The Coming Demographic Crisis
or, Facing the Evolutionary Threat to the Right People

 14 July 2003

The birthrate in the United States, as in much of the developed world, is decreasing. All those who are concerned about the Future of the Environment should see this as a positive development, while continuing to call attention to the increase in population in the developing world. The excessive number of human beings is the greatest threat to the survival of the planet, and since we must strive to ensure that every human being born lives as long a life as possible, with the greatest possible Quality of Life, then the only way to control this plague is to prevent excessive births.

Since, moreover, every baby born in the United States is a greater threat to the planet through the consumption of resources than a baby born anywhere else, the declining birth rate of the United States could be considered an additional benefit to the Environment. However, there is one alarming tendency to which all persons of Progressive mind should be alerted.

The birth rate is falling because more and more women are electing to delay childbearing and to have one, or at most two, children. However, there are some who do not follow this pattern. Alarmingly enough, most of these women--the vast majority of whom are married--are practitioners of traditional religions, and hold extremely retrograde ideas. They and their (generally male) spouses are likely to try to inculcate their children with these ideas, and to encourage them likewise to bear numerous offspring.

On the other hand, well-educated and enlightened persons are more likely to have few children, both because they recognize that excessive childbearing is harmful to the Environment, and because childbearing tends to prevent women from reaching their Full Potential as Persons. Evolutionary biology paints a sobering picture of a future overrun by backward-thinking, religious bigots, while enlightened, progressive, and right-thinking people become a minority in the country that by all logical and scientific reason they ought to control.

It is true that this tendency will be somewhat ameliorated by the firm control that Progressive Thinking holds on the means of education and communications. However, this will not last. Already the growth of reactionary broadcast outlets and the founding of religious educational institutions threatens this monopoly. It is necessary to begin now to take measures to prevent the coming catastophe before the problem of excessive reproduction by atavistic religious groups (Catholics, Fundamentalist Protestants, Mormons, and--a new and coming threat--Traditional Muslims) becomes too big to control.

One difficulty in facing this problem is that any solution must be politically acceptable. A universal one-child policy like that of the People's Republic of China, while it might have entirely desirable results, would meet with some resistance because it contradicts the principle of Reproductive Rights. It would be difficult to use this principle to defend the unalienable right to Abortion on Demand while at the same time enforcing a policy that restricts reproduction.

Besides, it would be beneficial not merely to restrict the ability of those whose ideas are not Progressive from bearing and raising children, but to encourage those who have socially beneficial ideas to pass these on to a new generation. There is a means at hand to bring about this result, one that has begun to be tested in the courts. This is the Best Interest of the Child.

As with all Progress, this idea has so far been slow to catch on. But all right-thinking people can see that it deserves to be developed. One case a few years ago that began to crystallize Progressive opinion was the so-called "Baby Jessica" case. It is true that in this case, the Best Interest of the Child lost out, but the outpouring of the best opinion was clearly on its side. Clearly, it was in the obvious Best Interest of Baby Jessica to be raised by adoptive parents in the Cultured and Progressive city of Ann Arbor, than to be raised by her natural parents in a small, isolated, and backward town in Iowa where Educational Opportunities would be far fewer, and the likelihood of a retrograde religious upbringing more likely. The courts still held that biology was destiny in this case, but it is likely that as Informed Opinion becomes stronger, the Best Interests of the Child will prevail.

The proper development of this doctrine will mean that we should not have to wait for a situation like that of the Baby Jessica case. If it is in the Best Interest of a child put up for adoption to grow up in a Progressive home, is it not in the Best Interest of any child? While the right to reproduce cannot be denied, the right to raise a child is a Public Trust, and should be administered not in the selfish interests of the biological parents, but in the Best Interest of the Child.

The Best Interest of the Child demands that all children be raised in the environment that will guarantee them the best education and Quality of Life. Therefore those who apply to be nurturing parents must be chosen carefully. Households where there are too many other children, or where the children are likely to be exposed to negative influences such as religion, can immediately be excluded from consideration. On the other hand, no person or group of persons prepared to raise a child according to Progressive principles, should be denied the right to do so, merely because they are, for example, single, unmarried, or a couple of the same sex. Any excessive children, or those waiting to be adopted into individual situations, can be housed in government institutions under the care of highly trained personnel.

Hundreds of thousands of children are born every year in this country, to be raised in situations chosen by pure chance alone, and we allow them to remain in these situations as if people had some kind of innate ability to raise children. Those who seem inclined to have the most children tend to be the least qualified to raise them from the point of view of the interests of the children and even moreso from the point of view of society. To carefully license childrearers and to exclude from this privilege those likely to propagate backward ideas will guarantee that the future will remain in the hands of those best able to control it.