Robin Hansen worries that the worldwide population decline is driving the human species to extinction. His concern is shared by growing number of conservative thinkers. You would think in a world with 7 billion plus people that this could be put on the back burner. Apparently, I am wrong. Hanse believes it requires immediate attention. There becomes a point, are so Hansen thinks, that declining population becomes irreversible and that this point could come soon unless we change our ways. Don’t be fooled by the expected growth of population continuing and is expected to reach somewhere in the region of 10 billion by 2100. This is an urgent problem.

Hansen views our population cutting ways as similar to an addiction. People live in big cities where there are more things to do. People want to have some adventures before they settle into family life. They need to educate themselves for the complex modern world which requires quite a bit of training expense which, then, entails a bit of time to repay the money borrowed to obtain that training and education. They want to live a well rounded life. They use birth control to ensure they can have these experiences. They see themselves as something more than breeders. These all seem like reasonable things to want but they also are stopping people from having children, hence the crisis.

Hansen, then, wonders what can we do to make child rearing more attractive so people will stop enjoying their childless lives and start repopulating the planet. This is where things get dicey. Having children is both expensive and time consuming. People have to be willing to make this sacrifice. How do you get people to trade in leisurely Saturday mornings for transporting three kids in three different directions? As Hansen even admits, there are no easily solutions to this problem. Hansen lamely tosses out paying couples to have babies. Who exactly does he think will pay for this? Certainly not the American taxpayer.

This leaves the unspoken hint of coercion. Women will have to subordinate their ambitions and desires to repopulate the planet. It is worrisome that this is being framed as an existential crisis because, then, more drastic measures become acceptable. If the world needs babies, then the world better make sure women are having babies. While Hansen avoids suggesting the subordination of women, other conservative thinkers are not so cautious. There are conservative thinkers who want to do away with votes for women, who want to create a Christian Nationalists state where men are in control, and who want to restrict a woman’s right to an abortion even if her health is at stake.

What makes this concern irksome is that Conservatives are also panicking about immigration which would be a solution to the declining population problem. Many western countries now are below replacement population fertility. These are the very countries that poor immigrants want to go so why not just welcome these immigrants as the solution to our problem. I mean there are hordes at the Mexican border. Those hordes are largely young and fertile. Win Win, right.

Not exactly. These immigrants are criminals and/or have different values than us. OK, criminals I get and I support keeping those immigrants out. But the vast majority of immigrants are just looking for an opportunity for a better life which seems in alignment to the American Dream. Additionally, the vast majority of them come from Central America where Christianity is the most popular religion. Since some form of Christianity is the religion most Americans practice, this seems another point where the values of the immigrants align with the American people. This, to me, suggests we have a lot in common with the immigrants at the border, so why all the fuss about immigration?

This is why I don’t buy that this is a crisis worthy of my attention. Particularly when Conservatives get all wanky when Environmental groups talk about Global Warming. If global warming is a hoax based on extrapolating present temperature data into the future even though I can actually see the problems of a warming world — with more extreme weather, more fires and a warming ocean then why should I believe in declining population problem while sitting in traffic jams and searching for open parking spaces at crowded shopping malls.

This is all about controlling women’s fertility and getting the right women (read white middle class here) to have children. It would be far more encouraging if conservatives genuinely supported an agenda that supported families, but they don’t. They don’t want to spend any money on helping anyone, so the only tool they have in their tool kit is coercion which will only work if they take power away from women. And I think Conservatives will have a difficult time, even from Conservative women, if they try to take this power.