In an ideal world, women would only conceive when they wanted to.

[solidgoldbrass]

Go ahead and try to find something wrong with that statement.

Yes agree, however, we don't live in an ideal world and never will. We could get a lot closer to the ideal though.

Contraception failures for example would be hard to completely eradicate. People actually using contraceptive correctly or at all wen they do not wish to conceive...

Yes. In my case about 17 years before I did!

Yes.
Yes there is the matter of contraceptive failure, and women who want to conceive, but can't.

Good point about not always being able to conceive, especially as you get closer to menopause.

Sounds ideal enough

To be like a bat.. Save it all up until the conditions are perfect to reproduce...

Yeah, in and ideal world, women wouldn't struggle to conceive when they did want to, either...

And actually, yes, that is a fault with the original statment, it should should properly read 'women would conceive when they wanted to.'

If that could be true, I reckon we wouldn't need to push for equality.

Makes perfect sense to me. Would make communication between partners a lot more important and would very quickly wipe out a great deal of power imbalance.

In an ideal world choosing to conceive wouldn't jeopardise your career or necessitate living with an arsehole or in poverty. There would be no stigma whether you chose to conceive young or old or not at all. It would always work when you wanted it to.

"If that could be true, I reckon we wouldn't need to push for equality."

you might also need to add 'and men would be able to breastfeed'. (I have often pondered whether this would be scientifically achievable.)

I think the problem is is that women would have to take 100pc responsibility for family planning.
What if a man wanted or didn't want a child?

Ethel: then it would be up to the man to find a woman happy to have a child with him. Or, if he didn't want a child, to be clear about it and take responsibility for contraception, so that a woman wanting to conceive a child would know to pick another man to provide the necessary sperm and/or fatherhood.

Shouldn't it be a joint decision....or have I missed the point somewhere?

Dolally: Maybe you have. Mostly conception is a joint decision. But how does saying that a woman conceives when she wants to make it not a joint decision?

Yes, I think that is true.

It's not necessarily a joint decision if conception occurs when the woman wishes it if the man does not wish it. Surely the ideal situation is that conception would occur when both partners (being fully informed and acting without pressure or coercion) both want the sexual act to result in conception?

I'd see the OP as being pretty much irresponsible. The world has much more to consider than whether any woman wants to conceive. There is a massive population problem, which more equitable use of global resources would satisfy, but I am pretty sure that ain't going to happen any time soon.
So, no, unless you mean in some airy-fairy world where we have infinite resources, then women should not be able to conceive as and when they wish to.

At the moment, in most of the world, women conceive far more than they would like.

They do not have access to contraception, they do not have control over when they have sex and who with. They are impregnated when very young, with all the physical problems that brings, and many are still in a situation where they are pregnant or BF al their fertile lives, unless they become too damaged to conceive any more, or die.

When women have access to contraception they tend to have less children, not more.

What a strange take on the OP. The assumption that if given the choice of when to conceive, that women would choose to be perpetually pregnant, birthing and looking after babies... Peculiar.

and that SQ is a peculiar take on my take of the OP.

So, ThePan, if women shouldn't conceive when they want to, whose decision do you think it should be? Are you advocating, in general, having fewer children? (That's not necessarily a bad proposition and, as SQ says, when women have the opportunity to choose, they have fewer children than they would without access to contraception or the right to refuse PIV sex.)

I don't know really. Just the idea that it's irresponsible to say that women should only conceive when they want to... I don't get it. SGB's OP is obviously referring to the fact that most women in the world are not able to control their fertility. Clearly there is not a problem with fertility around the world - humans seem to be pretty good at procreating. And when women can choose, they usually choose (unsurprisingly) not to put their bodies under the huge stress and danger of frequent pregnancy and birth.

Maybe you could elaborate Pan.