Few European Babies Leads to Muslim Transformation

The modern culture in Europe is literally dying from a lack of offspring.  To counter the inevitable, looming economic disaster, government planners see immigration as a solution.

"This is a very acute problem because for years Europe has been doing a sort of collective demographic suicide. . . . To change the demographic trends, promoting birth is not enough.  It also has to be done through immigration."
-- Vitor Constâncio, Vice President of the European Central Bank

"I have heard many times from Muslims that their goal is to conquer Europe with two weapons: faith and the birth rate."
-- Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai

For background, read about the dropping birth rates in much of Europe and Russia, but also there's an American trend: Fewer Children, More Animals/Pets.  The fact is that The Religious Procreate, but Others Don't and Where Liberalism Flourishes, the Population Diminishes

The Grim Reality: Ever-dropping birth rate means economic devastation

Also read Childlessness is Effect of Feminism: U.S. Census Bureau Population Survey

-- From "Mapped: how a demographic time bomb will transform the global economy" by Szu Ping Chan, UK Telegraph 1/2/16

Based on UN population estimates, the number of people in the developed world aged between 16 and 64 peaked in 2010, while the number of people aged 60 and over will exceed the number of children for the first time in 2047, and more than double from 841m in 2013 to two billion by 2050.

. . . Birth rates have fallen from five per woman in 1950 to 2.5 today, and are expected to fall to between 1.8 and 2.2 by 2050.

As tax bases and revenues shrink and the number of retirees grows, governments face the choice of borrowing more or giving out less to ensure the numbers add up.

But without change, countries may find themselves sleepwalking into a new reality of permanently lower growth and higher debt.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Europe needs many more babies to avert a population disaster" posted at UK Guardian 8/22/15

Spain has one of the lowest fertility rates in the EU, with an average of 1.27 children born for every woman of childbearing age, compared to the EU average of 1.55. Its crippling economic crisis has seen a net exodus of people from the country, as hundreds of thousands of Spaniards and migrants leave in the hope of finding jobs abroad. The result is that, since 2012, Spain’s population has been shrinking.

Record numbers of economic migrants and asylum-seekers are seeking to enter the European Union this summer and are risking their lives in the attempt. The paradox is that as police and security forces battle to keep them at bay, a demographic crisis is unfolding across the continent. Europe desperately needs more young people to run its health services, populate its rural areas and look after its elderly because, increasingly, its societies are no longer self-sustaining.

In Portugal, the population has been shrinking since 2010. For many analysts, the question now is how low can it go, with projections by the National Statistics Institute suggesting Portugal’s population could drop from 10.5 million to 6.3 million by 2060. According to prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho: “We’ve got really serious problems.”

In Italy the retired population is soaring, with the proportion of over-65s set to rise from 2.7% last year to 18.8% in 2050. Germany has the lowest birthrate in the world: 8.2 per 1,000 population between 2008 and 2013, according to a recent study by the Hamburg-based world economy institute, the HWWI.

. . . Germany needs to welcome an average of 533,000 immigrants every year, which perhaps gives context to the estimate that 800,000 refugees are due to come to Germany this year.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "More people in Europe are dying than are being born" posted at Phys.org (Science X network) 1/14/16

Texas A&M Professor of Sociology Dudley Poston, along with Professor Kenneth Johnson, University of New Hampshire, and Professor Layton Field, Mount St. Mary's University, published their findings in Population and Development Review this month.

The researchers find that 17 European nations have more people dying in them than are being born (natural decrease), including three of Europe's more populous nations: Russia, Germany and Italy. In contrast, in the U.S. and in the state of Texas, births exceed deaths by a substantial margin.

Findings reveal that 58 percent of the 1,391 counties of Europe had more deaths than births compared to just 28 percent of the 3,141 counties of the U.S.

