Nathaniel LeMaster

(source:)
Should nations view the children as a blessing or as a burden during economic hard times? What about families?

Within one day of taking office the President gave his answer to the first question. He would use the anniversary of Roe. V. Wade to lift the ban on overseas abortion funding. The message: In tough economic times, it is important for U.S. taxpayer dollars to be spent preventing more life from coming into this world.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was even more overt in her baby-banning agenda. In a national television interview she made it clear that one important way to stimulate the economy was for people to stop having babies.

Pelosi was defended her plan to make tax-payer subsidized child prevention an important part of the $825 billion economic stimulus package, explaining that “contraception will reduce the cost to the states and to the federal government… No apologies. No. We have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.”

Translation: We must control the population because children are a burden on the economy—-especially, children from lower class families. The less of these children, the less money the government will have to spend on schools and healthcare.

The same day Speaker Pelosi was urging her vision for anti-recession population control measures, a top adviser to the British Government made the case that more abortion and contraception is needed to save the environment. Jonathan Porritt, the former Advisor on the environment to Tony Blair and the Chairman of Britain’s Sustainable Development Commission stated, “I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible.”

Ironically, the same day that both Speaker Pelosi’s and Chairman Porrit’s comments were circulating, a very different story was breaking on CNN: “Workers Urged: Go Home and Multiply.”

Kyung Lah reported “Japan is in the midst of an unprecedented recession, so corporations are being asked to work toward fixing another major problem: the country’s low birthrate.”

After decades of social pressure to drastically limit family size, the Japanese economy is on the verge of implosion. With a birthrate of 1.34, they are an aging population without the labor force to maintain their own economy.

Lay writes: “Keidanren, Japan’s largest business group, with 1,300 major international corporations as members, has issued a plea to its members to let workers go home early to spend time with their families and help Japan with its pressing social problem.”

Who is right?