I agree with Pericles. Why should the young people of today be told to limit their number of children?
That is a very personal subject that should not be dictated to by Governments.

Just look at what happened in the 'one child policy' fiasco in China.
Naturally, most Chinese wanted a son, and thousands of female babies were/are murdered every year to make way for desired male babies.
(I guess that state of affairs may well suit many of the anti-female posters on this site though...)

Now these pampered Chinese sons have to look to other countries to find wives. It sort of defeats the purpose of cutting the local population numbers down doesn't it?

What next?
The government decides what sex your one child can be?

The promotion of effective contraception is the wisest way to go, and then at least we can limit the number of unwanted pregnancies in Australia

What an odd...

>>What an odd inverse-ad.hom. posting from Pericles, who presumably chose his nom-de-keyboard because it suggests wisdom.<<

...posting from nicco, who presumably chose his nom-de-keyboard because it suggests Machiavelli.

>>He seems to be suggesting that only the deprived have the right to an opinion on matters of human welfare<<

Not at all. The thrust of my "inverse-ad.hom.", as you call it, is that the lecture provided by Ms Goldie is entirely typical of the baby boomer generation, full of pious instructions on how other people ought to live. A classic case of do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do, in fact.

>>Why should Ms Goldie's home life have any bearing on her argument (except insofar as she herself uses personal anecdote to add legitimacy to that argument)?<<

Simply because in such cases it is essential to draw attention to the relative comfort from which the philippic is delivered, otherwise the entire point - that we are witnessing a form of hypocritical political correctness - would be lost.

Does that make it clearer for you?

As I also pointed out, such a diatribe is no more than self-important posturing, when it also becomes clear that the writer has considered none of the outcomes from her preferred solution. She advocates a one-child policy, studiously ignoring its massive failure, and the concomitant misery that is in the process of unfolding, in a country that has tried it.

>>I am sitting comfortably at my desk, the early summer weather is pleasant, the dog is snoring on the verandah. But despite Pericles, and despite my present ease, I am fearful for the future<<

Since you are quite comfortable to provide such personal detail, the question has to be asked: what would make you less fearful, and why?

Think beyond the platitudes and slogans, to the reality of what you and Ms Goldie are advocating.

There is a book that should be made required reading for the HSC. It's called Planet of Slums and was written by Mike Davis in 2007. I challenge anyone scoffing at the ideas presented in this article to read the book.

Suzieonline, where are the anti-feminine posters you seem to have identified on this thread?
Your own trend is much more anti-feminine than those you are castigating: why is it that you embrace the enforcement of “no contraception” which is widespread through so many governments, religions, and antediluvian cultures; the lack of choice in this regard?
Why should women, in both the less-developed, and some of the more-developed world, endure a continuing inability to control their own fertility - due lack of self-enfranchisement? A lack which is almost invariably due to an enforcement by those governments, religions, and cultures which you seem keen to have continuing to endure.
The conference of 1994 in Cairo on this issue identified the way forward for women who wanted the ability to embrace choice; a path away from the demands that they have children in numbers which could not be adequately supported. A direction away from such problems of fistula in young mothers, away from an excess of maternal and infant deaths, and an inability to adequately nurture such numbers of children as they had into adulthood.
That path has been effectively blocked by people with a philosophy very similar to what you are espousing - in effect, anti-feminisim.

It's time to INCREASE OUR fertility rate... and do something about the out-of control population explosion in the poor world.

The average fertility rate in many countries is 8 per woman! 8! That's why they're poor... can you imagine paying for 16 children? (most are Muslim polygamous nations) How can any country afford to provide quadrouple the schools, hospitals jobs and magically create farmland every 25 years? Impossible - that's why they are poor... and that's why they stay corrupt and uneducated.

Meanwhile here and across the wealthy world we are suiciding at an unprecedented rate. For every two adults we are producing between 1.1 and 1.8 chilren. 1.1 children for every two adults is halfing the population every generation.

And if you look inside these numbers.. the poorer, the less educated, the worse suburb... however you want to measure it, basically the less intelligent you are the fewer children you are going to have.

It's largely welfare/meanstested benefits... welfare-dependant can't afford not to have large families due to over-generous benefits... professionals can't afford to have children because they get none of this myriad of payments and subsidies. We can't afford the kids we want.

And then there's divorce, many men have realised that fatherhood is a bad deal and have decided never to marry. They're not commitment-phobic, they are being rational.

The world has never seen such a eugenics program... it beats Hitler's hands-down in pure numbers. The smart people are dying out, and the less able are being paid to produce, while professionals receive no benefits and find childless-ness a better option.

Jenny,
This has been posted here before.

http://www.hans-hass.de/Englisch/index_english.htm