Source: Unherd
by Elliot Haspel
“I’m something of a rarity: a liberal who is worried about declining birth rates across the West. I look at a rapidly aging and longer-living population with smaller and smaller birth cohorts, and see a future in which social spending buckles under top-heavy entitlement programs; workers struggle in sluggish economies; schools and libraries are forced to close or decay in the face of shrinking tax bases; and the national soul is harmed as more and more individuals fail to realize their desired family size. In recent years, concerns about declining family formation and fertility have spread to some respectable center-Left quarters. Yet liberals like me still find ourselves marooned on a small opinion island. One big reason for that is the work of the biologist Paul R. Ehrlich, who died over the weekend, aged 93. Ehrlich’s anti-birth, anti-human ideology continues to shadow every conversation about demographic change.” (03/18/26)