I have fantasied about a genetic modification that enables ovulation or the production of sperm to be an act of volition.
It must be possible.
And then the problem might be stood on its head. We may soon not be able to have any children at all. The role of endocrine disrupters are beginning to be felt.
These comments are from a person that wants to hear Mr. Ryerson's hypotheses, his evidence, and especially his assumptions. To have an adult-sized conversation.
I am a Christian, a scientist and a PPer. I don't think those statements are mutually exclusive.
And for the record, I completely share the concern that Bill Ryerson and Chris express about population expansivion relative to the carrying capacity of the planet. I want to advocate, against the tones that pervade here and on the mainstream media, that Christians want and can have the adult -sized conversations that Chris asks for.
I don't think such concern about resource management and population growth is in conflict with Christian beliefs and the Bible, which says in essence that we are to be good stewards of blessings of the earth that are given to us.
But to give you a little feedback, sometimes it is very hard to have the adult-sized conversations, when you have guests that take a side of an argument that, to me, is well, one-sided and frankly insensitive to the possibility that many thoughtful people have another point of view that, despite the unfair characterizations, that is not crazy and is honestly held and faith-based.
I'd be interested to know if Mr. Ryerson and those of his colleagues at the PMC are strong supporters of Mr. Obama, Mrs. Pelosi, the ACA, and government control of healthcare in general.
"And as we have seen in the last two years, the U.S. House of Representatives has voted to de-fund all assistance to family planning worldwide. Thankfully, the Senate stopped that from happening, but in an era when we are already at an unsustainable level of people to stop any funding for family planning is absolute insanity."
So all our problems in ACA with respect to "family planning" would be solved if it weren't for those wascally Republicans?
This is mis-characterization and unnecessary. To give a bit balance to the apparently revisionist history discussed by Mr. Ryerson, the House of Representatives rejected funding because the democrats led by Mr. "I'll listen to all ideas on healthcare" Obama and the democrat party, in typically uncompromising fashion, tried to force taxpayer funding for abortions through the Obamacare bill.
Understand that the Left repeatedly refer to abortion with the euphemism of "family planning". I believe this is to make taxpayer funded abortion more palatable, just like the Left doesn't want to use the word "taxes". Mr. Obama and Ms. Pelosi, as leaders of this leftist view, repeatedly are replacing the word "taxes" with "investment", just like they replace the word "abortion" with "family planning". They apparently don't agree with the wisdom of "say what you mean and mean what you say".
The ACA bill was patched back together (before it was rammed through Congress in an unconstitutional boondoggle, middle-of-the-night fashion, against the majority of the country's wishes) with the Stupak-Pitts amendment to the bill to try to comprise with pro-abortion representatives and salvage the bill.
As Mr. Ryerson said, the initial version of the bill from the Senate added abortion funding into the ACA, creating an impass. The impass was resolved by a "promise" by Mr. "If you like your health insurance, you can keep it, period" "we're not listening to your phone calls" "I found out the IRS was targeting conservatives in the newspaper" Obama to sign an executive order banning abortion. Mr. Obama did sign an executive order document #13535 commiting to preserve the 1976 Hyde amendment. I'll leave it up to the reader how much trust they are willing to place in Mr. Obama to keep his word.
The impasse was also relieved by the Nelson Amendment, also removing abortion funding, which democratic Senator Nelson insisted be added before he would vote for it.
I can see why, with the way Mr. Ryerson comes across with this somewhat, narrow and insensitive view, not to mention politically one-sided, that he has had trouble getting traction.
It may be surprising or possibly unimaginable to Mr. Ryerson, since it seems not supporting taxpayer funding of "family planning" aka abortion is "absolute insanity", but a very large number of Americans find the taking of an innocent life in prenatal development to be morally repugnant. It is deeply concerning as a part of a mentality that objectifies and diminishes the value of human life. Part of the same mentality that Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, an architect of Obamacare, has supported when he proposed a system that apparently endorses withdrawing care from the elderly and allowing them to die, despite their wishes to receive healthcare because, well, they are expensive and not as useful anymore.
Christians, of course including Catholics, reject that view, and believe that each human life is of value, and innocents should not be killed because a fellow citizen believes, through some equation or cost model, that their life doesn't rise to sufficient value. They believe it is wrong to take another life because that person is inconvenient and gets in the way of their life plans. But that consideration of an unborn child is part of the bigger picture of human relationships that includes the belief that sex is a gift from God that binds husband to wife and enables procreation. It is true that a sizeable part of the population treat sex as casually as a sneeze or a cough. Perhaps that is part of the deeper problem with society.
