Dear Friends, The year was 1968, and I was shopping for a Christmas gift that I hoped my godly father would enjoy. He was an avid reader, and I was searching for a book that sounded interesting. I settled on a runaway best seller titled, The Population Bomb, by Dr. Paul Ehrlich.(i) Everyone seemed to be talking about it.
The theme of this alarming publication was that there were far too many people in the world, and the problem was getting worse by the second. Ehrlich projected global disaster by 1975, involving worldwide disease and human beings overrunning the earth like rats in a subway. He warned his readers that a billion people could starve to death in the 1980s. The only thing that might save us, Ehrlich said, was immediate population control to prevent what he referred to as “a dying planet."(ii)
I made the mistake of not reading the book before I gave it to my dad. I proudly wrapped it in festive paper and put it under the “tree” to be opened on Christmas morning. When my father tore the paper off the package, his countenance fell. He thumbed through the pages for a few seconds and then rudely handed the book back to me.
“I won’t accept this,” he said.
The Population Bomb was one of only two gifts I gave my dad that he refused to accept. He didn’t explain his irritation, but clearly I had struck a nerve. Now I know that he was deeply concerned at that time about the approaching support for legalized abortion on demand. The Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court was handed down five years later and my father had seen it coming. When he talked about the prospect of killing countless babies in the sixties and seventies, big tears filled his eyes and ran down his cheeks.
“Population control” for my dad, and now for me, meant the murder of unborn babies—nearly sixty million to date(iii)—along with the horrors of infanticide and euthanasia. It also meant governmental policies to limit procreation, such as China’s “one child per family” decree.(iv) It imposed forced abortion on vulnerable women. As a result, millions of baby girls in China were left to die in ditches or dumps or were drowned in stagnant waters. Others starved to death, beyond compassion or care.(v) Why would Chinese couples inflict such cruelties on their own children? It is because, in that country, families that could have only one child insisted that it be male.(vi) So much for women’s rights.
There have been other tragic consequences of population control. One of them was the development of a wretched organization known as Planned Parenthood. It has murdered babies wantonly for decades.(vii) More recently, its executives have begun selling body parts for profit, including “harvested” brains, hearts and other organs of young victims. Some of them were still alive while being cut to pieces. It is a modern day atrocity.(viii)
When the American people learned of this outrage in 2015, they first gasped and then yawned. Under the leadership of Speaker of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Senate, they led their colleagues to continue granting 500 million dollars per year to Planned Parenthood.(ix) President Obama then signed their bill into law, and the killing continues.(x)
Well, forty-seven years have come and gone since Paul Ehrlich made his case for population control. What has been the consequence? In short, he turned out to be wrong—dead wrong.(xi)(xii) Americans are starting to realize, perhaps for the first time, that we are facing a demographic nightmare. Our problem is not too many people. It is a falling birthrate that threatens everything this nation stands for. There are more single women today than those who are married, and the birthrate has been declining steadily.(xiii) If it were not for immigration, this nation would be below Zero Population Growth (ZPG).(xiv)
Abortion, contraception, and surgical alternatives have allowed couples to opt out of parenting if they choose. Children are perceived by many young couples as being expensive, burdensome, time-consuming, and often stressful to rear.(xv) Other young adults elect not to bear children because they cherish their freedom, independence, and personal fulfillment.(xvi) They have a right not to bear children, of course, but serious consequences emerge when barrenness is chosen by a majority of couples. A nation can reach a tipping point from which it cannot recover. It is called the “point of no return,” and many nations are dangerously close to it. Some have already gone over the cliff and don’t know it.(xvii)
Here’s how demographics work. Historically, children and young adults have greatly outnumbered the old and feeble. Those of marriageable age have produced a vigorous birthrate for 300 years, which continually swelled the size of the population. Most of the elderly, on the other hand, had a short life span and were dying faster than babies were born. Thus, the population has been depicted as a pyramid, with the young being represented across its broad base and fewer older individuals were nestled at the pinnacle. Now, we’re witnessing what is called an “inversion of the pyramid,” where there are many more older people at the bottom and the smaller number of younger people and babies are now at the top of the pyramid.
A falling birthrate is occurring throughout Europe, parts of Asia, in Central and South America, and elsewhere. This inversion is a worldwide phenomenon.(xviii)(xix)(xx)(xxi)
The Russian government, in a desperate attempt to repopulate their nation, is offering incentives now for women who produce babies.(xxii) Japan’s birthrate has fallen so dramatically that the Japanese population has the oldest average age on earth. It is literally self-destructing. Last year, more diapers were bought and used by aging Japanese citizens than were purchased for babies.(xxiii)(xxiv) China is not producing enough females for Chinese males to marry.(xxv) France, Germany, and other European countries are also experiencing dramatically low birthrates.(xxvi)
If the human population continues to wither, it will have shocking implications economically, politically, culturally, socially, and spiritually. Indeed, it will affect every dimension of life. Medical plans will fail. Pensions will not be sustainable, creating chaos within the culture. Riots are occurring regularly in France and Germany.(xxvii)
When calculations were made upon which Social Security was created, the numbers appeared to “work” because the young and healthy were always expected to outnumber those who were old and sick.(xxviii) Now, politicians are talking quietly about the inevitability of “death panels,” although the policy is usually referred to euphemistically as “rationed health care.”(xxix)(xxx) As the trend continues, human life will become cheap, euthanasia will be commonplace, and infanticide will be acceptable and considered moral.(xxxi)
It comes down to this: a society with a serious decline in its birthrate will eventually become a world without springtime or regeneration. The laughter and exuberance of the youth will be an echo from the past. The result will be a self-absorbed culture of old, tired, dying individuals. Despite this growing concern, political correctness and population control continue to flourish. The democratic frontrunner in the upcoming presidential election, Hillary Clinton, said during a political speech in Iowa on November 24, 2015, “The United States should fund abortions around the world as a method of family planning.”(xxxii) She just doesn’t get it.
