6 ms·

Abortions are not the primary reason why teen pregnancy is way down. There's actual data, you know. Fewer teen pregnancies is a reason why birth rates in the U

Abortions are not the primary reason why teen pregnancy is way down. There's actual data, you know. Fewer teen pregnancies is a reason why birth rates in the US are declining. But it isn't driven by abortion. And it is insane to me that I'm now seeing this "oh actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad" thing pop up all over the place.

senectus1 1y ago
While I agree, his experience is also salient. Ease of access to birth control and ease and safety of abortion will be having a very detectable impact on the birthrate. Not saying they need to be restricted, just that they're very relevant data points.
- teitoklien 1y ago
  it is heavily politicized, atleast for the forseable future, until society reaches a conclusion, people will lie with statistics, smear their opponents in discussion as bigots, sexists, whatever. But sooner or later it needs to be asked and acted upon. Should society structure itself to penalise abortions, and reward births of children. Did our old religious and conservative societies where parents and grandparents helped together to give a great childhood to 2 or more children be something we need to bring back (for folks who'll say back then kids didnt have a great childhood, aborted children have NO childhood a death for themselves that they didnt choose). Should premarital intercourse be banned again or shunned ? Religions have brought tons of miseries causing constant conflicts between communities, wars, allowing politicians and rulers to manipulate masses. However, they also carried laws and doctrines refined over centuries, on philosophy, morality, and most importantly societal structure. Monogamy itself and the construct of marriage was refined and finalized in all major religions Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc across several centuries (and in some cases greater than 1000 yrs). One must consider, why did our ancestors come to certain conclusions globally regardless of faith around societal structure? What conditions did they want to create across society, to bring about prosperity or growth. Why were certain conservative and unpopular opinions regardless were imposed on men and women alike. We should remove all the horrible stuff, things we can leave behind that our ancestors used to do sure. but throwing everything away is also not going to lead to anything good for us in the future. Should abortion be readily accessible simply for the sake of liberty and freedom ? Should contraceptives be widely made available and promoted ? , should families force kids to be responsible for their actions again, and first try their best to give their newly born child a better life before allowed to just throw everything apart with divorces, single parent childhood, etc. Should premarital intercourse be banned , to encourage youth to form meaningful relationship instead of coasting between new girlfriends and boyfriends every new year ? Im not saying we should do X, but these questions will need to be asked sooner or later, if western society or even asian societies want to survive (both have ultra low birthrates, china, japan, korea, russia, even india is now going the below tfr rate and will join them far sooner than was estimated within 20 yrs). I really love european, american and asian societies and cultures, and i dont want them to die off, or perish away. Even my own culture's TFR is 0.98 for multiple decades and its perishing away quite fast too. Hard questions will need to be asked in the future. It's not just a matter of what feels right to our emotional minds at a moment, but rather, whats best for society and cultures itself long term. Not to mention, housing prices need to go way down, it needs to be removed from being a speculative asset or a way to whitewash black money, its wreaking havoc on whatever remaining part of society that does want kids, but cant afford to own a home by age of 30 even with double income household. We have enough land to house the entire world in each of the major countries, yet just out of sheer regulation, greed and laziness from politicians, policymakers, and banks who are afraid of the housing market crashing and causing problems for them, they are keeping this charade up. There are many problems that need to be solved in coming decades, I hope each of our societies solve it.
  - thrownearacc 1y ago
    > folks who'll say back then kids didnt have a great childhood If you count a 11 year girl child to be raped by and then married to her 60 year old (maybe wealthy) relative then yeah she indeed had a fucking fabulous childhood. > penalise abortions, and reward births of children For fuck's sake - there's a difference between a teen abortion and an adult abortion! But then you wouldn't understand why one "aborts"! Oh you do understand but you want that decision to be "society's" - not that person in whose body a fucking foetus is growing! I mean is the moronity this common? For fuck's sake, freedom to abort is not what is killing the birthrate - it's the way our economy and other aspects of society is going haywire - and the way wealth and benefits are tricking up, not down, the work culture for example the way that is forcing people to work day and night and yet they can't own a house - among other things. Goodness!
    - teitoklien 1y ago
      Who said I'm for or promoting teenage pregnancies ????? No woman should be allowed to be married off to someone until they are 18 especially with that kind of age gap. Marrying under 18s with 30-40 yr olds is not a solution and diabolical, no major religion even recommends that. We need to restructure our society so that men and women aged 20-25 yrs old, can have a easy access to owning their own homes, with sustainable careers and occupation. We need to make children before college postgraduation studies or even higher studies like phd not only more acceptable but the norm. Pedophilia should not be encouraged and most sane societies have been vehemently against what you're saying (including me). This cycle of people having kids after 35 yrs old, needs to be fixed that is the disaster. > I mean is the moronity this common? For fuck's sake, freedom to abort is not what is killing the birthrate - it's the way our economy and other aspects of society is going haywire - and the way wealth and benefits are tricking up, not down, the work culture for example the way that is forcing people to work day and night and yet they can't own a house - among other things. Goodness! I agree with what you said, but abortion is also causing the issues, its been normalized that its ok if majority of men and women attempt to have their first kid after 30 (it should not be this way). Premarital sex, casual sex and one night stands has destroyed the whole notion of commitment between man and a woman. Our Instagram feeds that constantly glorify unattainable photoshopped beauty from select actresses and actors influencing the masses all the time, has made expectations of men and women delusional. There are many issues, and some of the main ones are what you described correctly , with it being overworking people, not giving 20 yr old stable careers instead keeping them stuck in gigwork, internships, and no career growth or help. They must be rectified, our society has enough wealth to fix this.
NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
