Why are Progressives ignoring overpopulation?

And I didn't demand a perfect solution,just one that isn't a terrible waste of money,manpower, and resources.

And frankly "throw money at it" doesn't work..

 

Contraception, the only free version of it is abstinence, and that's not really working.. ALL of the other types costs money. IF you throw free contraception at it, you are throwing money at it.

 

A prophylactic cost a whole lot less than a child. What you are saying is like saying that paying a police officer is throwing money at the problem of crime. Buying a gun is throwing money at the problem of self defense etc...

A proven solution often cost something, but less than it will cost doing nothing.

 

First your analogy is flawed..Police, are an established institution. Comparing maintaining a police force to handing out free contraception is about as convoluted as it gets.. Using your logic one can relate the cost of gasoline to that of hunger in the dark ages..It's just illogical...

Contraception isn't a proven solution, it's a possible limiting factor and that's it.. People have to use the contraception, and use it correctly, for it to be effective. And for either situation they have to be willing, responsible and caring enough to put forth the effort.. If access to contraception were the only issue we wouldn't have so much teenage, or unwanted pregnancies in this country..

You are assuming it's just a matter of making it affordable or free and accessible.. Having access to it doesn't mean it will be used, and offering it for free will only make another cost for taxpayers to bear, and in the end will not make a dent..

Tell ya what, why don't you pay for it then.. All of you who seem to embrace this idea that people are only having unwanted children, or having them irresponsibly because they lack the contraception to prevent them, should start a group and pool your resources. Then go out and hand out birth control or contraception to all those who can't afford it.. That way you can feel good about helping them, and controlling the population of about 1 in every 500 people. That way you won't waste anybody elses money..

 

No. The analogy is solid. As far as I can tell spending money on a problem in any way could be construed as "throwing money at it".

As far as police being proven and effective I will say Ok, but certainly not 100%, we still have plenty of crime.

If everyone educated themselves and cared about the future doubt there would be much less to get fixed. No fix is 100%. So the most we can do is look for the best solutions.
Cheap and easily accessible birth control is a no brainer is you want to reduce births. No, it won't reduce the birthrate to 0%, but if one free condom somewhere stops one pregnancy it has reduced the number of births.

I personally have never said that all births are unwanted. I think I posted on this thread somewhere about why the poor birthrate is higher and I do not think lack of birth control is a huge factor in this. Poor women have many reasons to have children. All over the world, even in highly urban areas with no welfare system, the poor have more children than other economic classes.

A child is a way for a poor girl or woman to illicit aid from a father and his family.

 

Until you address over population you are ignoring the elephant in the room. If we just add cars for more people as we make them cleaner we are just spinning our wheels.

 

In my opinion, overpopulation merely indicates a lack of more developed Infrastructure.

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Only the Right would have a problem with overpopulation while criminalizing abortion; and resorting to coercive use of force of the State.

 

What infrastructure did you have in mind?

 

Aqueducts and roads should be a priority to accommodate any form of "over population".

 

No your analogy is flawed. The police perform a valuable service. You aren't paying for each crime to be stopped separately. You are paying for a police force available to counter and prevent crime as well as protect you and at the same time you are employing people. Handing out free contraception is not paying for a service, and does employ more than a few people at best. It's paying for people to act responsibly which is a poor investment to say the least.

So the poor have kids to illicit aid???? Really???? Seriously, you do realize the reason many of them apply for aid is because they have or are having children they cannot afford? You just basically gave the cause and effect being the same event. I'm sorry but that's simply illogical.. There are some which abuse the system, but having kids to abuse the system seems a bit of a stretch to me. Now abusing the system after the fact, most assuredly,but abusing it prior to the reason? Not likely

Who said it would reduce it to 0.. Or where did I imply it would have to? There was no claim to that effect. What I am saying is that handing out free contraception will cost more than any possible gains it can make. Face it, people are irresponsible often.. It just so happens poorer people are often poorer due to poor decisions and irresponsible behavior or actions. not many mentally capable and competent people intend to live poor. They just end up that way and often times it is due to their own actions. They more often than not don't want to survive paycheck to paycheck or live on government assistance, but do so because they cannot any other foreseeable way. Most aren't poor because they aren't able to afford birthcontrol, it's because they make poor decisions.

