Family size in Brazil.

[Sola]

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/ ... orney-text

I was reading last month's NatGeo this morning and found the above article quite fascinating. I believe it is relevant here, especially with regard to our quiverfull pro-life friends.

No matter how much you try to restrict contraception, if it is available women will find it. If it is available, women will use it. The same goes for abortion too. It doesn't matter if you outlaw it, abortion will still happen.

Why? Because it makes sense.

It really is that simple.

Whilst the pro-life movement in the US has made ground over recent years, I don't think that it will become the norm. You can try to brainwash women into becoming anti-abortion, anti-contraception and quiverfull, but when it comes down to your children starving, most women will change their minds.

What these women have forgotten is what is happening right now in countries such as Brazil. When there are little or no support systems (which is what the far right want), losing your breadwinner causes your children to suffer. If the woman has to go out to work then she cannot have ten or twelve kids - who will look after them? If she doesn't work then the children starve.

Whilst it may seem like a good idea to have a huge family when you have a working husband, if something happens to him be that death, disability, unemployment or desertion, you cannot support that huge family.

The far right would have the churches supporting those in need, however consider this; everyone in the USA becomes right wing, pro-life, anti-contraception, christians. What happens then? There will always be those in need and in economic climates such as we have now, finding and sustaining work is not easy. The churches are already stretched to the limit, add in a few million more mouths to feed and what will happen?

The right wingers consider that the US was once Captain of the World and want to return it to that status. To do that they see the way as being having more children, reading the bible, home schooling, no governmental support, pay up front private healthcare. Take a look at Africa to see how well that is going. Limited resources cause hardship and when that is all that is available to a population - a population who is ill educated, too stretched, and increasing at a phenomenal rate you get economic collapse.

What is happening in Brazil is not state sanctioned (hello, catholic church!); but it is being promoted by the women themselves. They know that fewer children mean a more prosperous and healthy future and no amount of legislation will stop them from limiting the size of their families.

[Deleted03]

it's also promoted by the government! What other government offers free sterilization for women over 25? (and note that the option for men is not there - here's your machismo!)

This is a good article, but it does not talk about teen pregnancy though, because they are not doing a good job at that. It also means that if you're under 25 and already have 7 kids, you won't get free sterilization either! (true story, bad ending).

[Effie]

Very interesting to read about. :) That's definitely female empowerment.

Thanks for sharing!

[koolmom]

I didn't even read the article when I decided to respond to this post. As we all know, the Right-Wingers aren't the least bit interested in really raising the U.S. to be Captain of the World, by indication of how swiftly and thoroughly they wrecked our country's status when we actually WERE "Captain of the World". They seem to have forgotten that in times past, charities were woefully short of meeting the needs of those in poverty, hence all those wonderful governmental programs, AFDC, Social Security, Medicare, etc.

As evident by many news headlines these days, we are now seeing what women and families are doing so that their children don't starve. The full gamut from family suicides, killings, snuffing babies' lives out, attempting to sell off children, to robberies, pimping out children to predators, etc. Granted, many of those above-described are drug addicts, but somewhere along the line, something went horribly wrong in these individuals' lives and we're seeing the evidence in front of our faces each and every day.

We have cretins such as the esteemed Sen. Rick Santorum braying "single mothers must be coerced to marry; they are the Democratic party base", etc, etc. What does that say about so-called "character"? And you can bet out of the OTHER side of his

sanctimonious mouth, he's shilling for some charity, to "help the downtrodden" somewhere in his district. As far as them wanting EVERYONE to be carbon copies of themselves, that is simply not realistic -- as realistic as breathing oxygen on Mars.

What they truly want is to first win over as many converts as they can, THEN begin their work of dismantling this country, bit by bit, of course, never figuring into their stats exactly HOW many people per "convert" they can truly reach. The upper echelons are most likely counting on a good number of citizens to simply "die off", thanks to zero health/medical care, hence, making their job all that much easier. Then, by eliminating birth control and all methods of contraception, lays the groundwork for keeping ALL women, Christian and otherwise, under Big Theocracy's thumb.

What they want to do is to keep themselves in a job, that is, make everyone's lives so bare-bones and primitivized that there will be NO END to poverty, as long as there are "Christians" on one end, offering alms, they will be satisfied with the status quo.

What they DON'T want is a well-cared for, educated citizenry, able to decide for themselves what kind of nation they truly want, and that is why the RW keeps hammering away at our rights until they get where they want. I suggest catching late comedian George Carlin's take on the subject, on YouTube, something called "The American Dream" Carlin wraps it all up in a nice, neat, humorous package, and nails it to the wall.