> And it is insane to me that I'm now seeing this "oh actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad" thing pop up all over the place. The other side of this is insane to me... the "oh actually looming human extinction won't be so bad" thing. Sub-replacement fertility rates are slow-motion extinction. Animal models where they "bounce back" is irrelevant, those animals have their extremely high above-replacement fertility all through their famines, plagues, and predator massacres such that when those pressures relent their population recovers. There's no known precedent for raising fertility rates that fall let alone so low.
- stevula 1y ago
  “Developed countries have reduced population growth” is a far cry from “looming human extinction”.
  - Fade_Dance 1y ago
    Pro-natal cultures have thrived vs less-natal cultures for literally thousands of years. That's how we got here. I also don't see the problem. (I strictly used the word culture and not anything biological or genetic since I'm not aiming at that line of talk in the slightest, to be clear)
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
      This world doesn't have the 500 cultures/civilizations that it had circa 3000 BC. It only has the one culture, it's global, dominant, and ubiquitous. It is the "less natal" culture, it is the only culture. It assimilates any subculture that dares raise its head. When it dies, there won't be another to fill the niche. This is why, for instance, when immigrants from high-fertility countries (all in central Africa) come here, our culture assimilates them and they're back to low fertility within 2 generations. Not only that, but our culture slowly creeps inward towards the epicenter of that high fertility, damping it down even at its source. The Chinese belt-and-road initiative is likely to murder it entirely within our own lifetime. This is something different, never seen before. Saying "oh gosh shucks, it happened back in eleventy-twenty-fourven and we survived fine then!" is dismissal, not contemplation. Never before in human history has actual fertility sunk this low (or even really sunk). People didn't ever stop fucking, and they didn't have birth control, or abortion, or a dozen other factors. When population declined historically, it was due to war, disease, and famine. But because fertility remained high, just as soon as those pressures relented, population recovered. When fertility goes below replacement, population can never recover, it can only continue to shrink. When it goes below replacement, every girl growing up learns from the adults around her that low fertility is "normal", and she's not going to grow up and decide to have 8 herself (or even 2). She'll have as many as she saw those adults around her having, or maybe fewer (it acts as a ceiling, but not a floor).
Aurornis 1y ago
It’s strange to see that anecdote so highly upvoted when it’s so trivial to look at birth rates by parental age. Reduced teen pregnancies are not the driving factor in recent fertility rate declines at all. It is interesting how an appeal to emotion with a difficult story can lead so many to overlook the obvious shortcomings in that explanation. Honestly this entire comment section has a lot of people making guesses or putting forth their own theories without having even skimmed the article.
- andrekandre 1y ago
  > Honestly this entire comment section has a lot of people making guesses or putting forth their own theories without having even skimmed the article. its a microcosm of our entire political discourse as of late imo: everyone is talking anecdotes and feels and barely anyone is bringing the receipts (and if they do its barely noticed)
  - d0gsg0w00f 1y ago
    But people's anecdotes are part of their life experience. I trust my personal life experience over anything I read, and if I trust a person, I value theirs over anything I read too. That's just how humans are.
    - superice 1y ago
      I get it, you like stories of individuals. We should figure out a way you can listen to more stories, so you can form an even better opinion! Perhaps we write them out, shorten them a bit. Or perhaps group them by similarity. And then if we count the types of story per category… and boom, we’ve invented statistics!
      - mensetmanusman 1y ago
        I know how to use statistics to tell nearly any story though, and I would love to trust statistics… It has to do with unknown unknowns.
Aeolun 1y ago
> actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad I mean, it was a thing for most of human history. There’s a reason biology makes you capable of having children at a young age. Isn’t it kinda bizarre that we think it’s weird?
- WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
  >> actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad Except for the negatively impacting the ability to get the education needed for basic jobs. > I mean, it was a thing for most of human history. During most of human history there was a broad support system already in place. For modern new parents, that experience extended support varies from mostly gone to totally gone. Exasperating that: In markets with jobs, rents are 1mo typical wages.
  - fwsgonzo 1y ago
    Yep, we are new parents and we are almost 40. There just wasn't any moment before where it was possible to start a family. We are comfortable but utterly alone in our box, with no grandparents or extended family in sight. Also, with the expectation that outside is for cars. So, there's 1-2 hours at the end of the day for us which is largely cleaning and de-stressing. If anyone had laid this fully out for us before we made this choice, it would have been an easy heck no.
    - WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
      > We are comfortable but utterly alone in our box, with no grandparents or extended family in sight. This is how we started out too (mid 20s). Isolated rural area and no family. Both of us were youngest children and had never lived around babies. Not the highest odds to start with. We birthed at home and did cloth diapers - so that tells you a bit about our mindset then. In our favor: This was >30years ago. It was possible to work multiple entry level jobs and scrape by. That's far from possible now.
    - ponector 1y ago
      >> there's 1-2 hours at the end of the day for us Not so bad! I feel like "time for us" is all hours you can cut from 8h sleeping time.
aaron695 1y ago
[dead]
moralestapia 1y ago
>There's actual data, you know. Did you bother to check it out? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_statistics_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_statistics_in_the_U... More than half a million in the US alone, per year. That's material.
- sebmellen 1y ago
  Yep — adding 500,000 births per year to the U.S. population would increase our overall TFR from 1.62 to 1.85, which is certainly significant. The impact of other contraceptive methods is likely far larger. Social pressure not to conceive being perhaps the most effective contraceptive... My wife and I had our first child while she was in medical training — the amount of absolutely vile commentary she had to push through from fellow trainees and program supervisors was absurd. But she also paved the way for other mothers at her program. In the ~two years since, she’s had at least five other women tell her that she proved it was possible and was the catalyst for their pregnancy.
  - moralestapia 1y ago
    >the amount of absolutely vile commentary she had to push through from fellow trainees and program supervisors was absurd I believe you, it happened to me as well. I'm glad you both pushed through that; it actually is a Level 0 attack, but at the right time it can be quite demoralizing. You are way better than those pieces of filth. My best wishes to you and your family, may you have a blessed life :D.

