Demographic collapse, you say
Oct. 16th, 2009 09:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fpbAs I repeatedly argued, demographic trends are not ironbound - much less "destiny" - and can change in the blinking of an eye. And those of you who had so much to say about my country would do well to read this: http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/abortion_in_italy_declines_while_fertility_inches_up/
EDITED IN One feature of this report that deserves more attention is the increasing unpopularity of abortion among doctors. The number of objectors in Italy is exceptionally high, but it is rising, I believe, across the West. In Britain, fifteen years ago, the NHS was a one-party state where abortion was concerned: be heard to openly question it, and you endangered your career and your employment. Now, however, the number of doctors who do not include it among their services has silently risen so far that it is causing serious problems in the distribution of it. One manager in Hull, two years ago, was heard to suggest that nurses should be allowed to perform it. While the British mind is still closed with respect to abortion, I think that the person was right who commented that people do not become doctors in order to rip human bodies to pieces and expel the bloody remains with a rubber tube. The mere disgustingness of the procedure works against it.
EDITED IN One feature of this report that deserves more attention is the increasing unpopularity of abortion among doctors. The number of objectors in Italy is exceptionally high, but it is rising, I believe, across the West. In Britain, fifteen years ago, the NHS was a one-party state where abortion was concerned: be heard to openly question it, and you endangered your career and your employment. Now, however, the number of doctors who do not include it among their services has silently risen so far that it is causing serious problems in the distribution of it. One manager in Hull, two years ago, was heard to suggest that nurses should be allowed to perform it. While the British mind is still closed with respect to abortion, I think that the person was right who commented that people do not become doctors in order to rip human bodies to pieces and expel the bloody remains with a rubber tube. The mere disgustingness of the procedure works against it.
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no subject
Date: 2009-10-16 08:14 pm (UTC)People aren't _wrong_ to be concerned with demographics, exactly -- nobody seems to have expected fertility rates to drop as far as they did. But there is certainly too much mindless tizziness on the subject, based on the exact same error (straight-line extrapolation) which was so alarming to population-bomb enthusiasts a few decades ago.
(Another fun fact vs a closely-related demographic concern: Christian charismatics, evangelicals and pentecostals in Europe have been roughly twice as numerous as Muslims for the last thirty years, and their growth rate is, if anything, slightly higher.)
no subject
Date: 2009-10-16 09:02 pm (UTC)