What Western Society Thinks Of Fertility (And Children)

No doubt about it—the Duggars have been exercising their (God-given) gift of fertility AGAIN.

The San Francisco Chronicle carries the story…along with 333 comments to date. The story appears below; the ten most recommended comments appear after the story.

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Arkansas Couple Welcomes 17th Child

By JILL ZEMAN, Associated Press Writer

Friday, August 3, 2007

(08-03) 07:56 PDT Little Rock, Ark. (AP) --

It's a girl — again — for the Duggars. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar welcomed their 17th child, and seventh daughter, into the world Thursday.

Jennifer Danielle was born at 10:01 a.m. at Saint Mary's Hospital in Rogers, Ark., the Duggars said in an interview. Jennifer weighed 8 pounds, 8 ounces and arrived five days after Michelle's due date.

Less than 30 minutes after giving birth, the Duggars already were talking of having more.

"We'd love to have more," Michelle said, adding that the girls are outnumbered seven to 10 in the family. "We love the ruffles and lace."

Jennifer joins the fast-growing Duggar brood, who live in Tontitown in a 7,000-square-foot home. All the children — whose names start with the letter J — are home-schooled.

The oldest is 19 and the youngest, before Jennifer, is almost 2 years old.

"We are just so grateful to God for another gift from him," said Jim Bob Duggar, 42, a former state representative. "We are just so thankful to him that everything went just very well."

Jennifer joins siblings Joshua, 19; John David, 17; Janna, 17; Jill, 16; Jessa, 14; Jinger, 13; Joseph, 12; Josiah, 11; Joy-Anna, 9; Jedidiah, 8; Jeremiah, 8; Jason 7; James 6; Justin, 4; Jackson, 3; Johannah, almost 2.

The family includes two sets of twins.

Michelle Duggar said that Joshua, Janna, Jill and Jessa were at the hospital, but that the rest of the family planned to visit their new sister later Thursday.

Michelle Duggar said she started feeling contractions Wednesday night and went to the hospital at about 5 a.m. Thursday.

"It actually went fast," she said. "I guess once I started progressing, it went within 30 minutes."

Jennifer was born via a VBAC — or vaginal birth after Caesarean, Jim Bob Duggar said.

The Duggars have been featured on several programs on cable's Discovery Health Network. The next special, the Duggar Family Album, is scheduled to air next month, Jim Bob Duggar said.

Among the "fun facts" listed on Discovery Health's Web page devoted to the Duggars: A baby has been born in every month except June; the Duggars have gone through an estimated 90,000 diapers, and Michelle, 40, has been pregnant for 126 months — or 10.5 years — of her life.

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On the Net:

Duggar family Web site:

Discovery Health site:

www.duggarfamily.com

health.discovery.com/convergence/duggars/duggarfamily.html

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Below are the top 10 comments, rated by other readers who agreed with the comment.

The comments are very telling of society’s attitudes towards God’s gift of fertility, or the value of children, or the institution of the family, or our concepts of sacrifice and selfishness, or God Himself and the Christian faith. Note the repeating theme of birth “control,” i.e. contraception.

One wonders if even a small fraction of individuals in our society see any connection between such “reproductive rights” and the demographic tsunami heading our way? These comments, along with a good deal of their barbaric vitriol, really amount to a cocktail of prejudice against the Unborn and helps to explain why there is such support for legalized child murder. They add up to about the same conclusion reached by a columnist when the Duggars announced their 16th child.

#1 Comment—recommended by 83 other readers

"This could be called "binge birthing". Ridiculous. These are the most selfish people I've ever seen."

#2 Comment—recommended by 79 other readers

"Dear Mrs. Duggar: If you are going to be in the public eye you should probably do something about your 80's gang member hairstyle. I know you are usually pregnant and that your hair doesn't fall out aas much when you are with child but that doesn't mean an occasional trip to Supercuts should be out of your realm of affordability. When we channel surf we sometimes see you on the discovery channel and--your hairstyle is like a pimple we are dying to pop. Secondly--how can you properly love 17 children? A teenaged sibling babysitter is never going to be as loving or nurturing as mom. I'd rather have a mom than a "little buddy" Thirdly---stop raping our planet. You may look harmless with your cute little performing children who you have trained so well--but regardless they still create waste. Fourth---God doesn't decide to "give" you a child. Take control of your fertility (you're over 40 and at risk of Down's). Stop doing the nasty before ovulation, Mr. and Mr's Duggar! Ugh."