senectus1 1y ago

While I agree, his experience is also salient. Ease of access to birth control and ease and safety of abortion will be having a very detectable impact on the birthrate. Not saying they need to be restricted, just that they're very relevant data points.

teitoklien 1y ago
it is heavily politicized, atleast for the forseable future, until society reaches a conclusion, people will lie with statistics, smear their opponents in discussion as bigots, sexists, whatever. But sooner or later it needs to be asked and acted upon. Should society structure itself to penalise abortions, and reward births of children. Did our old religious and conservative societies where parents and grandparents helped together to give a great childhood to 2 or more children be something we need to bring back (for folks who'll say back then kids didnt have a great childhood, aborted children have NO childhood a death for themselves that they didnt choose). Should premarital intercourse be banned again or shunned ? Religions have brought tons of miseries causing constant conflicts between communities, wars, allowing politicians and rulers to manipulate masses. However, they also carried laws and doctrines refined over centuries, on philosophy, morality, and most importantly societal structure. Monogamy itself and the construct of marriage was refined and finalized in all major religions Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc across several centuries (and in some cases greater than 1000 yrs). One must consider, why did our ancestors come to certain conclusions globally regardless of faith around societal structure? What conditions did they want to create across society, to bring about prosperity or growth. Why were certain conservative and unpopular opinions regardless were imposed on men and women alike. We should remove all the horrible stuff, things we can leave behind that our ancestors used to do sure. but throwing everything away is also not going to lead to anything good for us in the future. Should abortion be readily accessible simply for the sake of liberty and freedom ? Should contraceptives be widely made available and promoted ? , should families force kids to be responsible for their actions again, and first try their best to give their newly born child a better life before allowed to just throw everything apart with divorces, single parent childhood, etc. Should premarital intercourse be banned , to encourage youth to form meaningful relationship instead of coasting between new girlfriends and boyfriends every new year ? Im not saying we should do X, but these questions will need to be asked sooner or later, if western society or even asian societies want to survive (both have ultra low birthrates, china, japan, korea, russia, even india is now going the below tfr rate and will join them far sooner than was estimated within 20 yrs). I really love european, american and asian societies and cultures, and i dont want them to die off, or perish away. Even my own culture's TFR is 0.98 for multiple decades and its perishing away quite fast too. Hard questions will need to be asked in the future. It's not just a matter of what feels right to our emotional minds at a moment, but rather, whats best for society and cultures itself long term. Not to mention, housing prices need to go way down, it needs to be removed from being a speculative asset or a way to whitewash black money, its wreaking havoc on whatever remaining part of society that does want kids, but cant afford to own a home by age of 30 even with double income household. We have enough land to house the entire world in each of the major countries, yet just out of sheer regulation, greed and laziness from politicians, policymakers, and banks who are afraid of the housing market crashing and causing problems for them, they are keeping this charade up. There are many problems that need to be solved in coming decades, I hope each of our societies solve it.
- thrownearacc 1y ago
  > folks who'll say back then kids didnt have a great childhood If you count a 11 year girl child to be raped by and then married to her 60 year old (maybe wealthy) relative then yeah she indeed had a fucking fabulous childhood. > penalise abortions, and reward births of children For fuck's sake - there's a difference between a teen abortion and an adult abortion! But then you wouldn't understand why one "aborts"! Oh you do understand but you want that decision to be "society's" - not that person in whose body a fucking foetus is growing! I mean is the moronity this common? For fuck's sake, freedom to abort is not what is killing the birthrate - it's the way our economy and other aspects of society is going haywire - and the way wealth and benefits are tricking up, not down, the work culture for example the way that is forcing people to work day and night and yet they can't own a house - among other things. Goodness!