You seem to think giving everyone the chance to make a good decision will result in a good decision. It won't and never will. Some people are just not going to do the right or sensible thing no matter how easy you make it for them to do so. There will always be such people in the world, and the more people you have, the more of them there will be.

Giving people who can't make proper and good decisions free contraception is a waste of money. It won't matter if 1 in 50 of them can be helped, if they can't make effective long-term changes in their behavior.

And exactly what kind of contraception are you wanting to give out free?

The most effective contraception requires Doctor visits, and medical attention. Which carries cost and if I am not mistaken the cost continues for the duration. Rubbers are already given away for free by many organizations,and that hasn't resulted in much of a change. The shot perhaps? Again cost that are continual, and medically administered...

We are already in a financial toilet due to the costs of obamacare, does this seem like a viable investment now? Sure why not, like all things just add it to the tab..

 

The police force argument is silly man.. Really silly.. It's comparing apples and oranges..SO if that's all you have, you don't have anything..

Possible limiting... Possible.. Like as in a possibility.. Handing out free contraception would be like filling up a strainer with water and using your index finger to slow the water from draining out. Sure it may slow it down by some miniscule and insignificant amount, but did it really accomplish anything? No, you just wasted time and got a wet hand..

Like birth control, the problem still remains. The same people will still make the same poor decisions. only this time they will be shown again, that no matter how bad their decisions are somebody will be there to come to their aid.. And that will lead to more poor decisions because the incentive to make better ones is non-existent. Some people are not motivated to make good decisions for the same reasons many of us assume already. Some people are only motivated by self-interest, and although for some that manifests in success, for others it manifests in habitual poor decisions made based on more base desires with little thought to consequences..

And the rest of your post... First, there are planned parenthoods all over the country which hand out free condoms. Second, there are assistance programs that can help people,in all manner of ways. So yes most people do have access to birth control in this country..And the point of this discussion is free contraception, whatever "more issues" you are referring to, voice them..

 

I'm not looking for a "solution".. You obviously are. And so far your solution is a waste of money and time...

Overpopulation will be a problem until the entire world thinks, acts, and behaves in a manner which equally shares responsibility, and in the benefits of the entire planet. Solve that, and you solve half the problems of the world..

But hey, you go ahead and hand out contraception if it makes you feel good.. Better yet. Why don't you guys buy a bunch of condoms and attach them to a card with your phone number on it. And on the card tell them how you would like to know if this prevented any children being born... Get back with me with the numbers of people who called and confirmed this..

 

Studies have shown that in poor areas where free contraceptives are available teen births go down roughly 80%. (I just googled "cost of free contraceptives") I can't find a cost analysis of this so whether it is more expensive to provide the contraceptives or supplement the welfare of the children, but those numbers are more impressive than I expected.

Now teen births are only a segment of the poor child bearing population, but from everyone I've meet who works with the poor, the idea is to turn them around as young as possible. Young poor girls who become pregnant lose the chance to "turn it around", and often continue to have unsustainable families. If we can give a substantial number of them a better chance of a good start we might have a domino effect in the positive way.

If everyone is going to have healthcare contraceptives should be part of every plan. Not everyone will use them anymore than everyone will use anti-depressants, and if your religion or personal ethic makes you choose not to use them so be it.

I just don't think there is anything to get very upset about here.

 

What does that have to do with making cars cleaner only to add more cars? If you make cars 5% cleaner then add 5% more cars you have done exactly nothing to clean the air.

 

That particular rebuttal was specifically about over-population, not over-pollution.

Public sector infrastructure could include "conduits to markets" which may even provide for industrial forms waste of management, along with potable and regular waste water management, and along with energy and telecommunications conduits.