The researchers find that in Europe, deaths exceeded births in most of the counties of Germany, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, as well as in Sweden and the Baltic States. Further south, natural decrease is found occurring in the majority of the counties of Greece, Portugal and Italy.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "UN Report: Int’l. Migration Can Slow, But Not Reverse Europe’s Demographic Crisis" by Barbara Hollingsworth, CNSNews.com 1/14/16

“Europe added the second largest number of international migrants between 2000 and 2015 (20 million, or 1.3 million per year),” the UN report stated. Of those, 75 percent were between the ages of 20 and 64.

But even with this large influx of working-age immigrants, “old-age dependency ratios are projected to increase from 26 to 48 per 100 in Europe” - compared to 38 per 100 in North America by 2050.

“Because international migrants tend to include a larger proportion of working-age persons compared to the overall population, positive net migration can contribute to reducing old-age dependency ratios. However, international migration cannot reverse, or halt, the long-term trend toward population ageing,” the UN report stated.

A 2012 analysis by the Guttmacher Institute found that about a third of all pregnancies in Europe between 1995 and 2003 ended in abortion. Birth rates below the replacement level (2.1 children per woman) have created a demographic crisis in which a declining population of young workers is expected to support a growing number of elderly retirees.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Germany replaces Japan as country with world's lower birth rate" by Louis Doré, UK Independent 5/30/15

[Germany] has dropped below Japan to take the lowest birth rate globally, according to the study by the Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI), prompting fears that labour market shortages could damage the economy.

The authors of the study also said that women’s participation in the workforce would be key to the country’s economic future, and warned that a shrinking working-age population could have negative effects.

The falling birth rate means the percentage of people of working age in the country - between 20 and 65 - would drop from 61 per cent to 54 per cent by 2030.

Mr Probst said the country needed young immigrant workers to fill the significant skills gap . . .

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Cardinal: Islam's goal is to conquer Europe by faith and 'birth rate'" by Gregory Tomlin, Christian Examiner 11/9/15

In countries like Austria, Finland, Ireland, Kosovo, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Norway, Serbia and the United Kingdom, Muslims are already outpacing non-Muslim birthrates by more than a full percentage point. By 2030, Muslims likely would have made up 8 percent of the continent's population – hardly enough though to tilt the scales in favor of Islam.

That figure, however, will likely be significantly higher now since hundreds of thousands of migrants have flooded into countries like Germany and France. Some countries, such as Great Britain, have also made allowances for Muslim families where a man has multiple wives.

"The main reasons for Islam's growth ultimately involve simple demographics. To begin with, Muslims have more children than members of the seven other major religious groups analyzed in the study. Each Muslim woman has an average of 3.1 children, significantly above the next-highest group (Christians at 2.7) and the average of all non-Muslims (2.3). In all major regions where there is a sizable Muslim population, Muslim fertility exceeds non-Muslim fertility," Pew [Research Center] said in a recent study.

"The growth of the Muslim population also is helped by the fact that Muslims have the youngest median age (23 in 2010) of all major religious groups, seven years younger than the median age of non-Muslims (30). A larger share of Muslims will soon be at the point in their lives when people begin having children. This, combined with high fertility rates, will accelerate Muslim population growth," Pew also said.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Also read Pope Francis Scolds Selfish Europeans for NOT Procreating

Parents Allow Babies to Choose Gender From Birth

Transgenderism beliefs were first confined to mentally ill adults, but then spread to sexually confused teens; most recently parents have been encouraged to allow preschool kids to think they're a different gender, and now, the German government will provide birth certificates with NO gender identification, such that the baby can choose on its own.

"The new law also stipulates that individuals can opt to remain of indeterminate gender for their whole lives."

