Limit on number of children per parent in the western world?

Question

Do you think we will live to see the introduction of laws to control birth rate in the western world? How serious is the problem?

Answer 1

No, because in some places not enough children are being born. More women are choosing to have careers over family. And also more and more women are being forced to go out and take on full-time jobs in order to survive, when they'd rather be getting married and having kids. It's an unfair world either way. :-/

Answer 2

It would take a miracle to pass that kind of law in the US. It would more than likely have to be done as an amendment or else the lawsuits would bring it to a halt. People would say that their freedom to reproduce was being legislated. Some may even say it is a violation of religious freedom.

Ok, now lets say that Congress and Senate decide to draft this amendment. You can rest assured that each politician will be catching flack from various family groups and religious groups. I would bet there would be enough flack to make the politicians decide to not go thru with it.

Lets say they do. Now, it will be up to the states to decide and that will involve even more politicians and lobbying from various groups.

In the end, I do not think that it will happen with the current US government structure. Now, if the constitution was tossed out and only a couple of people were in charge of the decisions then I can see it happening. However, with what we have now, there would be too many roadblocks.

Answer 3

Why single out the western world?

True story:

It a certain country, which shall remain nameless for the purposes of this discussion, but it was a "colonised" third-world nation, the indigenous were told by their western masters that by the time their children reached working age, there would only be one in every four that would find a job, due to over supply in the labour market.

The birth-rate quadrupled - they needed at least one kid with a job to support them in their old age.

Answer 4

the problem is serious enough to mandate a law in the other direction...other cultures are replacing and birthing at an astronomical rate...western civilization is just barely replacing itself or a little below...it seems kind of backwards that the people least able to raise kids would be having the most, and the most affluent would be having the least...this is where a lot of the problems of the world clashes between cultures is coming from...

Answer 5

Not reli the birth rates are quite low in developed countries, the problem isn't too many children, its not enough! The population is still growing tho because people are living longer. So we have an 'ageing population' which carries a whole load of other problems with it.

Answer 6

Apparently the UK birth rate has dropped - the headmistress at my sons' school said that the school had a much smaller number of pupils than previous years and that it was much the same in all other schools. It looks like people are generally having less children.

Answer 7

I don't think they will in the 'Western world' based soley on the GNP of the countries. It seems to me it's usually a money issue in limiting the number of children born, as they don't have the funds to support them.

I personally believe anyone is entitled to have however many children they want, as long as they respect the feelings of those children, ie. considering what quality of life they will have.

Answer 8

It's not remotely a problem. There's more than enough money and space in the West. The population of America is something like 250million but it could easily home 20, thirty, fifty, times that number. Like wise with many other countries.

Answer 9

The people that should be having children don't those are the educated and well to do.
The poor and Muslims are the ones with the high birth rate.

Answer 10

It's unlikely some western countries are encouraging their people to reproduce due to declining birth rates.