[toomuchtodo]

~40% of annual pregnancies in the US and internationally are unintended (per the Guttmacher Institute and the UN, respectively). When women can prevent unintended pregnancy, of course total fertility rate will decline to a neutral rate below replacement rate. The population exploded because women were not empowered, and now they are. Economic systems built around this anomaly in human history are structurally flawed, and will need to adapt.

Kids incur exceptional opportunity and real costs, and are unnecessary for a fulfilling life, so this outcome should not be surprising.

[wuschel]

> Kids (…) are unnecessary for a fulfilling life, so this outcome should not be surprising.

Unnecessary in a material existential sense, perhaps, when one exludes a systemic need to take care of the elderly. One could argue, however, that the responsibility when taking care of kids are one of the few means to live and grow as a human being.

[toomuchtodo]

Adopt. There are ~400k kids in foster care in the US alone, half of which are adoptable. There are plenty of humans already existing who need care.

[bradlys]

This ignores the level of issues that most kids in foster care are suffering. People want a healthy child to start with. Most children in foster care are deeply afflicted and have deep traumas that will never be resolved by any new parental figure.

[toomuchtodo]

Humans are selfish, broadly speaking, there is no solution for that.