An inconvenient truth. . .

The New York Times had a major page-one story on May 23 that featured this headline: "Long Slide Looms for World Population, With Sweeping Ramifications."  In it we find out that fertility rates are falling just about everywhere with some of the lowest birth rates per fertile female ever recorded (Africa south of the Sahara Desert excluded).  In other words, the naysayers who suggested an ice age and population overload 40-60 years ago are waking up to the first population decline in world history -- all by the end of this century.  Of course, we need to be wary of predictions.  We do not live in a freezer and the oceans have not drowned out the coastlines and major cities.  But that said, the article should put us on notice.  This is not an anomaly but a consistent trend now for many years.

While this ought to please those who see man as an enemy of a pristine natural world, the reality is that this is a grave threat to the way things are.  With some predicting that all but a dozen or so nations will experience population decline, we will see a vastly different world.  With the graying of the populations and schools transformed into nursing homes, we will have to figure out what to do without a ready supply of workers to pay for such retirement incomes and health care as well as provide services to the aging and aged.  Even the normally climate change friendly Pope Francis has warned against Italy's "demographic winter."

What is an inconvenient truth under all of this is that there is one single reason for such a decline -- one explanation for the decline and one way forward to reverse it?  That is abortion.  Last year some 10 million plus children were killed in the womb -- the single largest cause of death throughout the world even in a COVID year.  Quite literally, every year, a city the size of Jakarta disappears.  Just in case that is too far removed from the reality of my readers, think of a New York City and a Houston disappearing every year!  Just in the US alone, since 1973, the total number of aborted children is 50 million plus -- and counting.  So in the nearly 50 years, a nation the size of South Korea or Colombia has disappeared from the face of the earth -- and that is just in the US!

But the New York Times and none of the other mainstream media will tell you the relationship between abortion and population decline.  Why not?  Abortion has become the third rail of politics -- nearly everywhere.  It is the untouchable subject.  With Roman Catholics among the majority of US politicians and a Roman Catholic President and Speaker of the House, abortion is still the sacred cow that must not be disturbed.  Pelosi and Biden have pledged to make a legislative safety net if the Supremes decide to hear this case and threaten to rule against the holy right of a woman to kill the child in her womb.  We call it health care because we cannot stomach calling it for what it is -- death, legalized murder, and the most profound disregard for the value of life.  But it is a political hot potato that will not be addressed even when we are left with nations of people old and gray and schools and playgrounds empty and silent.

I don't know what to think about the projections.  They are only guesses.  But the trends are significant and abortion real.  It reveals the worst in us and our refusal to acknowledge our complicity -- even when the consequences may threaten the shape of our modern day lives.  Pray, my friends, for the lies we tell ourselves and the convenient ways we avoid the inconvenient truths that would accuse us are a pit of evil that threatens to consume us.  Abortion is not simply an issue -- it is the defining issue of our time.  What value can we give to other things that we would refuse to give to life?