We Need More Kids

bilby said:

DBT said:

Given similar ratios of wealth, lifestyle, etc, a world population of two billion is not going to place the same demand on environment and resources as a population of ten billion or more.

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Why would we assume similar ratios of wealth? We could have two billion people with similar wealth to the wealthiest quarter of our current population. After all, they have access to all the resources that quarter used to get wealthy, and then some.

How do you propose to stop people from wanting nice things, and why do you think that would be worth doing, even if we could?

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I'm not proposing that anyone should be stopped from raising their standard of living. We can't deny anyone that right.

I'm just pointing to the problem as it appears to be, that we are not living sustainably, that some are pushing for business as usual, which is preventing effective economic reforms, climate mitigation, etc...with some claiming that there is no problem, that anthropomorphic climate change is a hoax, and so on.

Bronzeage said:

There is a white elephant in the room, which is to say, the wrong people are having kids.

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And the administration's latest move to defund Planned Parenthood will result if a dramatic increase in two things - abortions, or for those who can't afford an abortion, have more of "the wrong people" having kids. Planned Parenthood had 1,600,000 contraceptive clients in a year. These are people who don't want to have kids for whatever reason. A lot of then are "the wrong people". The get $16 million from Title X family planning (the bulk of the government money going there). For $10 per client "the wrong people" are not having babies. But we want to defund them. And with nothing to replace them, well...we will end up with more kids.

I guess they are relying on a lot of babies being born to adopt. But can a woman who can't afford an abortion afford the prenatal care and delivery costs, which average about $19,000.? We currently give them $16 million to provide contraception for 1.6 million clients. IF we want them to have "adoptable" babies, we would likely need to make prenatal care and delivery available to them. With $16 million, we could pay for about 900 babies. If the pregnancy rate was to rise by 5% of those clients (80,000)...prenatal care would cost us $1.5 billion.

Gifting this article and posting it here because it is a good example of the fact that this administration has its head up its ass re: women, families and healthcare ( and everything else) plus is an excellent example of the rural-urban divide. Nice to see laud plain that this is not an exclusive Democrat issue and if they are even a little bit clever, they will jump all over this with both feet and run with it hard:

The Medicaid cuts are only one of several changes across the federal government that are making it harder to safely have a baby — especially for low-income women, according to hospital administrators, maternal health researchers, obstetricians and health care advocates. The changes come even as Trump and his allies have embraced a pro-natalist agenda, with Trump floating a $5,000 “baby bonus” and Vice President JD Vance saying he wants “more babies in the United States of America.”
Trump, who has repeatedly vowed to protect Medicaid benefits, has cast the cuts as targeting only “waste, fraud and abuse.” The savings are achieved primarily by imposing federal work requirements for the first time on Medicaid recipients. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects 10 million people will lose coverage in the next decade, an estimate the White House has disputed.

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Medicaid is the largest source of funding for pregnancy services nationwide, covering 41 percent of births and almost half of births in rural areas, according to KFF. The work requirements, set to go into effect in 2027, mandate that able-bodied adults between 19 and 64 work at least 80 hours a month or complete other qualifying activities, such as volunteering or schooling, to qualify for Medicaid, which is jointly funded by the states and the federal government.

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I will share that my grandchild was safely delivered, despite some increasing health complications for the mother, including both pre term Preeclampsia and postpartum preeclampsia, which threatened the mother’s life and the baby!/ life ( pre-term) and continued to threaten the mother’s life post partum, resulting in re-hospitalization for a short period, the day after they were home from the hospital. I am extremely grateful that Medicare covered the prenatal, labor and delivery and postnatal care of mother and baby. This care included in home visits by a nurse in the post partum period which were frankly responsible for saving the health and quite possibly the life of the mother when the nurse noticed an uptick in BP which sent them back to the hospital. I shudder to think what would have happened if they were living in a rural area with hours to the hospital or if home visits had not been part of the care they received. The mother could easily have suffered a serious stroke before delivery or after, leaving the family with only one parent or one parent plus a seriously disabled parent.

If you want to know why women are having fewer babies, this is a huge reason. Health care is increasingly less accessible for women seeking ob-gyn services, and particularly so in rural areas.

The US is one of only twenty countries in the world to report a significant increase in maternal mortality since 2000.

• The most recent U.S. maternal mortality ratio, or rate, of 17.4 per 100,000 pregnancies represented approximately 660 maternal deaths in 2018. This ranks last overall among industrialized countries.
• More than half of recorded maternal deaths occur after the day of birth.

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The second statement above is especially noteworthy with the increase in trend of sending mothers home the day of or day after giving birth.