There's an AP story over at Yahoo! and elsewhere concerning the number of babies born in the US in 2007, and how the total of live births broke the old record set in 1957.
Nowhere does this story mention that the population of the U.S. has nearly exactly doubled during the fifty years between the two record-setting dates. That's what I call "journamalism."
In his final paragraphs, the reporter, Mike Stobbe, does mention that despite the record number of births, this increase is different from occurred in the 1950s, when a much smaller population of women were having nearly four children each, on average. That baby boom quickly transformed society, affecting everything from school construction to consumer culture.
Today, U.S. women are averaging 2.1 children each. That's the highest level since the early 1970s, but is a relatively small increase from the rate it had hovered at for more than 10 years and is hardly transforming.
Otherwise, The AP reports that abortions are down, and so are births to married people. 40 Percent of all babies born these days are born to single moms. Even happy couples who have been together a long time aren't bothering with "official" recognition.
The good thing about this is that it gives the kids an opportunity to attend their parents' wedding, if they ever decide to have one.
2 comments:
I was just thinking yesterday of the effect the policy of not instructing on universal population growth restraint has had and will have at an accelerating rate, a cheapening of the value of being human. As world resource availability diminishes in many areas in the future, the value of people will tragically do the same. The human population is plagued by mass insanity. How many individuals cannot notice the quantity to value relationship of anything?
One resource being wiped out presently is fish: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090316173212.htm
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