UPDATE 8/19/16 - Birthing Transgender Kids: Gender-Neutral Names

UPDATE 9/5/16: 'Sex Change' Surgery is Toddlers' Choice, Schools Say

It's old news now - the report of a Surgical 'Miracle:' First Genderless Person

For trends in the United States, read California Law OKs Boys on Girls' Teams and in Their Showers and also read Massachusetts Male 'Transgender' Student Voted Prom Queen as well as Transgender Cartoons Indoctrinate Preschoolers

In addition, read Gay Agenda: Gender Neutrality & Gender Spectrum

First there was Mr. Mrs. Miss, then Ms., now Mx. = Transgendered

-- From "Germany To Offer Third Gender Option On Birth Certificates" by Amanda Scherker, The Huffington Post 8/17/13

A new German law stipulates that children who are born of indeterminate gender no longer have to be categorized as "male" or "female." Instead, parents can choose to leave the space blank on their child's birth certificate, according to German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. Those individuals can eventually decide whether to identify as male, female or neither.

The German legislature voted this as an amendment to the Civil Status Act on May 7. As Süddeutsche Zeitung recently noted, the "legal change has received little attention so far." But that all changed when some determined the new law, while progressive, doesn't go far enough.

Incidentally, Germany's not the only country navigating the legal implications of appropriately categorizing third gender identifiers. Earlier this year, Nepal began issuing "third gender" citizenship certificates. Activists lauded the progressive measure, noting its potential to simplify lives for sexual minorities.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "M, F or Blank: 'Third Gender' Official in Germany from November" by Friederike Heine, Der Spiegel (Germany) 8/16/13

. . . Under the new law, individuals can also opt to remain outside the gender binary altogether.

. . . just six weeks after Australia became the first country in the world to introduce legal guidelines on gender recognition. Under the Australian system, which applies to all personal documents, individuals can select the third category irrespective of whether or not they have undergone sex reassignment surgery or hormone therapy.

Finland is the only EU member state aside from Germany to have made significant progress in the area of third gender recognition. Despite its efforts, bureaucratic hurdles in the Nordic country have meant that there is still no concrete legislative change in sight.

According to Silvan Agius, policy director at human rights organisation ILGA Europe -- the European chapter of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association -- the European Union is lagging behind on the issue. Though Brussels commissioned a report on trans and intersex minorities in 2010, and has since attempted to coordinate efforts to prohibit gender discrimination, progress has been halting.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Germany to become first European state to allow ‘third gender’ birth certificates" posted at Russia Today 8/17/13

The new law will come into force on November 1, on the back of a constitutional court decision which states that as long as a person “deeply feels” that they belong to a certain gender, they have a personal right to choose how they legally identify themselves.

Justice Minister Sabine Leuthheusser-Schnarrenberger said the decision will have deep repercussions and will require “comprehensive reform” of all documents issued by the state.

The ‘third gender’ designation will also have an effect on marriage laws. As of now, only men and women are allowed to legally marry in the country. Homosexual couples can enter into a civil partnership, and no provisions are made for unions between other genders.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Also read Transgenderism is a 'Delusion' According to Victim

'Homophobic' Christians Likely to be Closeted Gays

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Society Without Procreation: Germany Reacts

Faced with one of Europe's lowest birth rates, Germans are wondering if they will cease to exist (replaced by a growing Muslim citizenry), and so they desperately search for answers (in all the wrong places).

UPDATE 1/16/16: Low European Birthrate Leads to Muslim Transformation

Related article: Study Gives Hope to Industrialized Nations Facing Population Declines

-- From "Fewer Germans consider children essential part of life" posted at The Local (Germany) 2/17/11

More Germans are deciding children are not necessary to having a fulfilling life, according to a survey published this week.

“Having children is no longer a matter of course in Germany,” said Eltern editor Marie-Luise Lewicki.

About 81 percent of survey participants believed society values professional success over family, while 79 percent said daily life brings enough stress without children.

Meanwhile, 74 percent were unwilling to modify their lifestyle for the sake of having children, while 47 percent believed the future is too uncertain to have children now.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Better child care may be key to boosting Germany's birth rate" by Karin Jäger, Deutsche Welle 2/14/11

. . . Women say there needs to be better childcare before they have kids.

77 percent of those asked said that they didn't think they could combine their job with family life. 61 percent said that there wasn't enough reliable child care available.