  - teitoklien 1y ago
    Who said I'm for or promoting teenage pregnancies ????? No woman should be allowed to be married off to someone until they are 18 especially with that kind of age gap. Marrying under 18s with 30-40 yr olds is not a solution and diabolical, no major religion even recommends that. We need to restructure our society so that men and women aged 20-25 yrs old, can have a easy access to owning their own homes, with sustainable careers and occupation. We need to make children before college postgraduation studies or even higher studies like phd not only more acceptable but the norm. Pedophilia should not be encouraged and most sane societies have been vehemently against what you're saying (including me). This cycle of people having kids after 35 yrs old, needs to be fixed that is the disaster. > I mean is the moronity this common? For fuck's sake, freedom to abort is not what is killing the birthrate - it's the way our economy and other aspects of society is going haywire - and the way wealth and benefits are tricking up, not down, the work culture for example the way that is forcing people to work day and night and yet they can't own a house - among other things. Goodness! I agree with what you said, but abortion is also causing the issues, its been normalized that its ok if majority of men and women attempt to have their first kid after 30 (it should not be this way). Premarital sex, casual sex and one night stands has destroyed the whole notion of commitment between man and a woman. Our Instagram feeds that constantly glorify unattainable photoshopped beauty from select actresses and actors influencing the masses all the time, has made expectations of men and women delusional. There are many issues, and some of the main ones are what you described correctly , with it being overworking people, not giving 20 yr old stable careers instead keeping them stuck in gigwork, internships, and no career growth or help. They must be rectified, our society has enough wealth to fix this.

NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago

> And it is insane to me that I'm now seeing this "oh actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad" thing pop up all over the place. The other side of this is insane to me... the "oh actually looming human extinction won't be so bad" thing. Sub-replacement fertility rates are slow-motion extinction. Animal models where they "bounce back" is irrelevant, those animals have their extremely high above-replacement fertility all through their famines, plagues, and predator massacres such that when those pressures relent their population recovers. There's no known precedent for raising fertility rates that fall let alone so low.

stevula 1y ago
“Developed countries have reduced population growth” is a far cry from “looming human extinction”.
- Fade_Dance 1y ago
  Pro-natal cultures have thrived vs less-natal cultures for literally thousands of years. That's how we got here. I also don't see the problem. (I strictly used the word culture and not anything biological or genetic since I'm not aiming at that line of talk in the slightest, to be clear)
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
    This world doesn't have the 500 cultures/civilizations that it had circa 3000 BC. It only has the one culture, it's global, dominant, and ubiquitous. It is the "less natal" culture, it is the only culture. It assimilates any subculture that dares raise its head. When it dies, there won't be another to fill the niche. This is why, for instance, when immigrants from high-fertility countries (all in central Africa) come here, our culture assimilates them and they're back to low fertility within 2 generations. Not only that, but our culture slowly creeps inward towards the epicenter of that high fertility, damping it down even at its source. The Chinese belt-and-road initiative is likely to murder it entirely within our own lifetime. This is something different, never seen before. Saying "oh gosh shucks, it happened back in eleventy-twenty-fourven and we survived fine then!" is dismissal, not contemplation. Never before in human history has actual fertility sunk this low (or even really sunk). People didn't ever stop fucking, and they didn't have birth control, or abortion, or a dozen other factors. When population declined historically, it was due to war, disease, and famine. But because fertility remained high, just as soon as those pressures relented, population recovered. When fertility goes below replacement, population can never recover, it can only continue to shrink. When it goes below replacement, every girl growing up learns from the adults around her that low fertility is "normal", and she's not going to grow up and decide to have 8 herself (or even 2). She'll have as many as she saw those adults around her having, or maybe fewer (it acts as a ceiling, but not a floor).

