Record Low Fertility Rate

The command to be fertile and multiply is falling on deaf ears in America and many parts of the world.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently announced that the birth rate in the United States reached an all-time low. The replacement rate lagged to 1.6 births per woman in 2024. 

The replacement rate is the number of births necessary for a population to remain constant from generation to generation. It is commonly agreed that the rate needs to be 2.1 births per woman.   According to a 2022 report from the U.N., fertility rates have steadily decreased worldwide since 1950 from an average of 5 children to 2 or fewer.  Many countries in Africa and some in South America are the only areas where the birthrate is above the replacement rate. 

The recent CDC report is bleak for America because the country’s stability depends upon replacing the previous generation with births equal to or above. There are many moral and practical reasons for the decrease; however, one rises to the top.

The first reason for the decline in fertility is the contraceptive mentality, which is prevalent in Western societies. Since 1930, when the Protestants no longer required their members to abstain from the use of contraception, successive generations were made to believe contraception is not an evil, but a good thing for them.

Although the Catholic Church still officially bans the use of contraception, very few of its members follow the teaching. All the blame cannot be placed on them, because the Church has refused to speak about the dangers of contraception, especially since 1968, when many Church leaders disagreed with Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, Humanae Vitae, reaffirming tradition and condemning the practice. Many Church leaders disagreed then, and the present leadership has never made it a concern to teach it now.

Part of Paul XI‘s reasoning was that contraception would objectify women and increase the opportunity for promiscuity.  Very few are aware that some of the fertility problems couples experience have their roots in previous indiscretions when they picked up a transmitted disease.  It then becomes possible for the fragile reproductive organs of a woman to be damaged, sometimes causing infertility.

Outside of the physical effects of a contraceptive culture are the psychological and emotional factors.  Without the fear of becoming pregnant, women (and their husbands) have the luxury of controlling their fertility to a time and schedule they decide. They may delay building their family until they feel they are financially secure. Unfortunately, the plan takes time, and many of their fertile years are sacrificed for heading up the corporate ladder. When they finally decide to have children, their fertility is not as optimal as it was when they were in their twenties.

Societal pressure is another factor in the decreased birthrate. Couples who are open to more than one child are often ostracized and judged as weird for wanting a family with three or more children. Certainly, this kind of marginalization plays a massive role in young couples who find it difficult to fight against the grain.

Included under the contraception umbrella is the rise in same sex relationships. These unions are the epitome of the contraceptive mentality. There can never be a fear of pregnancy, and their union will never produce offspring.

You will rarely hear, because of the cacophony of ‘women’s healthcare rights,’ that abortion is the leading reason for the low number of births in the country. With the advent of the abortion pill, the number of women able to kill their babies has increased.  Although technically, abortion is not a form of contraception (though some contraceptive pills are abortifacients), the contraceptive practice of denying birth remains the same.

The low fertility rate in America is alarming but not altogether surprising. For millennia, the lesson has been that bad things will happen when humans disregard God’s word and separate from his teaching. God wishes life to flourish; it is only by human arrogance and selfishness that it doesn’t.    

The Old Testament is replete with examples of Israel’s movement away from God, and the result never benefited them. The same is true today.