[Maike Krasensky, a 38-year-old single mother] would like the government to create more kindergarten places and also give single parents tax breaks, so that it's easier for mums to combine a career with their family.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Germany wrestles with female quota in boardrooms" by Aurelia End, AFP 2/5/11

The remarkable lack of woman executives in Europe's biggest economy has sparked a groundswell of protest, with leading news magazine Der Spiegel calling in its current issue for a female quota to redress the imbalance.

"Quotas should be a first-aid measure for a society that has held on to rigid ideas of gender roles for too long," it wrote in an 11-page cover story entitled "Why Germany Needs A Woman Quota - A Manifesto".

Critics say Germany's resistance to women executives is rooted in a lack of affordable child care but also in cultural factors.

Professor Barbara Vinken of the University of Munich, a leading commentator on women's affairs, says that German women are confronted with more restrictive expectations . . . "German women have internalised the notion that the feminine ideal is a housewife or at most a part-time employee," she told AFP.

"No woman (with a partner) is forced to take care of her kids alone."

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Also read Sex on the Rise, Procreation in Decline, as well as Multiculturalism Destroys Free Society, Cultures Terrorists

Europeans React to Islamization

France is home to five million Muslims, the largest population in Europe, which may explain why it has an identity crisis. Like many Europeans nations, it is suffering the consequences of a decades-long open-borders policy that has allowed Muslims to establish enclaves across the country, particularly in Paris, where rioting Muslims sent the city up in flames in November, 2008.

UPDATE 1/5/11: British conversions to Islam nearly doubled in decade, study says

UPDATE 12/16/10: Wikileaks shines light on Muslim radicals in the U.K.

UPDATE 10/9/10: Sharia law being used in Germany in Muslims' domestic disputes

UPDATE 10/7/10: Muslims are taking over parts of the world into which they move simply by outnumbering the previous residents

UPDATE 10/7/10: Italy to become next European country to ban burka



-- From "France In Trouble Over Immigrants" posted at The New American 9/15/10

Trying to control the increasing Islamization of its society, the French Senate passed a bill that forbids women from wearing the burqa and other face-hiding veils in public. The vote was nearly unamious, 246-1. The Senate's action follows that of the country's National Assembly, which acted in June and also passed the bill by a large margin. The bill awaits the singnature of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

But whatever the reason women may no longer cover their faces in public, the country's radical Left, as expected, chalks the action up to Islamophobia.

. . . In 2009, the Swiss banned the Muslim minaret, described by Turkish President Recep Erdogan as the "Muslim Bayonet." That law sent European leftists into a tizzy.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Analysis: Burqa bans: France, then Netherlands - who's next?" by Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor, Reuters 10/1/10

First the French banned Muslim face veils, now the Dutch have decided to follow suit. With debates about outlawing burqas and niqabs spreading across Europe, a third ban -- perhaps even more -- may not be far behind.

Calls for a "burqa ban" are now heard across Europe, with local politics influencing how close it gets to becoming law.

Three days after Paris passed its ban last month, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's populist Northern League allies introduced a similar bill in Rome. Another Berlusconi ally submitted a draft ban law in the Senate last week.

[In Spain,] Barcelona outlawed burqas and niqabs in public buildings in June, after two smaller Catalan towns, Lerida and El Vendrell, banned them early this year.

A recent poll showed 61 percent of Germans favored a burqa ban but the debate there has focused more on a dispute caused by Thilo Sarrazin, who had to resign from the board of the central bank after publishing a book denigrating Muslim immigrants.

In Austria, the opposition Freedom Party has been gaining ground in state polls with its anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant line. Socialist Chancellor Werner Faymann says he "could imagine" a ban and his conservative coalition partners want to debate it.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "French Senate passes ban on full Muslim veils" by Elaine Ganley, Associated Press Writer 9/14/10

Many Muslims believe the [veil-ban] legislation is one more blow to France's No. 2 religion, and risks raising the level of Islamophobia in a country where mosques, like synagogues, are sporadic targets of hate. However, the law's many proponents say it will preserve the nation's values, including its secular foundations and a notion of fraternity that is contrary to those who hide their faces.

