If you want something to happen, pay people to do it. If someone wants there to be more babies, they need to pay for them.
At least the baby shortage will help with the teacher shortage.
At least the baby shortage will help with the teacher shortage.
You'd have to pay a lot of individuals to have babies and then become full-time parents. Not only is that expensive, it seems inefficient. Our society structures childrearing like that only because women used to have a lower status and had to perform unpaid labor and bear children whether they wanted to or not (edit: and then later, it was still unthinkable not to have children; only now has that sentiment been becoming less common).
It reminds me of how the American South had an economy that was inefficient because they relied on slavery. They wouldn't have been able to pay all those slaves the full value of their labor anyway, so after slavery ended, they had to find some other ways to get that labor (e.g. sharecropping) and also restructure their whole economy over the course of a hundred years to become more industrialized.
I predict that either we'll find some way to make people want to have babies and raise kids intrinsically again, or we'll restructure the whole economy to pay people for the labor of childrearing and bearing children, integrating it into the market-based economy somehow.
It’s a bit controversial, since there was at the same time an opposite effect in central/Eastern Europe:
> The decline of serfdom in Western Europe has sometimes been attributed to the widespread plague epidemic of the Black Death, which reached Europe in 1347 and caused massive fatalities, disrupting society.[2] Conversely, serfdom grew stronger in Central and Eastern Europe, where it had previously been less common (this phenomenon was known as "second serfdom").
Right now, the rich are disproportionately punished for having children while the poor are basically paid for it. How about flip flopping that?
Whom you are talking about are upstart "upper middle" who have a good wage but no capital of their own, and the rich are generally happy to have them thrown under the bus rather than face them as equals.
The method of throwing under the bus is have them overwork for a wage and then second job to waste that wage on "fueling economic growth". Not turning these into anything permanent.
Universal health care would also be a huge boon, the costs of providing health care are quite high.
In the past our society seemed a lot more inclined to share and pool resources to raise the next generation... now it feels like society will only do the bare minimum to prevent kids from dying, but other than that isn't eager to take on a communal parenting role, instead forcing the entire burden on parents.
You can be like "well then they shouldn't have such high expectations, expect and accept a lifestyle drop, and send their kids to public school" but you're yelling at a river to change course.
systems are about incentives and our current system in the US has us in a death spiral, immigration is used as a short-term stopgap to reduce impact of low birth rates but just accelerates the death spiral in the long term
People saw kids as a source of income through all the history. It's just that the modern ethical liberal sees somebody else's kids in that role.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/117-2022/h385
I'm sure you can find more data yourself, Google search isn't that far gone yet.
Steelmanning, it would be interesting to hear from the opposition why they don't support the bill. For example, I could see an opponent argue that this is not something that should be done at the Federal level, and such an argument would not make that person "love[s] the idea of limiting access to contraception" as GP has asserted. I could also see some unease about defining it as a "right" because that can have significant legal implications.
> Conservatives love the idea of limiting access to contraception and abortion
It's obvious that Conservatives are mostly against abortion, but what about contraception in general? Are there some non-fringe Conservatives that are coming out in favor of legal restrictions on condoms or birth control pills or similar?
A lot of things in politics can be murky. US republican votes on certain issues, is not one of them. If this stuff is obvious to me, and I don't even live there, I have to wonder how it is you can be so under-informed to genuinely think that Republican legislators are not against the restriction of contraception.
If this stuff is obvious to you, and you don't even live here, then perhaps you're oversimplifying the issue and making some unsubstantiated conclusions.
What are some of the arguments against the bill that you evaluated before you concluded that they "love the idea of limiting access to contraception?" Did you actually look at those arguments before you concluded that there couldn't possibly be any other reason for opposing the bill than that they love limiting access?
I would agree that there probably are some of them who do want to limit access, but the original claim of "Conservatives love the idea of limiting access to contraception" needs a lot more substantiation than what we've been given, and clearly has burden of proof on it.
In the House, it was voted for by 100% of Democrats, and voted against by 96% of Republicans. The text, in full, if you want to read it is here: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr8373/text
It's not very long. I've read it. It is the answer to what you want to know, straight from the horses mouth. There is no uncertainty or middle-man telling you how to interpret things. Just read it, and then consider that 96% of Republicans did not wish for that bill to go to congress.
You can then try to surmise what plausible reasoning they might have had to object. Just be somewhat critical, otherwise you'll just reaffirm what you already wanted to believe.
Don't know what else I can suggest on this matter.
> A person has a statutory right under this Act to obtain contraceptives and to engage in contraception, and a health care provider has a corresponding right to provide contraceptives, contraception, and information related to contraception.
The outcome of the vote is pretty clear and convincing evidence of how the Republican Party feels about this issue.
> (1)Contraception
> The term contraception means an action taken to prevent pregnancy, including the use of contraceptives or fertility-awareness based methods, and sterilization procedures.
Abortion is an action taken to prevent pregnancy, so to me this law includes a right to an abortion. Again, if you think abortion is equivalent to birth control pills or condoms, then sure the conclusion that republicans just love the idea of restricting "contraception" seems clear. But if you see any difference or nuance between the two, which I think is pretty reasonable, then there's a pretty good explanation of why they voted against it: They think abortion is murder. They are against murder. You can disagree with them that it's murder, but it's quite disingenuous to suggest that they just love restricting contraception unless you also clarify that by "contraception" you mean "abortion."