#3 Comment—recommended by 39 other readers

"This is the most immoral, selfish, and destructive couple about which I've ever heard. Statistics are overwhelming, the more children in a family the greater the neglect and abuse and the poorer the outcome s and more miserable the lives of those children. There is an inverse relationship between quality and quantity with children. Parents who have more children than they can care for doom those children to a life of agony, poverty, disease, unhappiness, and failure. These people should have been sterilized long ago."

#4 Comment—recommended by 39 other readers

"I would hate to be one of their kids OR one of the older kids that ends up acting like a parent when they are a teenager, taking cares of the younger ones."

#5 Comment—recommended by 39 other readers

"I just don't understand why this is a news story. If some RIDICULOUS family in Ark. is popping them out like Pez I don't want to know about it. Other than inspiring more volunteer work at Planned Parenthood. As the oldest of 8 I am convinced that those who have so many do it so they don't have to really parent any of them. It all just gets diffused in the day to day grind of feeding and cleaning. The Duggers freakish Stepford like affect and ludicrous middle ages approach to family planning is not an example of America in the 21st century. Also I'm sure they have no plans to pay for college - I know my parents didn't!!!! Watching the shows I truly wonder how that 7000 sq foot house was finished and decorated by a decorator to the 9's. Perhaps boycotts of the companies that are providing them welfare for the sake of a mention on the show is in order."

#6 Comment—recommended by 31 other readers

"I can hardly wait until Nos. 7, 11 and 13 become serial killers. Given that ma and pa are such arch republicans, maybe they think their god is telling them to build a christian army to fight the growing Muslim peril. Or maybe they are just both nuts."

#7 Comment—recommended by 29 other readers

"That child must have shot out of the mother like a missle. And they want more. This is not a family, it's a human bakery."

#8 Comment—recommended by 25 other readers

"And who are you people to say how many kids a married couple should and shouldn't have? We accept gays, les, bi, people of color, etc, here in the bay area but not those who have "too many"? I see why the rest of the country laughs at us."

#9 Comment—recommended by 23 other readers

"What is wrong with these people. I have watched their shows on TLC and feel sorry for the kids. I wonder how they are able to afford feeding these 17 kids. Do they get assistance from the State or Fed? I think that its time to put your pants back on Mom and Dad Duggar."

#10 Comment—recommended by 19 other readers

"This, from the same state that brings us a 67-foot-tall statue of Christ, known as "Christ of the Ozarks" (how about Okie Christ, or maybe Hillbilly Jesus, for short). The joke around Eureka Springs, AR (one of the only thinking sectors in the entire state, by the way) is this. After its construction, the FAA called its proprietors to remind them that, at 70+ feet, the statue presented an obstacle for air traffic and had to be marked with a red blinking beacon. The proprieters claimed to do so would be sacrilege. The FAA responded that not doing so would be a federal crime. Many in the area offered compromise suggestions, such as "Why not a thorny crown of red lights?" In the end, the proprieters decided to reduce the statue to under 70 feet by removing its feet. The end result is a 67-foot, footless Christ. I don't know if this story is true, but it is humorous. And it explains a lot -- like why some religious nut morons would pump out 17 puppies. It is, after all, God's will...."

Birth Dearth And The Family

From the latest newsletter of United Families International.

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Dear Friend of the Family,

The World Congress of Families IV, held in Poland this spring, concluded with the "Warsaw Declaration" -- a statement calling upon various groups in the world to collaborate to assure the preservation of the natural family. Prior to this declaration, the Congress addressed the world's "birth dearth" -- declining fertility rates threatening to cause a "demographic winter." In nearly every corner of the world, the population is top-heavy with adults who are having fewer and fewer children. Replacement fertility level has dropped significantly below the 2.1 children per woman average needed to sustain nations. This presents serious problems for the family and the future of the world.

Gauging the Problem

Dr. Phillip Longman, the Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, told WCF IV that world population is still growing, but the world supply of children is shrinking:

Nearly 70 nations, representing more than half the world's population, have below-replacement fertility rates. There are not enough people being born to support their economies and to provide for their aging populations.

Worldwide, the absolute number of children age four and under is 6 million lower now than it was in 1990.

In Europe, there are 36 percent fewer children under age 5 than there were in 1960. In Italy, there are only half as many women of childbearing age as there were in 1960.

