The Birth Rate

ON THE RIGHT

The problem of birth control edges forward into the political consciousness of America, as we come to recognize that it is not exclusively a moral issue. Although it remains a private matter how many children a couple chooses to procreate, it is increasingly apparent that the decision that couple arrives at has considerable social consequences. This is so merely in the commonplace sense that families who beget more children than they can afford to raise and educate end up impinging on the precarious reserves that the affluent quite properly provide for the indigent: in some countries that looms as the largest consideration, but in others it does not. In such countries as Nigeria it is a devastating fact that the birth rate absorbs and then overcomes the increase in annual productivity. In such countries the birth rate may be decisive to economic health. In others—America for instance—it would be a long long time before the birth rate so encumbered the rise in the gross national product as to reverse its direction.

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

ON THE RIGHT

The problem of birth control edges forward into the political consciousness of America, as we come to recognize that it is not exclusively a moral issue. Although it remains a private matter how many children a couple chooses to procreate, it is increasingly apparent that the decision that couple arrives at has considerable social consequences. This is so merely in the commonplace sense that families who beget more children than they can afford to raise and educate end up impinging on the precarious reserves that the affluent quite properly provide for the indigent: in some countries that looms as the largest consideration, but in others it does not. In such countries as Nigeria it is a devastating fact that the birth rate absorbs and then overcomes the increase in annual productivity. In such countries the birth rate may be decisive to economic health. In others—America for instance—it would be a long long time before the birth rate so encumbered the rise in the gross national product as to reverse its direction.