a follower of Krugman.
"[Researchers] took 75 human embryos that had been frozen at the single-cell phase and cultured them in Petri dishes for two days, taking a microscopic snapshot of each embryo every five minutes."
http://www.livescience.com/25233-early-embryo-behavior-miscarriage.html
Sorry Bill. It was hard for me to follow that logic since a thought like that would never naturally cross my mind, since it is insane.
Larry: unnatural selection kind of creeps me out.
I made no comment on abortion. None. Only that being pregnant and giving birth is no cavalier walk in the park, and that your suggestion that more people should have babies and give them up for adoption seemed to overlook that fact.
p.s. Bree still with the sarcasm, I see. You're hard to converse with. I'm going to stop trying.
I'm suggesting more pregnant women should consider adoption over abortion. And it's notable that the mortality rate for childbirth has increased at the same time the baby "delivery" industry has become ever more unnatural, with an increase in chemical inductions and voluntary cesarians.
Surprisingly, I find myself agreeing with Bree on a point! Adoption should be made easier for expectant mothers...that's one leg of a three legged stool...the other two are widely available contraception and education. No woman should be forced to carry a pregnancy they don't feel fully supported in whether it be through adoption or keeping it. And also the point many miss is that while it's a woman's decision (and hers alone), some men need to step up to the plate and be just as responsible as women for their reproductive organs. Don't plan on being a father? Get a vasectomy or use condoms every time. And if an unintended pregnancy occurs and the woman chooses to have it, step up to the plate for the whole 18 years. Unintended pregnancies are a societal problem but a problem that can be solved.
Bill, how easy do you think it is to converse with you, with the constant barrage of implications that I am crazy or lying? I tell you what, I will try to tone down the sarcasm. Try.
I'm hip, T. Another report on NPR on designer babies and the Children of Men comment gave me the willyboogers.
I agree viking. We wouldn't even have to be having this conversation if more people acted like responsible adults.
Yes, Larry and Taunia, those are the real bioethics we should be discussing. Before long, the whole issue of traditional reproductive choices could be moot point. There have been gametes generated from adult stem cells. Combine that fact with rapidly advancing gene "therapy" techniques, and the whole notion of traditional "sex = reproduction" and random mutation is out the window.
And now we get into forced birthing and taking choice away.
Oh Dear... I.. can't... hold... it.. back...
Yes, people will gladly stop having all that messy and time consuming sex for the much more pleasurable opportunity to watch their gametes combine in petri dishes.
Petri dish yourself to your heart's content, BF. I'm still having sex with my husband and we're way outside of the having babies stage, no matter what the Libertarian/Tea Party government tells me I can or cannot do.
Call me old school. Omg...I've never said that before.
That's doubtful, Bree. A more likely scenario is that sex will become mostly, (if not exclusively) recreational. Some might reasonably argue that it already has.
Taunia, go for it sister.
Trying to listen to DD's budget speech and how the legislature will make medical decisions for my daughters.
Old School Reproduction. lol.
Bill's just too old to care anymore Taunia. He has reached the petri dish stage of life.
Oh that's right. Daugaard has a budget speech today. Sounds immensely boring.
Are your daughters awesome too, Larry? Have you given them the books on the rhythm method and the pamphlets for the anxiously-waiting adoptive parents?
There is Huntington's disease in my family and hope among all concerned that it can one day be eliminated from the bloodline. It's a cruel way to die. We've all watched it happen to relatives we deeply love all our lives. There are other genetically transmitted disorders that can be addressed by gene therapy as well. And still, there are the ethical questions. How far to go with it? To what degree will we as a society allow ourselves to "design" our offspring.
"You must have misread my first post as an attack on you. Instead, take it for my strong feelings against the baby "delivery" industry."
This from a poster who claims to use science in her decisions. Interesting that the British pregnant princess and her embryo would probably die if kept out of the hospital for rehydration following vomiting consequent to being affected by a very serious pregnancy problem worse than ordinary morning sickness.
Bree and ilk show a callous disregard for existing independent life in their fixation on protecting dependent life. They also show a peculiar blindness to effective governance.
How far would you go with it, BF?
Deadly diseases are cruel, and with no offense to your family, are part of nature. I suspect it's how nature takes care of itself. Are we good with changing nature? Do we do everything we can to bring into this world "perfect" people - 100% healthy, of a desired sex, with the perfect hair color, and disease resistant? How about cloning that perfect person?
It's out there for me.
Taunia, natural methods of birth control such as tracking of basal temperature, cervical position and fertile mucus - work and work well as it has been my sole method of birth control for years. Really, so many women are completely out of touch with their fertility cycle that an education wouldn't hurt them any. Some people prefer chemical methods and that's their business. But this definitely isn't a conservative issue as my hippie gramma was the one who gave me my first pamphlets.