Nonsense. The literal meaning of the word "contraception" is "to prevent conception." Abortion, by definition, takes place after conception (i.e., pregnancy), and that's the whole reason anti-abortionists have concerns about it. Don't conflate the two concepts to suit your own ends.
The real reason that conservatives want to restrict access to contraception are far more sinister than this, but I won't get into that in a public forum.
Because I try very, very hard not to believe things without evidence, and I haven't seen any evidence yet. From my sibling comment on this law, this bill would have guaranteed the right to an abortion because the way they define contraceptive includes abortion. This then seems like evidence that Conservatives love the idea of restricting abortion (which they absolutely do). It is a fallacy of composition to say they favor restricting contraceptives. If you do that, you may as well broaden the category more and say they love restricting health care, or that they love to restrict free market transactions, though such is clearly not warranted because generally speaking conservatives hate the idea of restricting free market transactions (unless they're jailing people simply for ingesting plants (an allusion to the war on drugs, which they definitely seem to love, but I digress)).
Nonsense. The two terms are clearly defined in the bill and neither of them are defined as any acts, drugs, or devices that would take place or be utilized after conception (i.e., pregnancy).
(1)
Contraception
The term contraception means an action taken to prevent pregnancy, including the use of contraceptives or fertility-awareness based methods, and sterilization procedures.
(2)
Contraceptive
The term "contraceptive" means any drug, device, or biological product intended for use in the prevention of pregnancy, whether specifically intended to prevent pregnancy or for other health needs, that is legally marketed under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, such as oral contraceptives, long-acting reversible contraceptives, emergency contraceptives, internal and external condoms, injectables, vaginal barrier methods, transdermal patches, and vaginal rings, or other contraceptives.
Following this line of thought though, does this mean that if someone is against teachers providing gun education classes, then they are in favor of restricting or eliminating gun rights? There would definitely be some overlap, probably even mostly, but I could see someone arguing that gun rights are important but school isn't the most appopriate place for that to be taught.
I'm not going to have a conversation with someone who won't argue in good faith. There's obviously a middle ground here that starts at puberty that you purposely chose to ignore.
But regardless, my second point doesn't depend at all on the age group. So sure, ad hominem is an easy way to avoid having to reconcile uncomfortable logic.
Your second point was a ridiculous attempt to bring guns into the conversation. "Gun rights" are a uniquely American concept and have nothing to do with understanding one's own body, sexuality and reproduction. These concepts are not just universal human concerns; they are core to the functioning of the animal kingdom.
"In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Thomas wrote in concurrence. “Because any substantive due process decision is 'demonstrably erroneous,' we have a duty to 'correct the error' established in those precedents"'
and many sibling posts have cover the current legislative initiatives to restrict birth control.
So yes, the far-right does want to roll back access to birth control, the right to marriage equality, the right to privacy between consenting adults. The American far-right wants a big brother government enforcing their personal morality on the whole country, right into our bedrooms and bathrooms.
I think an employer like Hobby Lobby doing that is gross, but it's not as simple as you've made it sound.
As a point of comparison, the Supreme Court wouldn't take up a hypothetical case filed by a company that refused to provide nursing rooms, because Republicans don't oppose breastfeeding at work (yet...)
So, it seems reasonable then that someone could be supportive of Hobby Lobby in this case because they highly value the right to religious freedom, rather than because they "love restricting contraception."
This is not what evidence shows. Should you have some showing otherwise, though, please provide it.
Nobody has pointed out any examples that are for contraceptives like condoms or birth control pills, but don't include abortions. All the examples have lumped in abortions as "contraceptives," which is a fallacy of composition (contraceptives is a much broader category than abortion is). Yes, conservatives are generally speaking very much against abortion because they believe it is murder. They do love to restrict murder. They do not (at least not that I've seen any evidence for) love to restrict condoms or birth control pills.
> You seem to be implying that conservatives support contraception. > This is not what evidence shows. Should you have some showing otherwise, though, please provide it.
No, I'm not claiming that at all. I don't think (at a public/policy level) most conservatives give a rats ass for or against condoms or birth control pills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGfNZiCWW7c
It's in Russian, but subtitles with auto translation work great. And you can just check this website:
https://www.populationpyramid.net/russian-federation/
https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/
https://www.populationpyramid.net/india/
Even before current war Russia had almost 1,000,000 death tall to COVID-19 and now likely close to 1M people left the country in recent migration waves and a lot of them will never come back. And war loses just tip of the iceberg.
It’ll be interesting to see what China does when their demographic crunch comes. Mao famously claimed any decimation by the USSR, would be countered by Chinese women pumping out massive amounts of new babies to compensate.
From what I understand, the success has been very limited.
The Mao claim sounds like classic Mao logic. Did he plan for toddler division to spearhead the counter attack?
This will never fly because blah blah reasons blah blah inequity, etc. But seems would help incentivize productive parents.
So, the same as today basically? It's been this way nearly my entire life and I'm middle aged.
I’d personally rather fund more children and new families, then whatever the hell happened in the past five years with the deficit. More people means more future tax payers as well.
Let me help there. Everyone's to pay. But let's make that clear as the statement implied whoever is demanding higher demography would fund it, by some miracles.
I'm not myself against funding the future of the civilization our lineage built. But we are already taxed significantly, more so to fund wars from what I see. already gave up properly financing a solid health care and education system.