The bill is aimed at ensuring gender equality, women's dignity and security, as well as upholding France's secular values — and its way of life.

Muslim leaders concur that Islam does not require a woman to hide her face. However, they have voiced concerns that a law forbidding them to do so would stigmatize the French Muslim population, which at an estimated 5 million is the largest in western Europe. Numerous Muslim women who wear the face-covering veil have said they are being increasingly harassed in the streets.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

UPDATE 10/4/10: From "Muslims should conform to German values: Merkel" by Indo-Asian News Service

German Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded on Monday that Muslims living in Germany conform to "fundamental German values", saying there was no leeway on the issue.

"There is no leeway on this," she said, adding that Germans' perceptions of Islam were dominated by Sharia (Islamic law), the lack of equality between men and women and honour killings.

Germany had freedom of religion, and Islam was welcome, "but it must be a form of Islam that feels devoted to our fundamental values", Merkel said. If it were not, fears would develop among Germans, "and that is hardly something we want to happen".

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Read also, Cardinal Says Secularization of Europe has Doomed it to Islamization

Christians Jailed over Kids' Sex Education

On the heels of today's news about Britain's Parliament considering a bill that would greatly restrict parental rights in the homeschool arena, comes news out of Germany that eight fathers have been sentenced to prison because they refused to send the elementary aged children to mandatory sex education class.

-- From "Parental rights take another hit as eight fathers are jailed for opting their children out of sex-ed" Littleton Homeschooling Examiner, Lynda Ackert 12/11/09

In addition to refusing to allow their children to attend sex-ed classes, the families also resisted having their children enlisted in a theatre production of "Mein Körper gehört mir" or "My Body Belongs to Me," which informs young children in how to engage in sexual activity.

Germany has also been in the news recently for their persecution of homeschooling families. Joel Thornton, President of the International Human Rights Group, states that unlike much of the American education system, German officials "view the children as belonging to the State, particularly during the time they are in school" and for that reason parents' beliefs and authority over their children takes second place to the interests and mandates of the State.

So, why should such news from Britain and Germany be of interest to homeschool families here in the U.S.? Both Britain and Germany have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. A treaty that literally threatens parental rights. Under the UNCRC, the "best interest of the child principle" would give the government the ability to override every decision made by every parent if a government worker disagreed with the parent’s decision. That is exactly what is occurring now in Germany, and what Britain is banking on to pass the current bill before Parliament.

From "Christian fathers put in jail for shunning explicit sex ed" by Bob Unruh © 2009 WorldNetDaily 12/11/09

An international human rights organization today announced it will pursue a civil lawsuit on behalf of parents who want to control their children's education and withhold them from explicit sex education and play-acting classes required by the German government.

Joel Thornton of the International Human Rights Group told WND the government in Salzkotten, Germany, is sending the fathers of the children to jail for terms of one week because they have refused to turn their children over to school officials for mandated sex classes.

According to a report from Richard Guenther, European director for the IHRG, eight families of Christians have decided to withhold their children from required sex education classes in Salzkotten.

Sex education classes in Germany are explicit, and the issue is one of the major reasons why families – and not just Christian families – choose to homeschool their children even though the government has maintained its illegality since the days of Hitler.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Liberals Ask Themselves, "Why Don't Liberals Procreate?"

UPDATE 8/10/14 - The Extinction of Abortion Advocates: They Don't Procreate

From "Making moms: Can we feed the need to breed? -- Canada has a baby deficit. Will paying women to have more kids help?" by Lianne George, posted May 28, 2007 in Macleans

Canada's fertility rate has been in a free fall for decades. In recent years, though, it has hovered at an all-time low of roughly 1.5 children per woman (we need 2.1 if we're going to replace ourselves). Social analysts pin it on some jumble of female education and fiscal autonomy, secularization, birth control, Sex and the City, a heightened desire for personal freedom, and increasing uncertainty about bringing a child into a world plagued by terrorism, global warming and Lindsay Lohan. [Oops, forgot to mention abortion!] In a hyper-individualistic, ultra-commodified culture like ours, motherhood, for better and worse, is less a fact of life than just another lifestyle choice.