 

Not to mention making additional other demands on the environment. The population dilemma appears to be the elephant that everyone and their brother keeps avoiding. Something about it steps on too many folks toes. Slap on another solar pv and you have dealt with the problem of 200,000 new folks being added to the planet each day on top of the 7 billion + already here, with nearly half of them making less than 2 dollars a day and an environment that is under more and more siege.

 

Can you supply a link to those studies? If not they are hearsay.. Also, you can google "cost of free contraceptives" all day and you will get nothing. The reason the use of the word "free". As google tries to search for the key words "free" and "contraception". Google will most likely view it as free contraception and that would imply no cost..

Who singled out teen pregnancy? Pregnancy while not being able to handle the costs or responsibilities, is the issue regardless of the age of those involved. Teen pregnancy is another issue, related to overpopulation but only in that it is unprepared pregnancy..Planned parenthood gives out free birth control to teens, and as of yet it hasn't made a noticeable difference.

Everyone will either get healthcare coverage or pay a fine.. And the costs of this are still coming in, and we are already in financial danger over it. Adding more to it only makes it worse..

 

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/10/05/study-free-birth-control-leads-to-fewer-abortions/

Read the whole article if you want to understand where I got the numbers from. I assume you can do a little math. The program studied had to be expensive, but it lowered teen births from 34 out of 1000 teens to 6.4 out of 1000.

If you want I can give you a link that shows the US birth rate is going down, not up. I am not giving credit to Planned parenthood, but over alarm about our population growth seems misguided.

 

The study was done on 9000 volunteers in the St. Louis area... Not exactly compelling if they selected candidates from a pool of volunteers in one area. Also it confirms what I said regarding costs. No matter which type of contraception they chose it was free, so of course they chose the ones the most effective and as the article put it, "goof proof".. So no shock there. They chose the most expensive, and another non-shock the most effective and most expensive worked..So the study shows that in a controlled study using hand-picked volunteers, their results were good..

But here's the problem. People who volunteered for the study, were already seeking birth control, and more precisely free birth control. Meaning they were already at least concerned about birth control, unlike many people out there in the real world. Also, the study selected their volunteers how? What criteria? We don't know this the article doesn't state..

A controlled study using selected people whose desire to prevent pregnancies was already established, and based on a 9000 in a single city, doesn't prove anything in regards to the rest of the country, let alone world.. And if you read it carefully you see how they deceptively present the numbers.. From your article...

9000 in the study. Not 1000,yet they keep giving numbers in per 1000 in the study..Why? Here's why...They had 9000 women in the study, all had equal access to the most effective birth control, all had expressed desire to prevent pregnancies, and all passed the screenings and were accepted into the program, yet they still had between 39 and 67.5 women end up pregnant anyway.. Why is that? People are often unreliable, even when you do everything you can to screen the unreliable ones out..

The Study average was 4.4 to 7.5 abortions per 1,000 women in the study.

The st louis average was 13.4 to 17 abortions per 1,000 women overall in the St. Louis region

And the national rate was 20 abortions per 1,000 women.

So in reality, their controlled study using selected candidates, they had roughly 1/5 th to a little less than half the number they estimate for the st louis area.. The question I am asking is, why wasn't there less than that in their study?

The fact is 9000 women selected and screened and already showing a desire to prevent pregnancies, all given access to the best contraception available and at no charge, and yet they had somewhere between 29 and 67.5 of them pregnant anyway? And what's the deal with the estimated numbers? They didn't have a real number? They didn't count them? Nonsense it was a scientific study, of course they counted them, they choose to give estimated figures because the real numbers wouldn't give the desired effect. You can bet they had more 67, at best I'd say 68, maybe 70...

What you have is a PR fluff piece citing a study and casting it in the best light possible... WHy don't they link to the study? I looked all over the page and can't find one link to any data on it.. Learn to spot PR fluff pieces..