In China, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, birth rates have dropped so low that "4-2-1 societies" have emerged. These are societies in which single-child families are the norm, and each single child eventually becomes responsible for supporting two parents and four grandparents.

The southern provinces of India are reproducing at well below replacement levels.

The median ages in Latin America and the Caribbean are rising as birth rates plummet.

Dr. Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, told WCF IV that no country whose birthrate has fallen significantly below replacement level has ever succeeded in regaining replacement rate fertility. Once the birth rate falls to what the U.N. Population Division calls "low low fertility," no combination of government policies and subsidies appears sufficient to re-boost the birthrate.

Proponents of Declining Population

Dr. Mosher said pro-family/pro-natal policies are facing strenuous objections from three overlapping groups: radical environmentalists, population controllers and radical feminists.

Radical feminists want to completely re-fashion human society into a gender-neutral collection of individuals, Mosher said. They want to re-define the family so broadly that, in all practicality, it ceases to exist as a functional social unit. Gender-neutral policies undermine the complementarity at the heart of successful marriages and suppress fertility.

Modern socialist welfare states provide abortion on demand, state-funded contraception and sterilization. Each contributes to the fracturing of the intergenerational dependency of the family.

Environmental activists and anti-life organizations claim the Earth is overpopulated and population threatens government stability in developing countries. Many of them rationalize that the over-population serves as justification for abortion. That sentiment is also found in developed nations. The Sierra Club, for example, in 1969 endorsed a zero population growth policy and abortion on demand in the United States.

Social security systems around the world provide huge incentives to people to remain childless. According to Dr. Mosher, government-funded contraception and sterilization programs—holdovers from the days of the population bomb scares -- deliberately suppress the birth rate and prevent the formation of human capital.

Another important factor in declining birth rates is urbanization. Half the world's population now lives in urban areas, where children offer little or no economic benefit to their parents.

Adults know that it is expensive to raise children. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the cost of raising a child born in 2005 at around $200,000 over 20 years.

Thomas Christensen, a member of UFI's governing board and veteran observer of the annual International Conference on Population and Development, at the U.N., offered further perspective on the "birth dearth":

Decades of legalized abortion and comprehensive "safe-sex" education in developed nations have had a devastating impact on families and fertility rates. In Spain, for example, as mothers encouraged by such policy have left the home, avoided childbearing or terminated their pregnancies, the population is cut in half every generation. Many nations, in response to a culture more deadly than the Black Plague, have opted for tax and financial incentives to encourage childbearing and bigger families, but these measures are too little, too late. The family infrastructure centered upon enduring marriages between a man and a woman, with the hope of children, is largely gone.

The UN does a pretty good job of building modern abortion clinics, but a poor job of providing basic health care services and immunizations. As a result, pregnant mothers are subject to high rates of abortion-related deaths and complications in addition to high maternal mortality rates. These women do not need more clinics to kill their babies. The impoverished, diseased woman who is provided abortion services today is still poor and diseased tomorrow, but with the added physiological and psychological scars of abortion, some of which she will carry for the remainder of her life. Her child is not provided a better life or opportunity to succeed -- he or she is simply terminated.

Promoting and Protecting the Family

Some economists contest the notion that population numbers equal poverty. Dr. Maria Sophia Aguirre, from the Department of Economics and Business at Catholic University, said during the World Congress of Families IV that healthy families are essential for poverty reduction because they have a direct impact on the quality of human, moral and social capital, and therefore, on the resources and the purpose of economic activity and structures. She said, "Resources are used inefficiently when they are directed towards initiatives that weaken families and divert resources from initiatives that will address effectively weak social and economic structures. This, in turn, hampers real economic growth and perpetuates poverty."

Access to family planning increases underage sexual activity. Children develop best within a functional family with biological parents. The breakdown of the family damages the economy and the society since human and social capital is reduced and social costs increased.

Dr. Aguirre said:

The family is a necessary good for economic development: it should be promoted and protected if poverty reduction wants to be achieved.

In some nations, governments offer financial incentives for women to give birth to children. None of these policies have succeeded in recovering the birth rate to replacement level. The ideal is for parents to have the freedom to create a family of their preferred size, not simply having one more child, as some government programs recommend.

While some organizations advocate for tax modifications and incentives to boost fertility rates, we must engender a healthy respect for families, the sanctity of life and the social and economic benefits of healthy, intact families. If we can accomplish that, we stand a better chance of converting demographic winter into "springtime" for civilization.

Warmly,
Carol Soelberg, President
United Families International