[groby_b]

The US sees about 20K teen pregnancy abortions.

That's probably not why the number of births is way down.

Number of births in the US are ~3.6M right now. We also have 1M abortions per year. That's - if abortions were the sole problem - 4.6M births / 330M people.

Except... It was 4.3M births / 177M people in 1960. Double the current rate. It dropped off sharply right after the 1960s. Not coincidentally right when the pill was introduced.

It never was about "better end the pregnancy". It was always about women having a say, instead of being default-delegated to brood mare.

We landed in a ~stable equilibrium with that, with a TFR of 2.1 in 1990. And then live births dropped again, like a stone. And, oddly, so did abortions. Which implies that the likely problem is a drop in pregnancies in the 1990s.

Teen abortions are a tiny irrelevant side show compared to this. So maybe let's not speculate on "baseline beliefs of society" based on what's noise in the statistics.

[refurb]

Nobody said anything about teens?

[d0gsg0w00f]

No telling what contraceptives have contributed.

We didn't really use contraceptives and we had three "oopses". Those three oopses are pretty awesome.

Nothing like a kid to help you get your head out of your ass. Probably why people report feeling happier, because you can't think about the stupid stuff you used to worry about.

[groby_b]

Hey, I'm not arguing against having kids. I think they're awesome, too, even though life didn't allow them for me.

I'd just like discussions to be rooted in actual data instead of sentiment.

[salawat]

>Nothing like a kid to help you get your head out of your ass. Probably why people report feeling happier, because you can't think about the stupid stuff you used to worry about.

Not all of those things were stupid, and not in need of being worried about and worked on. Though childless myself, I try to remind those who are currently rearing the next gen all those problems they "don't have time to worry about" are still there. Do your children a favor and maybe worry about problems bigger than you still. You, as opposed to me (the childless), have a materialized interest in the future. I get odd looks because I spend an awful amount of time worrying over everyone else's futures even to the detriment of my own; but if y'all aren't looking forward for them, someone else has to.