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?

That’s great though isn’t it? The planet is overpopulated and on the brink of irreversible change:

www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12131.doc.htm

Overpopulation and the effect on our planet which in reality can only has the resources to sustain 2 billion humans - it took over 2 million years of human prehistory and history for the world's population to reach 1 billion by 1800 and only 200 years more to reach 7 billion, we’re now nearly at 8 billion. By 2100 it is estimated it will reach 9.8 billion..

When my grandmother was born in 1927 the world population was 2 billion - within her lifetime it has quadrupled, it’s terrifying.

So yes - there is likely to be a point in time where the consequences of the exponential growth of the human population comes home to roost financially speaking - but the answer certainly isn’t to keep making it bigger! That old Indian proverb “Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money” comes to mind!

If we want any future for our own children and grandchildren (in terms of living on a planet with natural resources with air they can breathe, manageable weather conditions without an ocean full of plastic & barren land..) then a decrease in population over time surely has for the best, regardless of a tiny blip of time where economies have to deal with an elderly population (which will also decline in time)...

Ideally, governments would look at sex inequality and the barriers that motherhood presents when it comes to women progressing their careers. More paternity leave and normalising men taking equal responsibility for child care would probably help to naturally increase the birth rate.

In reality, I suspect governments will offer incentives in the form of cash,japan style, then when it becomes apparent we are going to reach a crisis point, hormonal contraception will become difficult or expensive to get in western countries, reducing the control women have over their fertility.

Well if male sperm count is plummeting - birth rates will fall anyway

'A study says Germany's birth rate has slumped to the lowest in the world, prompting fears labour market shortages will damage the economy.

Germany has dropped below Japan to have not just the lowest birth rate across Europe but also globally, according to the report by Germany-based analysts.

Its authors warned of the effects of a shrinking working-age population.'

2015. I think from Google it's gone up a bit now but other countries in Europe have low birth rates.

Note the concern- the economy, who will look after all the elderly people and how much will it cost etc.

It's not just a thing in certain countries in Asia.

Note the concern- the economy, who will look after all the elderly people and how much will it cost etc.

It's a worry. We may end up legalising euthanasia for the elderly (and aggressively pushing it on those in need of care) if the working-age population is unable to support them.

I think it's interesting as it's a trend across the western world.

In terms of overpopulation from an economic & logical perspective you don't want a load of old people but hardly any working.

I think it's interesting as it's a trend across the western world.

In terms of overpopulation from an economic & logical perspective you don't want a load of old people but hardly any working.

Re the UK

"By 2030, one in five people in the UK (21.8%) will be aged 65 or over, 6.8% will be aged 75+ and 3.2% will be aged 85+ (ONS, 2017b)."

[quote CandlesBlanketsandTea]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[/quote]
This absolutely terrifies me the thought of my children not being able to have baby’s .

It’s great, everyone will be scrambling to entice immigrants from the rest of the world?

There was a thread about that article/ others about that book at the time.

Apparently the woman who wrote it has some pretty, um, unusual ideas.

Also she only talks about 'the West'- plenty of men elsewhere in the world!

I don't think decent semen will be hard to come by, excuse the pun

Interesting point about euthanasia. I really hope there IS a choice for euthanasia when I'm older. I can't see many of us enjoying the kind of old age our parents and aunties/ uncles are having.

@Joinedjustforthispost

CandlesBlanketsandTea
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
This absolutely terrifies me the thought of my children not being able to have baby’s . sad***

Why?

Your children will be able to have babies. Or do you only want them to have babies with 'Western' men?

It's cobblers anyway.

In Lithuania, due to decking population, mothers are offered 3 yrs fully pay maternity leave and fathers get one day per month off work to spend with their family.

Still, at least I’d be a Martha

Well it'a vodka o'clock and for some reason several threads I have clicked onto have touched on the idea that our relentless and reckless desire to obey our evolutionary programming to reproduce, like every other organism on the planet, is the reason behind the demise of the environment and the stability of the planet in general. However, we have consciousness and have progressed technologically to the point where we in the Western world often voluntarily restrict our procreation, we have evolved (almost) to a point where we in principle accept that women need no longer to be brood mares and can control their own lives, yet still the guilt and agonising is piled on. Even though, as Pps have mentioned, birth rates are dropping in some of the western world.

The problems of the world have so little to do with the numbers inhabiting it, it is more about the unequal distribution of resources, the way capitalism and corporatism funnel profit towards a very few, power, greed, all dressed up in a superficial lip service to "the greater good".

Right now we are all apparently walking vectors of disease'; we are a virus on the planet, when it has never been proved, to my knowledge, that we are anything more than part of a symbiotic evolutionary process beginning on this planet. All day every day we are told over and over again that we are the problem. Yet because so many solutions to the big issues in the world will mean people with lots of money and influence might have to forgo their fifth home or latest super yacht, those of us running on the hamster wheel are targeted as the bad guys.

The world doesn't need to be fucked but it sure is fucked up right now.

And you wonder why some people believe there is a de-population agenda.......

To the OP - if it is decided that a certain amount of reproduction will grease the wheels of capitalism, then yes, control / coercion / incetivism will be employed, probably with a side dish of genetic screening / manipulation will be centred on women. No force will be required, it will be done via brainwashing and manipulation. And we're halfway there already.

I think it would be great! Obviously not on individual levels if you were one of the ones who couldn’t have a baby but there are way way way too many humans on the planet and not enough resources or even jobs to sustain us all to the level we want.
A declining population would help environmentally and if a country has too low a working population I’m pretty sure that are lots of people around the world desperate for a job and a better standard of living!! Helps everyone and would probably lead to a more global community and easier migration based on where the labour shortages were.

I always wonder how many brilliant minds have been lost because they happened to be born in a slum or into a culture where they can’t afford to be educated etc. How many inventions or cures for cancer have never been realised.
Imagine if children from the developing world had the chance to go to countries like Germany etc with labour shortages and were able to be educated in order to then become part of the working population of that country.

Imagine if children from the developing world had the chance to go to countries like Germany etc with labour shortages and were able to be educated in order to then become part of the working population of that country.

You can't just go and pluck poor children from other countries in order to serve your countries elderly! 🙄

The problems of the world have so little to do with the numbers inhabiting it, it is more about the unequal distribution of resources, the way capitalism and corporatism funnel profit towards a very few, power, greed, all dressed up in a superficial lip service to "the greater good".

Yep

Well it wouldn’t be just children - it would be the whole family. But surely if some
Countries need workers and other don’t have enough jobs or economy to sustain everyone then the ideal solution is to allow those that want to (and make it easier for them to) migrate and live in a country where there are lots of jobs??

Stereotyping hugely but a lot of counties with low birth rates are very unwelcoming and xenophobic when it comes to immigrants. Germany and Japan, for example. Though Britain is hardly a picture of tolerance. Wasn't Brexit a vote for less immigration not more?

How is this different from the gastarbeiter system in Germany and elsewhere brie?

@BrieAndChilli but the developing countries will be the ones thriving in the future so a) people may not want to leave - what about extended family? & b) birth rates will start to decline in those countries too so they won't love the idea.

Also completely ignores the fact that countries like Japan are traditionally anti immigration.