BoozeRunner; "To make a blanket statement that women make such a choice rashly or cold-heartedly is ignorant."
I agree wholeheartedly. I think blanket statements tend to indicate an agenda rather than the facts of an issue, unless it's a statement about blanket statements
KJV; "Who's gonna teach him or her decency?"
But who says YOUR standards of decency are right or better? I am sure you are a lovely person, and you know your American history, but that doesn't mean a woman who talks about penises and is in favour of abortion is not capable of teaching children 'decency' just and maybe more relevant to the 21st Century than yours. That doesn't diminish your rights to your own decency, just your rights to morally condemn people because you disagee with them.
As regards compulsory tubal ligation for women having abortions, I can't see that happening; what about people who were using contraception and got pregnant anyway? If you assume that 1% of women using contraception will get pregnant anyway, that's 1.25M women a year in the USA who would be penalised for a contraceptive failure. What about women who were raped?
What I think will happen within the next century or so is that both boy and girls will be reversably sterilised at puberty. People wishing to have children will have to apply for a license and a reversal. This process would include assessment of their suitability as a parent, and a genetic assay to allow screening for genetically transmitted diseases or conditions.
Losing the 'right to breed' might seem a big step, but it would solve so many social issues and pressures I can't see it NOT happening at somepoint, as human history is filled with consessions of individual liberty for the benefit of the smooth functioning of society.
It would also mean that the health and longevity of the human race would transform over a few generations, due to fertilised eggs with undesirable traits being discarded or subjected to gene therapy.
It might seem scarey... like, what the hell is an 'undesirable trait', but it sould start with things like MS, Cystic Fibrosis, hereditary skeletal conditions, hereditary myopia, stuff no-one wants and there are no major issues getting rid of. It would not, due to the very synergetic nature of genetic interaction, involve making 'super humans', at least not for a good while, it would just be making humans who 'worked well'.
144thousand_and_one; JanH is right. Population pressure is a sociological artifact, not one created by actual lack of resources. There is, with current agricultural technology, more than enough food for 10 billion people IF MANAGED PROPERLY. We only have famine now because there is too much food in some place and not enough in others.
People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...
