The Patriot Post® · The Long-Term Effects of 'Choice' Come Home to Roost

Back in 1957, the peak of the Baby Boom, the United States hit an all-time high for the number of births: just over 4.3 million. In 2017, that large group of people will reach the age of 60 and by decade’s end they will start to swamp the Social Security rolls, becoming eligible for Medicare shortly afterward. But while the women of that generation “came a long way, baby” (to borrow an old cigarette slogan) one thing they didn’t do was bear many children.

Some of that came from a phenomenon The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto dubbed the “Roe effect,” as abortion restrictions around the country went away just in time for these women to reach their otherwise child-bearing years. In short, many babies that would have been born were not — 58 million of them since 1973, to be precise.

Also worth considering, however, is the monetary necessity and enhanced options for women to join the work force. Simply put, stay-at-home moms with half a dozen kids became fewer and farther between. As a nation we didn’t match the 1957 nominal total of births again until 2007, and the totals have declined since.

Economic conditions may also play a part. The peak of live births in 1957 came just as the nation was entering what would be its sharpest recession since World War II — an economic downturn that, while brief, was unmatched until the Great Recession a half-century later cut short another modest baby boom.

Whether it was a factor of economics or convenience, though, the long-term decline in the birth rate is manifesting itself just in time for the Baby Boomers to reach the age when their children would have taken care of them. Those in Generation X waited to have kids until they were older — with the result being smaller families — while Millennials delay starting their families due to a number of economic hardships such as onerous student loan payments and difficulty finding suitable work, as well as a general sense of pessimism about the world in which we live. The reticence of younger people to start families led the Census Bureau to decrease the projected number of Americans by 2050 by a staggering 41 million, from 439 million to 398 million.

Unfortunately for those born after the Baby Boom went bust in the early 1960s, our national system of wealth transfer is predicated on younger people supporting the aged. Baby Boomers aren’t going anywhere for a while, and as they advance in years there’s a greater need for younger people to absorb the cost through taxation of their incomes.

The Social Security Administration warned in this year’s annual report, “Beyond [disability insurance], Social Security as a whole as well as Medicare cannot sustain projected long-run program costs under currently scheduled financing.” Perhaps having those 58 million babies aborted since Roe v. Wade would have helped, as upwards of 20 million of them would be in their prime childbearing and earning years right now. But that was the choice Baby Boomers made.

It’s worth noting that the abortion rate has dropped in industrialized countries, but not necessarily because of any pro-life awakening. In fact, it’s in large part a sign of fewer pregnancies.

Politically, whether the “Roe effect” has made a difference in party identification or not, neither of our political parties have truly addressed the issues that have led to this lack of reproduction, nor can they influence the prevailing American culture that paints children as more of a burden than a blessing. Many millions of our kids are out of sight and out of mind to their parents, raised by day care centers and schools. And the married couples who used to endure during tough times for one powerful reason aren’t always staying together for the kids anymore. And unhappy kids turn out to be less than willing to be parents when it’s their turn.

Demographic experts agree that, just to maintain a nation’s population, each of its women must bear an average of 2.1 children. It’s been years since the United States has achieved even that “replacement” birthrate, so our population is only growing due to immigration. (This is presently true of nearly all developed nations.) Yet without “our” children maintaining the dominant American culture, it’s worth asking when we’ll cease to be America and just be a morally and fiscally bankrupt population settled upon a particular land mass. That day of reckoning is coming closer and closer if the trend doesn’t change.