What if women stopped having babies?

[Whatifitneverhappened]

There was an article in the news yesterday about declining birth rates: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/09/world-needs-babies-better-rethink-what-we-need-from-mothers

What do you think would happen if women chose to stop having babies altogether? Would the human race die out? Or AIBU to think men wouldn't allow this to happen and women's reproductive choices would be simply taken away Gilead-style? Could we grow babies in test tubes to make the role of women as incubators redundant?

Well it wouldn’t ever happen. Many many women want babies so you’d never get all women to agree to not have babies.

I’d just got over worrying about Covid and now you got me fretting about Gilead.

Still, at least I’d be a Martha.

Yes the men would make us. Through some mechanism or another.

Lots of babies come about through birth control failure or ovulation date miscalculation. You'd have to stop women from having sex to stop having babies.

Well sperm counts are meant to reach zero by 2045 so that might not be an issue we have to worry about...

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/26/falling-sperm-counts-human-survival

That’s interesting. If women decided to have babies grown in a tube or some kind of incubator it would completely change the dynamic as maybe then both parents would be more equal in terms of all the choices that come with having a child.

I do think if all women decided to stop having babies (even though that would never happen) then we would be made to have them if a test run isn’t viable.

The real question will be what will women do to get pregnant in 2045?

@YellowandGreenToBeSeen

I’d just got over worrying about Covid and now you got me fretting about Gilead.

Still, at least I’d be a Martha.

Yes and yes.

Well it wouldn’t ever happen. Many many women want babies so you’d never get all women to agree to not have babies.

It's a question of trends, though. In South Korea, the birth rate was 0.84 last year. No agreement needed. Instead, South Korean woman are increasingly looking at marriage and parenthood and saying no thank you. The trend is predicted to accelerate.

It's a hypothetical surely?

A similar one is what would happen to women if men didn't need us to get babies any more?

The latter option in your op. Unfortunately

I read a thing on the BBC a few months back saying globally women are having fewer babies and it's declining all the time. It was an oh no what will the impact be type thing.

So essentially in the media women are either having too many or not enough children. Or having them at the 'wrong' age, whether that's too young or too old. Or when they're not in the right financial position etc etc..

The fact men are involved in this process is barely mentioned.

I think you're seriously overestimating the number of women who have choices. Religion, child marriage, absence of birth control and abortion... it's already the Handmaids Tale in much of the world.

It's a hypothetical surely?

Japan has a similar issue. They are trying to convince women to have more kids, but not really changing anything meaningful to make marriage and kids a good deal for women. Kind of like here.

I expect that eventually civil unrest and war would occur and children would be conceived somehow, some where.

Perhaps we should just enforce and reinforce child maintenance, spousal support and housing? Right now is a terrible deal for women.

It's a hypothetical surely?

Somewhat, yes. But you can see that governments in the countries with the lowest birth rates are rattled by this. South Korea and Japan have been chucking money at women as 'incentives' to have more children for ages? One wonders what the next step will be for them if this doesn't work.

They could examine their massively sexist and unbelievably discriminatory societies.

Oh well, worth a try

I think from an environmental POV it’s probably a good thing, although I want more children so I’m being a hypocrite!

Germany incentivises women to have babies as well.

Give that in the overwhelming majority of relationships it’s the woman who feels ’broody’ and is the one pushing to have children while her body is able to, a maternity strike just isn’t going to happen. Ever.

Millions of years of evolution can’t just be overridden and ignored.

They could examine their massively sexist and unbelievably discriminatory societies.

I'd like to think this is what they'd do/they will do. But I suspect male-dominated societies will see a prohibition on contraception and mass forced insemination as an easier solution.

Women who want them and are good at producing them become ever more desirable...?

Cos you know.... lots of women do. Want them.

I was bloody desperate for mine & I love 'em to bits :)

I think you can't compare East Asian cultures with the west either. Child rearing and family life is very different conceptually

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland. Or they're just ahead of the trend?