Catherine Rampell does the US really need more babies?

Catherine Rampell, of the Washington Post, wrote a column that was published by the San Diego Union Tribune that is titled: "We need more babies."  The essence of her column was that the birth rate in the US has fallen so low that we older folks won't have enough "workers" to support us.  So she thinks we need to increase our national birth rate.
I disagree with her for several reasons:
1. The world' resources are being used up at an alarming rate, which is contributing to extinction of many other important species.  Because of the increase in the world's population, we are increasing CO2, warming the ocean, polluting the ocean, and destroying the land.  The process cannot continue forever!  We need to reduce the global birthrate, not increase it!
2.The impact of Americans on the world's environment is many times larger than that of any other country.  Increasing our birthrate will impact the world much more severely than increasing it in other countries.
3. Her opinion, as presented, could be considered as "racist" since what she really means is that the US needs to increase the birthrate of "people like us" and not let people from other countries come to the use to "backfill" our under-performing birthrate. Can't we accept people from Africa, Latin America, The Philippines, or Asia?
4. Medical advances that have been made, and those "in the pipeline" will increase the life expectancy of everyone, and contribute even further to the impact on the global environment.  It will also allow more Americans to be able to live a longer, more productive life.  That will mean that we will be able to work longer and produce more in our lifetime, and maybe we won't need so many workers to help us.
5. Robotics is moving very quickly!  Many boring service jobs are being eliminated in the US and eventually around the world.  Many of the lower-paying service jobs involve caring for older people -- which may, in part, be replaced by robotics, electronics and computers.  The date of the "Singularity" when computers become smarter than people has been moved from 2100, to 2050, and now might be in the 2030's!  Self-driving cars are now on the road, will be sold next year, and might be in the majority by 2025.  Do we need more car and truck drivers to be born?  I don't think so!
6. As a nation, we should do everything we can to promote reduction in global birthrate, but should also try to import labor, as needed to fill the positions we feel are required to maintain our country.  To do that, we need to set an example of controlling our birthrate, and maintain high standards of welfare, political freedom, and security so that the best from other countries will want to emigrate to the US.
7. We may not want to "import" labor from other countries for all jobs.  We can certainly export a lot of our "work" to other countries  For example, we can establish health care standards and allow older people needing assisted living to move and be cared for in countries and facilities that embrace our standards.  We have already moved a lot of the low-paying manufacturing and call center jobs to other countries.  Why can't we continue that process?    

How to save the planet? Stop having children | Frankie Mullin | Society | The Guardian

The Guardian had this article that points out that the root of the world's problems are overpopulation.

How to save the planet? Stop having children | Frankie Mullin | Society | The Guardian



There have always been concerns about the world's population and predictions that humans would run out of food for the teeming masses.  So this isn't all that new.  Maybe we aren't in danger of running out of food or space to live.  But it is clear now that we are affecting the global environment and we are squeezing out other species of plants and animals who live in the world.  When humans run out of land to live on and grow food, we will probably begin to inhabit and farm the oceans.  By doing that, humans can continue to survive, but the cost may be the loss of most of the other "non-useful" species of life.



The overpopulation problem has been delayed by the many plagues and wars that have destroyed massive amounts of population and slowed down the growth.  However, now with modern medicine, we have conquered most of those diseases, and there will not likely be any plagues that will make a large dent in the population.  I had always expected a World War III to occur during the cold war, and envisioned a post-nuclear war world that could take centuries to get back to today's population.  It appears, at least for the present, that we may not have a nuclear holocaust.



Small changes can have huge effects on the world over time.  Reducing the birthrate would have a tremendous effect on the world's environment in 50 to 100 years from now.  I agree that medical practitioners in the US should help families make intelligent decisions on family size and assist their patients reach those goals using modern medical techniques.



However, the world also needs to put pressure on the religions of the world who are trying to grow and spread their religions by having more babies.  Muslims, Catholics, Hasidic Jews, and Mormons, for example seem to want to have as many babies as possible to promote their religion.  More babies means more people paying to support the church, and more people to proselytize and spread the religion.  The Catholic Church, carefully developed a theology several hundred years after Christ that started the restrictions on birth control See this article on Slate   It wasn't until the 1930s that the Catholic Church made birth control "a sin" . Other religions later seemed to adopt the same belief in order to try to maintain their "population" in competition with the Catholics.  Somehow, world opinion needs to be changed to discourage this sort of destructive behavior and families who do have more than a few children need to be financially penalized for that decision.  Should the world pay for those very large families health care?  Free education?  Reduced income taxes?