Letters to the Editor, June 2025
Published: June 16, 2025
Thank you for the information about vasectomies. It makes complete sense given the whole picture.
I had one child, who had one child, who may have no children. I remember my parents’ childless friends (from the Depression). If you couldn’t afford children, you didn’t have them. My parents only had two because they wanted to be able to afford to send us to college.
My gratitude for my years of study and teaching is boundless. At 90, no more anti-war marches for me, but lots of postcards to voters (those in Wisconsin, at the moment). May we survive stupidity/cupidity.
Virginia Witmer
I very much enjoyed reading your editor’s note to the readers of Population Connection and was particularly impressed with your friend Sam Koenigsberg. I went on to read more about him in the feature article — he seems like such a sincere, cool, progressive guy. Terrific that he has been your lifelong friend!
Deborah Byrd
Thank you for your recent article about vasectomies in the March issue of Population Connection magazine.
My wife and I met in 1976 in an art class at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania (which has since merged with two other universities to become Pennsylvania Western University) and got married a few years later.
We both felt that we did not want to have children as the world already had more than enough. Thanks to a referral from Planned Parenthood, we met with a doctor who — after an interview — agreed to give me a vasectomy. We have never regretted it and jokingly refer to that doctor as the patron saint of our adopted pets.
We enjoy children, and I worked in special education for 30 years. I feel that I may have acted as a surrogate father figure to a number of my students.
We believe that we could have been good parents, and we know that we could have adopted if we had wanted to, but being childless has given us more flexibility and time to pursue interests such as social concerns, art, music, gardening, and nature.
When we got married in 1980, the world’s population was 4.4 billion. Now, in 2025, it is 8.2 billion. That’s a lot of hungry mouths and a lot of people impacting the environment.
We feel that we did a good thing by getting a vasectomy, and we thank our pets’ patron saint.
Ron Shissler
I am childfree and had a vasectomy over 40 years ago. I am well aware that those two acts alone have done more for the positive benefit of earth’s environment than anyone with even a single child could ever do in their lifetime.
I see one fundamental issue with your organization — it is something that has been on my mind from the start, and I finally decided to write to you. It is really the elephant in the room that is ignored in every issue of your publication that I have seen: religion.
I don’t see how any effective population mitigation can be done without acknowledging the fundamental relationship between natalism and religious belief. What good are birth control measures if they are introduced to a population that views them as tools of the devil because of Bronze Age religious belief?
Populations that are indoctrinated on religion generally want their particular flavor of the god myth to be the de facto one for everyone else. One way to achieve that is to replicate themselves en masse. Their manuals of belief say as much.
As a lifelong atheist and someone who became more politically active mid-way through Trump’s first term, I see this as a growing weakness in your mission. I would encourage you to address this situation in one of your upcoming magazine issues. I can’t believe I’m the only supporter who has this concern.
Konrad Kummli
Thank you for focusing on men in the March 2025 issue. It is a great start to an effort I hope will continue. How ironic that we have hoped to reduce population, and now we have to face those who want to do the opposite. It’s a strange world. You do good work that is much needed.
Elizabeth Kidder Michael
To submit letters to the editor of Population Connection magazine, email marian@popconnect.org.