All over the developed world, the same pattern is apparent. Russia, Britain, Ireland, Australia, Spain, Italy and dozens of other countries are contending with fertility rates well below replacement levels. Forty per cent of female university graduates in Germany are childless. In Japan, where the birth rate has sunk to a record low of 1.26, family planning groups are blaming the Internet, charging that fertile men and women are spending too much time online, and not enough having sex.

In Canada, economists and demographers are already noting dysytopian, Children Of Men-tinged scenarios. Across the country, women on average aren't having their first child until the age of 31. Elementary schools and daycare facilities, without enough kids to fill the nap mats, are closing for business. Ontario's Ministry of Education predicts that, by 2010, total elementary and secondary school enrolment will drop by nearly 100,000 students from 2002 numbers. In New Brunswick, the province's death rate has overtaken its birth rate. And the economic implications of a disappearing population are substantial: analysts are estimating a shortage of 1.2 million workers by 2020. "For every two people about to retire in the coming decades," says Linda Duxbury, a professor at Carleton University's Sprott School of Business, "there will be less than one person to take their place, which will put significant strain on the health care system." Alberta, B.C. and the Maritimes are already feeling the crunch. "Demographers have known for ages this is coming," she says. "An issue like this takes decades to solve and we've really pushed the envelope on starting to deal with it."

In a quest to hold on to older workers, the Canadian government expunged the mandatory retirement age in December. But this move alone will not avert a labour crisis. Who, after all, wants to work a full-time job much past the age of 65? (Currently, only about six per cent of Canadians do so.) . . . Nor will immigration be the solution. At the moment, Statistics Canada reports that Canada's average of 240,000 new Canadian immigrants per year more than compensates for our dismal fertility rate. However, those studying long-range trends say this is nowhere near enough, particularly as global competition for skilled labour becomes more aggressive in the coming decades. "The numbers that we're talking about are phenomenal," says Duxbury. "Half a million to two-thirds of a million per year. I wonder, where are we going to get those immigrants from? Because most of the industrialized world is going through this same set of problems we are."

Faced with this odd conundrum -- a supply-and-demand crisis in which the suppliers (women) theoretically have the capacity to meet demand (for babies) but are opting not to -- economists and demographers are left scratching their heads. By now, just about every country in the developed world has implemented some policy or monetary incentives, ranging from baby bonuses to tax breaks. Still, the numbers fall. Short of establishing a Handmaid's Tale regime, they're wondering, what will it take to make women have babies? (And they're not talking just one.) . . . Exacerbating the financial hit for women is the fact that they, unlike men, lose income when they have a child -- a phenomenon David Ellwood [a professor of political economy and dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University] calls the "motherhood penalty." In a study he co-authored, Ellwood tracked women's income over time, beginning in 1979, and determined that the salaries of university-educated women plateau after childbirth, resulting in a loss of 15 to 20 per cent in income during the subsequent 10 years. Men's wages, on the other hand, don't appear to be affected. "Why are the most educated women postponing children the most?" says Ellwood. "The answer is, it's not because they can't afford child care. They're in a better position to afford it than most people. I think a lot of it is more fundamental than that, which has to do with what having children does to their own economic futures and opportunities."

Disparities at work are no longer a male-female issue. These days, they are most explicitly expressed between the women who have children, and those who don't. Kids are the new glass ceiling. According to U.S. economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett, founding president of the Center for Work-Life Policy, only 74 per cent of "off-ramped" women seeking to rejoin the workforce are able to, and only 40 per cent of those return to full-time, professional jobs. A Cornell University study found that mothers are 44 per cent less likely to be hired than non-mothers with the same resumé, experience and qualifications. "It's no accident that the majority of male senior executives have kids and the majority of female senior executives don't," says Ellen Bravo, a renowned American feminist and author of the newly published Taking on the Big Boys. "It's a requirement for the job."

