Lack of babies being born leads to population decline
tagged 2.1, abortion, birthrate, Catholicism, DVD, Europe, Humanae Vitae, Italy, moral relativism, progressivism, replacement rate, Russia, secularism, sex, Spain, the Church and zero population growth
Seems pretty straightforward — the DVD apparently chronicles diminishing birthrates world-wide, although its principal focus seems to be on Europe, where no nation has a birthrate at (or even near) “replacement level” — 2.1 live births per woman. This replacement rate is the absolute minimum necessary birthrate for “zero population growth” to be a reality.
Most European nations have birthrates approaching half of replacement rate. There is no parallel in history for the kind of demographic implosion that is now imminent in places like Russia and Spain. Not that any of this comes as a surprise, of course. A replacement level birthrate basically requires a Catholic moral approach to marriage and childbearing, and every European nation (even once-strong Catholic bastions like Italy and Spain) have largely given themselves over to secularism, progressivism, and moral relativism — abortion and casual sex are now almost the rule, rather than the much-derided exception.
Funnily, that transformation in the soul of the nation has turned out to be destructive for the nation. Who ever could have seen that coming?
(In Soviet Russia, hat tips you: Mark Shea)
Update: Welcome, Steynians!