Aurornis 1y ago

It’s strange to see that anecdote so highly upvoted when it’s so trivial to look at birth rates by parental age. Reduced teen pregnancies are not the driving factor in recent fertility rate declines at all. It is interesting how an appeal to emotion with a difficult story can lead so many to overlook the obvious shortcomings in that explanation. Honestly this entire comment section has a lot of people making guesses or putting forth their own theories without having even skimmed the article.

andrekandre 1y ago
> Honestly this entire comment section has a lot of people making guesses or putting forth their own theories without having even skimmed the article. its a microcosm of our entire political discourse as of late imo: everyone is talking anecdotes and feels and barely anyone is bringing the receipts (and if they do its barely noticed)
- d0gsg0w00f 1y ago
  But people's anecdotes are part of their life experience. I trust my personal life experience over anything I read, and if I trust a person, I value theirs over anything I read too. That's just how humans are.
  - superice 1y ago
    I get it, you like stories of individuals. We should figure out a way you can listen to more stories, so you can form an even better opinion! Perhaps we write them out, shorten them a bit. Or perhaps group them by similarity. And then if we count the types of story per category… and boom, we’ve invented statistics!
    - mensetmanusman 1y ago
      I know how to use statistics to tell nearly any story though, and I would love to trust statistics… It has to do with unknown unknowns.

Aeolun 1y ago

> actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad I mean, it was a thing for most of human history. There’s a reason biology makes you capable of having children at a young age. Isn’t it kinda bizarre that we think it’s weird?

WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
>> actually teen pregnancy wasn't so bad Except for the negatively impacting the ability to get the education needed for basic jobs. > I mean, it was a thing for most of human history. During most of human history there was a broad support system already in place. For modern new parents, that experience extended support varies from mostly gone to totally gone. Exasperating that: In markets with jobs, rents are 1mo typical wages.
- fwsgonzo 1y ago
  Yep, we are new parents and we are almost 40. There just wasn't any moment before where it was possible to start a family. We are comfortable but utterly alone in our box, with no grandparents or extended family in sight. Also, with the expectation that outside is for cars. So, there's 1-2 hours at the end of the day for us which is largely cleaning and de-stressing. If anyone had laid this fully out for us before we made this choice, it would have been an easy heck no.
  - WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
    > We are comfortable but utterly alone in our box, with no grandparents or extended family in sight. This is how we started out too (mid 20s). Isolated rural area and no family. Both of us were youngest children and had never lived around babies. Not the highest odds to start with. We birthed at home and did cloth diapers - so that tells you a bit about our mindset then. In our favor: This was >30years ago. It was possible to work multiple entry level jobs and scrape by. That's far from possible now.
  - ponector 1y ago
    >> there's 1-2 hours at the end of the day for us Not so bad! I feel like "time for us" is all hours you can cut from 8h sleeping time.

aaron695 1y ago

[dead]

moralestapia 1y ago

>There's actual data, you know. Did you bother to check it out? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_statistics_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_statistics_in_the_U... More than half a million in the US alone, per year. That's material.

sebmellen 1y ago
Yep — adding 500,000 births per year to the U.S. population would increase our overall TFR from 1.62 to 1.85, which is certainly significant. The impact of other contraceptive methods is likely far larger. Social pressure not to conceive being perhaps the most effective contraceptive... My wife and I had our first child while she was in medical training — the amount of absolutely vile commentary she had to push through from fellow trainees and program supervisors was absurd. But she also paved the way for other mothers at her program. In the ~two years since, she’s had at least five other women tell her that she proved it was possible and was the catalyst for their pregnancy.
- moralestapia 1y ago
  >the amount of absolutely vile commentary she had to push through from fellow trainees and program supervisors was absurd I believe you, it happened to me as well. I'm glad you both pushed through that; it actually is a Level 0 attack, but at the right time it can be quite demoralizing. You are way better than those pieces of filth. My best wishes to you and your family, may you have a blessed life :D.