I'm glad Mr. Ryerson is looking for ways to avoid overpopulation without coercion, and I applaud and support any effort that gives individuals correct information, education about methods and family planning; education about the truth is always a good thing.
Which is why I am uncomfortable about his statements about birth control in China.
"But I have traveled all over China and I have talked to ordinary people all over that country. They are all persuaded that the one-child concept is a good idea. China mobilized a million people to go all over the country talking to people about the benefits they would achieve by avoiding another thirty million deaths from starvation that they had during the Cultural Revolution"
So apparently the Chinese government was telling people that the reason there were 30 million deaths was due to insufficient birth control? Sorry, but if that was what the Chinese government was telling people, that is simply a lie and propaganda. The 30 million deaths were due to starvation as a consequence of the falsely named "Great Leap Forward" and subsequent "Cultural Revolution" which led to tragic misadventures of a vicious Marxist central-planning government led by the egomaniacal and increasingly disconnected from reality Mao. And by the internment and execution of citizens who didn't agree with Chairman Mao's obviously glorious policies.
It clearly doesn't sound like that's the approach Mr. Ryerson is advocating, but why support this as a good example of birth control?
Mr. Ryerson should and hopefully does recognize that is the consequence of high concentrations of power in the government that may start out with noble ideals, but always ends in self-preservation of the people in power at the expense of millions of lives.
I also couldn't quite follow the meme of Mr. Ryerson and the PMC, against real estate developers et al. It again started to sound like the typical the anti-capitalist rant. I'm trying to recollect a statement where I can recall a business plan or strategy by a real estate agent, builder, construction worker, or press release from Toll Brothers that said "Population in a very poor demographic is increasing in India? Terrific, that's great for the bottom line." If anything, real estate moguls would be making higher margins if the population was shrinking due to higher education and more economic freedom, and with concurrent higher salaries and ability to buy high margin homes.
I also think Mr. Ryerson has the causation wrong for population declines in the developed Western Countries. Ironically, these declines are for the same reasons that he points out are reasons for the increases in birth rates in some countries. Women and men in Europe simply do not want to have children as much as previously. We can get into a deeper discussion about the rise of self-centered ness of society, but perhaps better for another time.
The points about "declines" in economies in Europe and Russia relating to decreases in child bearing rates are overstated. These are small directional changes in standard living, which are dwarfed by the large increases of standard of living brought about in the last century by cheap energy and technological progress, and a conversion from an agricultural (labor heavy) to an industrial (labor modest) then information (labor lite) society.
I do agree we should have an adult-sized conversation about how to reduce the human impact on the planet and be the best stewards of the resources we have. Lower populations can clearly alleviate stress on resources, though we need an intellectually honest discussion about what these limits actually are. I believe free people, unencumbered by government corruption and oppression, economically empowered, and spiritually empowered will make good choices regarding family size. So I support the advancement of education and dissemination of accurate information as a way for families to be thoughtfully planned. I believe I align with the PMC on these goals. As a libertarian-leaning citizen, I think all these goals can be achieved by grassroots movements from passionate individuals within organizations like the PMC.
Would Mr. Ryerson join with me in getting the government out of the unconstitutional, coercive healthcare business, thus freeing up my pocketbook to send my money out of free choice to more effective and less oppressive organizations such as the PMC?
Thanks for having a discussion on the topic,
H
informs my behavior.
"Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature.
So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, and the birds in the air, the cattle,
and, yes, the earth itself" Genesis1:26
i think i got that right. then human beings made god in their image and now its all amuck. there will be a paydaysomeday
robie,husband,father,farmer,optometrist
How do we communicate effectively the message that we are in control and that contraception can help us to counter the expectation driven by culture and religion that women's fundamental purpose is to serve God by having his children?We tried that in Rhodesia, Karen. That was implied in my reference to "Underhanded Feminism" above. We got our women folk to organize coffee mornings with the Bantu women folk and then gradually introduce the idea that the Bantu women weren't just possessions, bought and paid for to produce babies. but could space their babies out with contraceptives- without their husbands knowledge. Of cause we were exposed, and that led to further anger against us. How dare we interfere in a mans' attempts to further his cause by creating a huge family that he would be Patriarch of, and which would support him in his old age! We also tried to introduce materialism. (Money) That worked much better. The new Urban person is less tied to his roots and less inclined to pass his money up-line to his Dad and then have the Grandfather re-distribute it through the family according to need. (Hence Bob singling out the shanty town dweller as being "Totemless".) There were complaints among the older Urban men that having many children was not working as promised. Take home message- Unless you are willing and able to destroy a culture (Such as we did in Japan, by destroying the Bushido), Money talks. Unfortunately Education alone is not powerful enough. Would that it were.