But it's not only women's lost income that policy wonks are going to have to consider. It's also that, although child-rearing is a multi-pronged job which, if done properly, benefits the family, the nation, and everyone in between, the bulk of the responsibility for undertaking the whole thing still sits squarely on a mother's shoulders. Even as we bemoan our plummeting birth rate, and the grim economic future it may bring, everything about the way we've organized our culture is designed to force women to choose between work and kids -- and to penalize them if they choose kids. [Liberals view it as a penalty, others view it as a blessing!] And so, these days, it's not just a matter of a woman wanting children; it's a matter of wanting them at the expense of everything else she's worked for. . . . In Vienna, researchers at the International Instutite for Applied Systems Analysis have developed a disquieting hypothesis called the "low fertility trap," which suggests that the causes of low fertility are self-perpetuating. They foresee the potential for the baby bust to spiral out of control for three reasons: first, negative population growth means there will be fewer women of child-bearing age in the future to produce more children. Second, young people have been socialized [a.k.a. "brainwashed"] to believe that the ideal family size is a small one, which means fewer couples will have more than one child. Finally, the aging population will place tremendous financial strain on younger cohorts -- who have been raised with higher material aspirations to begin with -- which will translate into fewer children, or none at all.

"In the next 20 years," says Harvard's Ellwood, "there will be no net new native-born workers in the so-called prime age of 24 to 55 in the United States. The only new workers will come from two places: older workers and immigrants. And most immigrants in nations like the U.S. have been low-skill. Canada has had more higher-skill immigrants." The issue is made more difficult by the fact that, among Americans in particular, there is wide-ranging discomfort with a liberal immigration policy right now. "[Immigrants] are in a world where there's concerns about terrorism, and worries about jobs being sent abroad. So it's a real challenge."

Here is where we bump up against the dark underbelly of the demography discussion: the fact that it's not so much about urging women to have babies as it is about urging the right women to have them -- and to preserve Western civilization in the process. As it happens, the group whose fertility rates are declining the fastest are those with the greatest social and financial prospects. That is, Western (well-assimilated, if not white) professionals with university degrees. [Any conservative who would make such statements would be in the unemployment line along with Don Imus.]
. . .
It's this type of economic reasoning, paired with an underlying xenophobic angst, that is spurring pro-fertility policy initiatives in developed nations around the world. In Poland, where the population has fallen by half a million since 2000, the government has begun offering up a modest sum of 1,000 zlotys (roughly $400) for each child a woman produces. In Italy, officials are offering a reward of $1,500 for each second child -- and even toying with the possibility of paying women not to go ahead with abortions.

Amazingly, the evidence suggests that the most successful policies have one thing in common: they don't try to pay women to procreate. Rather, they facilitate the careers of working mothers. They are premised on the idea that, the more value a society places on women's work inside and outside of the home, the more likely she is to want to contribute meaningfully in both spheres. In other words, take some of the load off of her shoulders and spread it around so that children become everybody's responsibility. Who would have thought that the most economically sound solution to a fertility crisis would be rooted in good old-fashioned feminism?

The liberals just don't "get it!" They'll be asking themselves the same question (in the title of this Blog posting) until they're extinct.

Read the rest of this article.

German Court Places Custody of Yet Another 5 Homeschooling Children with Government's Youth Office

From "German Court Places Custody of Yet Another 5 Homeschooling Children with Government's Youth Office" by Peter J. Smith, posted 3/22/07, at LifeSite.net

ZITTAU, Germany, March 22, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A German court in the eastern province of Saxony has revoked custody of five children from their homeschooling parents, placing the fate of the children into the hands of the Jugendamt, the local youth welfare office.

