The fertility rate, which is the average number of children a woman would have during her childbearing years, hit a 35 year high of 2.1.
The overall rate hit a high in 1957, and then dropped thereafter, possibly due to the news and development of the pill.
How could the pill have made an impact on the fertility rate, when it wasn't approved for use as a contraceptive until 1960?
While the pill wasn't officially approved for use as a contraceptive until 1960, it was approved for use in controlling menstrual disorders in 1957. By late 1959, and prior to approval for use as a contraceptive, at least half a million women were using the pill - far more than were believed to suffer from such disorders. [1]
But the news of the development of the pill in 1956 may have had a significant impact on the public's idea of the desired number of children as well. And while the pill wouldn't be accessible until 1957, the condom industry was flourishing.
Due to limited data, it is not known just how much either the pill or condoms may have affected this rate, or if they actually affected it at all prior to the 1960s, but nevertheless it is reasonable to suspect that they helped keep it down for the past 35 years.
The new high of 2.1 children puts the U.S. fertility rate back at the minimum replacement level - and environmentalists aren't happy about it.
In a Washington Post article on the news, environmentalists expressed their concern:
But not everyone sees that as encouraging, given that the United States remains a leading consumer of increasingly scarce natural resources.
"The world is now consuming resources faster than the Earth can sustain over the longer term," said Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute. "Forests are shrinking. Fisheries are collapsing. Water tables are falling. Large parts of the world's grasslands are deteriorating. The U.S. is already disproportionately responsible for that because of our very high consumption levels."
The increase certainly can't be good news for environmentalists.
I'm sure that University of Western Australia's Professor Barry Walters, a clinical associate professor of obstetrics, who in the December edition of the Medical Journal of Australia, proposed that couples who have more than two children should pay an annual carbon tax, is not happy about it. And Toni Vernelli, who aborted her child out of concern for the planet, probably won't jump for joy about the increase.
As environmentalists increasingly focus on population levels, expect more attempts to reduce the fertility rate through abortion and/or contraception.
What a brave new world we live in, where the weakest among us are targeted in misguided efforts to protect the environment.
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Sources
[1] Tone, A, (2001). Devices & Desires, A History of Contraception In America (1st ed.) New York: Hill and Wang, p. 226.
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