My dad put it like this. He said today’s women consider their decision not to become mothers as an inalienable right, and, of course, it is. But if they all exercised that right for a short period of time, it would mean a quick end to the human race. Those who choose not to have children are moving the culture toward extinction with a wagonload of humanity bumping along behind.
Put another way, the women of the world will remain fertile at most for about 26 years from any given time. (That represents all females from about 14 to 40.) Every year that goes by in a world without births results in a significant decrease in overall procreation, as a percentage of women without children going into menopause. After 15 years of fertility, the girls who were 14 when the doomsday clock began ticking would be 29, and only 11 years of fertility would remain until it’s “game over” and lights out.(xxxiii)
Bearing and raising children is a God-given privilege, which can quickly be snuffed out by those who exercise their inclination not to become parents. Of course, many women don’t have the opportunity to bear children because they remain single or are barren or are married to men who can’t sire children. In short, the world’s fertility rate is a fragile and brief experience, which, in many countries, is on the decline.(xxxiv)
This must be the reason why the Creator ordered Adam and Eve to, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)
It’s not too late for politicians to begin cherishing and nourishing their families. They should be honored as our greatest natural resource.(xxxv) Their taxes should be lowered to reduce the confiscatory tariffs imposed today. The rest of us should pause to thank the moms and dads in the marketplace who are sacrificing to replenish the earth. Children are God’s blessings to us and our link to the future.
I can’t tell you how strongly I feel about this international development. It is why Kurt Bruner and I co-wrote a trilogy of novels that depict what life will be like in 2042, if present trends continue. The books are called Fatherless, Childless, and Godless. They present a fictional account of what current demographic, sociological, and cultural trends portend. But they also celebrate God’s design for families, which retain a resilient beauty and redemptive power the most ardent forces of hell cannot destroy. I hope you will get copies of the books and
read them.
If you agree with the perspectives like the one shared here, and if you appreciate what you hear during our daily radio and Internet programs, I ask you to consider helping us support this ministry. You may be exposed to ideas and concepts that are rarely discussed elsewhere. Everything expressed herein is rooted in Biblical teachings.
God’s blessings to you.
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Sincerely,
P.S. A final thought. “Mother Shipton” was a prophetess about whom little is known. There is controversy over her place in history, but her writings definitely date from long ago. My uncle, Dr. Willis Dobson, earned a Ph.D. in Shakespearian literature from the University of Texas. He stated that Mother Shipton’s poetry is known from English literature to have dated from the 1400s. A poem that is in my possession was written by Shipton 43 years before Columbus discovered America. Someday I will share the entire poem with you, but for now, here is a stanza related to the demographics we have been discussing. She wrote:
“In those wondrous far-off days, the women shall adopt a craze to dress like men and trousers wear, cut off their lovely locks of hair. Then love shall die and marriage cease, and nations wane as babes decrease.”
Shipton had it right.
(i) Sterilizing Those Pesky Humans: Earth Day with Paul Ehrlich
(ii) Great moments in failed predictions
(iii) 57,762,169 Abortions in America Since Roe vs. Wade in 1973:
(v) Innocent victim of China's one child policy?
(vii) Planned Parenthood Annual Report: All About Abortions and Profits
(viii) The Grotesque Business of Planned Parenthood
(ix) Planned Parenthood Declares Victory, Praises Fully Funded Budget Deal
(x) President Obama signs massive year-end tax cut and spending package
(xi) Paul Ehrlich still prophesying doom, and still wrong
(xii) Halloween Hangover: Ehrlich, Holdren, Hansen Unretracted
(xiii) Singles Now Outnumber married people in America
(xiv) Today's Climate Change Doom is Yesterday's Overpopulation Hysteria
(xv) Not Married? The Odds That You Never Will Be Are Higher Than Ever
(xvii) The Coming Population Crash: Investigating the Aftermath of a Population Implosion
(xviii) The Looming Population Implosion
(xix) Global consequences of the falling birth rate
(xx) The Underpopulation Bomb
(xxii) Russia's Dangerous Implosion
(xxiii) Stunning Facts About Japan's Demographic Implosion
(xxiv) Japan's Demographic and Financial Implosion Accelerating
(xxvi) Gender Imbalance: How China's One-Child Law Backfired on Men
(xxvi) Europe's Population Implosion
(xxvii) Achtung, Germany Needs Babies
(xxviii) Pew Research: 5 Facts About Social Security
(xxix) Obama administration revives plan once criticized as 'death panels'
(xxx) Death Panels -- Alive and Well
(xxxi) Euthanasia on the Horizon?
(xxxii) Hillary Clinton: U. S. Should Fund Abortions Around the World as a Method of Family Planning
(xxxiii) Executive Women and the Myth of Having It All
(xxxiv) The Empty Cradle -- Falling Birth Rates and the Human Future
(xxxv) The Value of Children: Economics, Faith, and the Problem of Underpopulation
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