Falling Birth Rates: Climate Alarmism Fuels Misguided Misanthropy

For most of human history, people could agree that children were a blessing. Religion reinforced the idea, borne out by experience. In the past, shorter life expectancies, higher rates of childhood mortality, brutal living conditions, and the absence of social-welfare programs made it harder to take family for granted.

Yet for as long as this pro-natalist culture has existed, so too have political forces seeking to undermine it. The overpopulation anxiety is hardly new. Nevertheless, a new form of anti-natalist thinking is creeping into the minds of Western policy-makers. As birth rates plummet across the developed world, some are cheering on this development as positive, even necessary.

About the Author

Madeleine Kearns

Madeleine Kearns is a former staff writer at National Review.

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For most of human history, people could agree that children were a blessing. Religion reinforced the idea, borne out by experience. In the past, shorter life expectancies, higher rates of childhood mortality, brutal living conditions, and the absence of social-welfare programs made it harder to take family for granted.

Yet for as long as this pro-natalist culture has existed, so too have political forces seeking to undermine it. The overpopulation anxiety is hardly new. Nevertheless, a new form of anti-natalist thinking is creeping into the minds of Western policy-makers. As birth rates plummet across the developed world, some are cheering on this development as positive, even necessary.