Speaker Paul Ryan: Underpopulation is Causing Financial Problems, “People Need to Have More Babies”

National   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Dec 15, 2017   |   6:51PM   |   Washington, DC

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan is taking some heat this week for encouraging families to have more children.

Ryan made the comment Thursday while discussing the problems caused by an increasingly elderly population and low birth rates. These issues have government leaders throughout the world concerned about the future of their economies, their increasingly elderly citizens and more.

But several liberal, pro-abortion outlets blasted Ryan’s statements with implications of oppression and sexism. ThinkProgress ran with the headline, “Paul Ryan says American women need to have more babies.”

According to the report:

“People — this is going to be the new economic challenge for America: people,” Ryan said, in response to a question about entitlement reform.

Alluding to the fact that he’s a father of three, Ryan added, “I did my part, but we need to have higher birth rates in this country. Meaning, baby boomers are retiring, and we have fewer people following them in the work force.”

“We have something like a 90 percent increase in the retirement population in America, but only a 19 percent increase in the working population in American,” the Speaker continued. “So what do we have to do? Be smarter, more efficient, more technology — still going to need more people. And when we have tens of millions of people right here in this country falling short of their potential — not working, not looking for a job, or not in school getting a skill to get a job — that’s a problem.”

The site tried to dismiss the pro-life Republican’s claims, even arguing “that people may not share his belief that economic growth is a goal to be pursued at any and all costs.”

But the truth is that underpopulation has become a huge concern in many European and Asian nations. Disability rights advocates and pro-lifers fear that the trend could lead to an even stronger push for euthanasia than what society already is seeing.

Susan Yoshihara, of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, wrote more about the crisis in 2016:

Former UN Population Division head Joseph Chamie sees the problem snowballing in every region of the world except Africa, where raising families is still highly valued.

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Chamie calls it the “Historic Reversal”: whereas throughout history there have been more young people than old, now the world will witness more old people than young.

Chamie said, “While world population is projected to increase by 40 percent by 2065, the number of elderly aged 65 years or older is expected to more than triple.” By then the elderly will make up a third or more of the populations in China, Germany, Greece, Japan, Italy, Poland, Singapore, South Korea and Spain.

A 2012 United Nations study made similar predictions. It warned that the “most serious impact of aging populations would be in developing countries without safety nets or adequate legal protection in place for older people,” and pushed for reforms of Social Security-type programs and “national pensions” for the elderly.

“Informal support systems for older persons are increasingly coming under stress, as a consequence, among others, of lower fertility, out-migration of the young, and women working outside the home,” the UN report states.

But traditional female roles seem abhorrent to abortion activists, who tend to treat women’s ability to bear children as a disease to be curbed and controlled rather than a strength to be supported.