Natalism

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Natalism or pro-birth is a belief that promotes human reproduction. The term is taken from the Latin adjective form for "birth," natalis.

Pronatalism or simply natalism is an ideology promoting child-bearing which may include limited access to abortion and contraception as well as financial and social incentives for the population, particularly natives without recent immigrant heritage, to reproduce.[citation needed]

Contents

[edit] Scope

The degree of natalism is individual; the extreme end is Natalism as a life stance (with capitalized first letter by life stance orthography), which holds natalism as of ultimate importance and everything else is only good to the extent it serves this purpose. At the other end is to hold that there should be a reduction in population growth but not as large as is mainstream.

Natalistic policies range from mildly to severely oppressive of women's control over their fertility and pregnancy, depending on how strictly they are structured and enforced[1].

[edit] In religion

Many religions, e.g. Judaism[2], incite to procreate and have many children.

The Amish are among the fastest-growing populations in the world, with an average of 6.8 children per family.[3]

[edit] Natalistic politics

Further information: Population decline#National efforts to reverse declining populations

Many countries with population decline incent the people to have large families as a means of national efforts to reverse declining populations. Some nations such as Japan and Thailand have implemented, or tried to implement, interventionist natalist policies, creating incentives for larger families among "native stock."[citation needed] Immigrants are generally not part of natalist policies.

Another government which has openly advocated natalism is the Islamic Republic of Iran, following a tremendous loss of their population to the Iran-Iraq War. The government encouraged married couples to produce as many children as possible to replace population lost to the war. As a result of this natalist attitude, Iran has experienced a youth bulge, with approximately 75% of its population under the age of 30 as of 2007.

Ceauşescu's Romania severely repressed abortion (the most common contraceptive at the time) in 1966[4] and forced gynecological revisions and penalizations for unmarried women and childless couples. The birthrate surge taxed the public services received by the decreţei ("Scions of the decree [770]") generation. The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was followed by a fall in population growth.

In a 2004 New York Times editorial David Brooks[5] expressed the opinion that the relatively high birthrate of the United States in comparison to Europe could be attributed to social groups with "natalist" attitudes. The article is referred to in an analysis of the Quiverfull movement.[6] However, the figures identified for the demographic are extremely low.

[edit] Antinatalism

Main article: antinatalism

China's one-child policy and the United State's highly restrictive parental leave policies are examples of somewhat antinatalist policies. Official anti or pro-natalist policies can oppress women, depending on how they are structured and enforced. (See also Reproductive rights)

Emergent sub-replacement fertility and a corresponding demographic transition is thought to be well underway in Europe[citation needed] leading toward smaller[citation needed], older populations.

Antinatalism may also be included in concern of overpopulation and its effect, e.g. as a mitigation of global warming. Recently, there has been an increasing family planning and a following decrease in total fertility rate in many parts of the world, in part due to concerns of overpopulation.

[edit] Egoistic natalism

Although generally referring to the humanity as a whole, there is a subclass of natalism holding that it is the self-reproduction that matters, even if the procedures may inhibit other people's reproduction. It has for instance been the case that men have used their own sperm to artificially inseminate women, without their consent,[7] and egoistic natalism may have been the motive.

However, natalism generally refers to the reproduction of the large-scale population.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Kligman, Gail. 1998. The Politics of Duplicity. Controlling Reproduction in Ceausescu's Romania. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  2. ^ Joys of A Large Family by Rebbetzin Faige Twerski
  3. ^ Julia A. Ericksen; Eugene P. Ericksen, John A. Hostetler, Gertrude E. Huntington (July 1979). "Fertility Patterns and Trends among the Old Order Amish". Population Studies (33): 255-76. ISSN 00324728. OCLC 39648293. 
  4. ^ (Romanian) Scarlat, Sandra. "'Decreţeii': produsele unei epoci care a îmbolnăvit România" ("'Scions of the Decree': Products of an Era that Sickened Romania"), Evenimentul Zilei, May 17, 2005.
  5. ^ "The New Red-Diaper Babies" - David Brooks, New York Times accessed 21 Jan 06
  6. ^ The Nation accessed 21 Jan 06
  7. ^ Babymaker: Fertility, Fraud and the Fall of Doctor Cecil Jacobson (1993) ISBN 0-553-56162-6

[edit] External links

[edit] See also