Editorial Excerpts, September 2024

… Two-thirds of the world’s population lives in countries where the birth rate has fallen below replacement level. The EU’s fertility rate stands at 1.46. Russia’s is 1.5. India, home to 1.4 billion, dropped below 2.1 for the first time in 2020. But East Asia has seen the sharpest declines. In 1960, South Korea’s fertility rate was around 6 children per woman. Today, it is the lowest in the world at [0.72].

There are exceptions to the rule of global population decline. They are just concentrated in one region. Population projections suggest that 8 in 10 people will live in Africa and Asia by 2100. Afghanistan is also an outlier. Conflict-ridden societies tend to have higher birth rates. Stable countries — particularly after sustained periods of economic growth — tend to revert toward the replacement rate. Then, eventually, they shrink.

These facts suggest that lower birth rates should not be wholly unwelcome. They reflect shifts toward delayed marriage, fewer teen births, less unintended pregnancy, lower child mortality, and smaller families, which are the product of higher living standards, mass education, and female workforce participation. Governments should not seek to reverse this progress, but to limit the trade-offs these positive trends bring. …

If population growth fails to pick up, boosting productivity is the other way to stave off negative economic consequences. Investing in education and workforce training could help achieve that. Innovations in artificial intelligence and other new tools could, too. …

– The Washington Post, May 30, 2024

… The US Supreme Court delivered a victory to abortion access proponents and the federal government with its unanimous ruling Thursday throwing out a challenge to regulations of the drug mifepristone, keeping the most common method of abortion in the country available — at least in states where it hasn’t been banned.

But the war being waged by antiabortion advocates is far from over. Threats to availability of the abortion pill as well as other forms of reproductive health care remain, particularly since the Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision, which resulted in a flurry of restrictive state laws as well as a renewed effort by conservative organizations to use federal law to further block access to abortions from coast to coast. …

Other threats also loom. Project 2025, a broad agenda created by conservative groups should former president Donald Trump return to the White House, includes a plan to use the Comstock Act, an arcane federal law prohibiting the mailing of materials that are obscene or “intended for producing abortion,” to block not only distribution of mifepristone but also other medical equipment. …

Current guidance by the Department of Justice holds that the law only prohibits the mailing of anything used for illegal abortions, and the law has rarely been enforced. But a different presidential administration could bring not only new Justice Department leaders who could reverse such guidance but also new FDA officials who could reverse approval for abortion medication. …

– The Boston Globe, June 14, 2024