The Christian Broadcasting Network reports the court ordered the Jugendamt, an organization created by National Socialist chancellor Adolf Hitler in 1939, to retain custody of Rosine, Jotham, Kurt-Simon, Lovis and Ernst, the children of Bert and Kathrin Brause of Zittau, until they are returned to public school.

Although the children still remain with their parents, the Jugendamt may seize them forcibly at any time, as was the case with 15 year-old Melissa Busekros in Bavaria. Busekros was snatched by 15 police officers over 6 weeks ago to a psychiatric clinic in Nuremburg for "school phobia," and continues to remain separated from her family in an undisclosed location.

According to court documents translated by the International Human Rights Group (IHRG), the judge gave her order on the basis that the Brauses' refusal to send their children to the public school violated Germany's mandatory school attendance law.

While the judge admitted that the Brause children were well-educated under the direction of the Philadelphia school, a German homeschooling umbrella organization, she accused the parents - both having college degrees - of abusing their children by denying them the benefits of the public school.

The judge complained the Brause children answered her with the same opinions of her father, concluding they lacked independent personalities. In the Busekros case, the Erlangen Jugendamt told the Bavarian court she was influenced too much by her father and thus had an underdeveloped personality...

Read the rest of this article.

Germany: Brother and Sister Fight for the Right to Marry

Given popular wisdom today, if it is between two consenting adults, why not incest?

UPDATE 7/20/14: Judge Says Incest OK; It's the New Gay

UPDATE 11/1/14: New York Incestuous Marriage OKd by Unanimous Appeals Court

UPDATE 1/18/15: Teen Girl to Marry Father in New Jersey—Adult Incest is Legal

UPDATE 9/24/14: "Incest a 'fundamental right', German committee says" by Justin Huggler, in Berlin for UK Telegraph

Laws banning incest between brothers and sisters in Germany could be scrapped after a government ethics committee said the they were an unacceptable intrusion into the right to sexual self-determination.

“Criminal law is not the appropriate means to preserve a social taboo,” the German Ethics Council said in a statement. “The fundamental right of adult siblings to sexual self-determination is to be weighed more heavily than the abstract idea of protection of the family.”

The Council said it based its recommendation on extensive research, in which it found many incestuous couples are forced to live in secret.

Incest remains illegal in the UK and most European countries, although France abolished its incest laws under Napoleon I and there has been growing debate over the taboo in Germany.

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From "Incest: an age-old taboo" posted 3/12/07, at BBC News

The phenomenon of genetic sexual attraction - where siblings fall for each other on meeting after an estranged childhood - accounts for some of the high-profile incest cases of recent years.
In the German case, Patrick was brought up in a foster home while Susan remained with the biological parents, meeting for the first time when she was 16 and he 23.
And in the US case of Allen and Patricia Muth, which went to the Supreme Court in 2005, the sister was raised in care, not meeting her brother until she was 18.
Both of them have served prison sentences for incest.
In parts of the US, first cousins may marry if they are beyond reproductive age or ability.

But even in countries where incest between adults is not prosecuted, the rights of both parents and children born of incest are not clear cut.
France dropped incest from the penal code under Napoleon - 200 years ago.
But siblings may not marry, and in 2004, a man who was having a sexual relationship with his half-sister was refused legal paternity of his own child.
In the Netherlands meanwhile, where consensual incest is no longer prosecuted, the legal status of the child born of such a relationship is ambiguous, according to Masha Antokolskaia, an expert in family law at the Free University in Amsterdam.
Sweden is the only country in Europe which allows marriage between siblings who share a parent.
"In many ways society no longer wants the state to intervene in private lives when it doesn't have to," she says. "But it is still not prepared to grant incestuous couples full rights."
There is also debate over how much laws affect behaviour. Some even argue that what is proscribed becomes all the more attractive.
Not according to Joachim Renzikowski, a criminal law professor at Germany's Halle University.
"I don't believe that because incest is banned, there's a certain attraction about doing it," he says.
"But I doubt equally that getting rid of our incest law will result in any measurable increase in cases. Our moral guardians don't need to get too worked up about this."
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