Bill your family members could adopt. It's an option that is always on the table. :)
Douglas, midwives are perfectly capable of rehydrating an expectant mother. This isn't the 1800's. Midwives come prepared with all the necessary medical equipment and none of the unnecessary.
Taunia, we ARE nature.
So we control it? All of it?
Okay, to advance the argument then, I get that it's "out there" for you, Taunia, but yes, we are a successful species because we have a great facility at manipulating nature. (Cooking, dwellings, agriculture, domestication of animals, energy exploitation, etc, etc, the list is endless.) We have taken it so far that we don't consider ourselves part of nature anymore. That's a delusion.
(...NOW we're having the right conversation. Thanks Taunia.)
Adapting isn't the same as manipulating. Humans adapted to survive. Manipulating is waving a magic wand over a petri dish for an unnatural result.
We do some manipulating now with the advancement of medicine, birth control and abortion (to keep this thread on point with the topic so Cory doesn't boot us). And how far do we go where nature - us, as you point out - is not in control? Where's nature when technology scans a human, finds a problem corrects it, and therefore something besides nature - us - is in control?
Wow. Grammar took a vacation in that last post. I must like this convo too much. ;) Thanks for it, BF.
An enormous amount of our technological innovation has been devoted to how best we can kill other species and members of our own in order to either consume them or to keep them from consuming us or from stealing our land and property, raping our women and/or enslaving our children. We do this without blinking an eye. But when we actually start talking about using technology to improve life rather than destroy it, everybody gets all creeped out and says it's not "natural" somehow. That seems rationally inconsistent to me.
I think all of this is great news. I don't think for a minute that anybody likes abortions for birth control.
Point taken and perspective noted. I would not have come to the destructive technology conclusion on my own.
Destruction vs. advancement. As long as we can kill everything we can create everything. Seems kind of cold when put in those terms. What separates us from the rest of nature but "humanity". So maybe it's the humanity in me that doesn't want a computer creating cold life without humanity.
I shouldn't say, "doesn't want", but rather, is not comfortable with the idea of -
LOL. Beautiful, Taunia. The only way I know you (and I consider you to be a very good friend) is via computers and technology. I'm just sayin'. Are we inhuman?
DD kicked Medicaid expansion down the road but wants to spend more for 'criminal justice.'
I get that you have a "V for Vendetta"-type conclusion for this. (Great movie, seen it?) And I, of course, went with the Pied Piper.
I'll pay my dues and bite and set myself up with this: We should embrace technological advancements for, in easily -accepted terms, the advancement of humanity, to fight world hunger and peace for all.
Who knew all the beauty pagent contestants had this convo with BF.
Well, Larry, that fits right in with this convo. More prisons, less health. Conversely, but still.
South Dakota's legislature will find ways to restrict the rights of families to make medical decisions in order to rationalize federal funding to the red state, white retirees with blue hair as will Missouri's, T: others are looking to chill the effects of genetic freedoms.
In the meantime, the deleterious effects on the gene pool created by industrial agriculture continue.
:)
(sideways "V" guy. LOL :-)
Yawn. Oh look, two liberals debating each other on a boring safe topic. I liked the previous conversation better. LOL
Larry, agriculture will reform in it's own time. It takes awhile for demand to build and supply to change. Some regulation is okay, but extreme mandates will destroy the market.
Yes, Bree, we know (because you told us) you only like conversations where you don't have to think very hard.
Hughes County seems to have its own resident haboob.
I haven't seen a haboob in awhile Larry. They're not real common on the Missouri. Unless of course we're talking about the Smoke-storm in my home. LOL
And psst.. I live in Sully.
Now Bill you're going to hurt my feelings, just like my sarcasm hurts your feelings and chases off the normal people so they don't feel like contributing, remember?
Oldguy, it sounds like everyone on this thread likes birth control. Bree, help us out: send some copies of your hippie grandma's pamphlets to the school district and tell them to teach them to all of the kids, along with any necessary, scientifically sound updates. We'll continue the trend that we see above: more people having the knowledge and tools they need to control whether or not they give birth, which results in fewer unplanned pregnancies and fewer abortions. If we do sex ed right, we don't have to have unpleasant debates about using state power to punish women for having sex we consider objectionable.
By the way, what obstacles to pregnant women face to putting their children up for adoption? Aren't all the barriers really on the demand side, not the supply side?
Well now Cory.. you know I'm not going to support mandatory anything when it comes to people's kids, and that includes teaching about birth control whether or not I support birth control. Parental right's come first with me.
You have a problem with mandating that we teach the kids useful, practical science?
South Dakota would bend over for probe:
http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268748/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=EzOCtcvr
Mr. Kurtz, congratulations on buying Pay Schlah and that other area way out there in the boonies. I hope to see you there this summer.
*fist in the air for mexican statehood for the tribes*