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Total votes : 39

ArrantPariah
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21 Feb 2013, 8:51 am

LKL wrote:
'cause abortion is about DNA! (hint: NOT.)


DNA often enters the decision.

For example, even the staunchest Republicans would give a woman the right to abort a fetus that contained a rapist's DNA.

Aborting a fetus with mongolism is about DNA, as is the Asian practice of aborting more girl than boy fetuses.



Tyri0n
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21 Feb 2013, 10:46 am

Lack of abortion and birth control? That's what it is. It's no wonder Europeans are smarter than we are. Fewer dumb ones are born. lol

Quote:
Reviewing the academic literature, Susan L. Brown of Bowling Green State University recently found that children born to married couples, on average, “experience better education, social, cognitive and behavioral outcomes.”


So does being rich (and therefore more likely to marry). So it could just as easily be that being born to rich parents leads to better outcomes.

What's obsolete is the nuclear family, which was a transient phenomenon that lasted from about 1920 until about 1990. Formerly, children were raised by the community, not in nuclear families. Yet some elements of society are not willing to go back to these "traditional values" just yet. So that is why we're in limbo. The nuclear family is not tenable anymore because living in a society run by large corporations creates too much economic instability for all but the rich for marriage to work. A national childcare system is not tenable because of social conservatives.

So we're left with broken homes and children out of wedlock (I won't use the "b" word).



GGPViper
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21 Feb 2013, 11:39 am

ArrantPariah wrote:
LKL wrote:
'cause abortion is about DNA! (hint: NOT.)

DNA often enters the decision.

For example, even the staunchest Republicans would give a woman the right to abort a fetus that contained a rapist's DNA.

Even Richard Mourdock?



ArrantPariah
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21 Feb 2013, 11:42 am

GGPViper wrote:
ArrantPariah wrote:
LKL wrote:
'cause abortion is about DNA! (hint: NOT.)

DNA often enters the decision.

For example, even the staunchest Republicans would give a woman the right to abort a fetus that contained a rapist's DNA.

Even Richard Mourdock?


Well, they often end up not getting elected.



XFilesGeek
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21 Feb 2013, 12:57 pm

AngelRho wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the deal with Japan was more of an extreme societal aversion to marriage and childbirth as a whole. I'd heard that there was a decrease of interest in sex as a whole compared to other countries and marriage/family/childbearing (in or out of wedlock) is considered more of a hindrance to individual social and career goals.

There is a similar element in the US, and it's more about people thinking with their pocketbooks. We're around a lot of older people, and they absolutely LOVE us and our kids. So when we casually mention that we've considered having one more child, their beaming countenance falls and they start a mini-lecture on how we can afford another child and how expensive they are. We're like, children? Expensive??? REALLY??? We had NO IDEA!! !! When my wife's grandmother was still alive, she really pushed for us to stop with just one child. After a night of "I THINK we're okay" and a few months later, we had our little girl. Some years down the road, Trojan Man let us down and we had our third child--which we'd considered trying for anyway. We just sacrificed, cut costs everywhere we could, increased our income, and just got used to working our butts off. If we were unhappy it would be different. And we'll give it, say, until our oldest turns 25 and even with 4 kids we'll be empty-nesting and have no idea what to do with ourselves and all the money we don't have to spend anymore. So we'll work our tails off for another 20-25 years, shore up our retirement, and finally just enjoy what little time we're blessed to have left while spoiling our grandchildren.

MOST people in the US don't really have that mentality, at least not when they're still young. It's all about going to college, expanding your social life, career-building, investing in material comforts as quickly as possible (5-bedroom houses and BMW's), and THEN marrying that man or woman you've been stringing along since jr. high. Which, by the way, is pointless because it's extremely different cultivating fidelity for the 15 years you're going to wait to get married (post-high school), THEN you want to spend at least 5 good years together to just enjoy sleeping late every day, having as much sex as possible while on the pill, going out to eat every Friday night and hitting the bars every Saturday night. And THEN you decide to have children? We think we'll get it all done by 30, but if we're serious about all our other goals in life, more likely we'll be pushing 40 by the time we're READY. By then, what's the point? Half your life is gone.

And that's if you even bother to stick with it that long...given the divorce rate and shuffling kids between two houses, two cities, and even across state lines, marriage and family isn't something people even take all that seriously anymore.

Screw dat, sez I. I never WANTED to have children, to be honest. I just felt that being a father was something I was just supposed to do. Now I can't imagine what life would be like without them. My wife and I were talking about our honeymoon once, so without thinking I asked her, "Hey, what did we do with the kids that night?" It was a good laugh...because it seems like they've just always been with us, everywhere.

If decreasing birth rates in the US is due to a decrease in underaged, unwed, single mothers giving birth, then GREAT. Decreasing births due to selfishness and greed is something else entirely. I fear that low birth rates among MARRIED individuals is symptomatic of greater problems we as a society have.


I'm going to give this a big +1.

To take this discussion further, what do we suppose we should do about this issue?


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Last edited by XFilesGeek on 21 Feb 2013, 4:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ArrantPariah
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21 Feb 2013, 3:34 pm

XFilesGeek wrote:
AngelRho wrote:

If decreasing birth rates in the US is due to a decrease in underaged, unwed, single mothers giving birth, then GREAT. Decreasing births due to selfishness and greed is something else entirely. I fear that low birth rates among MARRIED individuals is symptomatic of greater problems we as a society have.


I'm going to give this a big +1.

To take this discussion further, what do we suppose we should do about this issue?


Get married and get busy procreating, obviously.



ruveyn
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21 Feb 2013, 3:36 pm

XFilesGeek wrote:
.

To take this discussion further, what do we suppose we should do about this issue?


Reward motherhood.

ruveyn



ArrantPariah
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21 Feb 2013, 4:13 pm

ruveyn wrote:
XFilesGeek wrote:
.

To take this discussion further, what do we suppose we should do about this issue?


Reward motherhood.

ruveyn


A lot of ladies would rather pursue their rewarding careers, and forget about motherhood. Who is going to reward motherhood?



XFilesGeek
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21 Feb 2013, 4:59 pm

ruveyn wrote:
XFilesGeek wrote:
.

To take this discussion further, what do we suppose we should do about this issue?


Reward motherhood.

ruveyn


The question becomes "how?"

And shouldn't we also be rewarding fatherhood?


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trollcatman
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21 Feb 2013, 6:27 pm

XFilesGeek wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
XFilesGeek wrote:
.

To take this discussion further, what do we suppose we should do about this issue?


Reward motherhood.

ruveyn


The question becomes "how?"

And shouldn't we also be rewarding fatherhood?


Ban contraceptives and abortion. A new baby boom!
(I'm not in favour of this, but it might raise the birthrate)



ArrantPariah
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21 Feb 2013, 7:55 pm

I think that our birthrate is plenty high enough.