Non-Breeders Statistically and Historically - 1
In entry 205 I was wondering, if being childfree could be a mutation resulting in a recessive gene. I was simplifying.
The procreation instinct can be absent or become virulent at three different levels:
In entry 205 I was wondering, if being childfree could be a mutation resulting in a recessive gene. I was simplifying.
The procreation instinct can be absent or become virulent at three different levels:
- For men and women, before or without ever having been afflicted by an own or the partner's pregnancy
- For women by the hormonal changes at the begin of a pregnancy
- For women by the hormonal effects of giving birth
Childfree means in this entry not to want children and to never have given birth. Non-breeders include the childfree and people, who get rid of a child after birth, because the do not want to raise children.
I have just finished watching all 24 lectures of the Yale course:
Global Problems of Population Growth by Robert Wyman
http://www.cosmolearning.com/courses/global-problems-of-population-growth-287/
Some of the data, that Wyman presents, make me wonder and aware, how much I myself have been brainwashed by the western culture, based upon religion, to believe the myth of a natural urge for maternity in any woman, who would be defined as normal and in the opinion of breeders even as healthy.
The data from the lecture are clear evidence, that neither the beginning of a pregnancy nor giving birth automatically do trigger a breeding instinct in all women.
The general attitude of either being childfree or having a strong wish to breed can be attributed to culture and social norms, external circumstances and requirements, that could be stronger then the personal instinctive inclinations or absence thereof, as long as there has not been the own experience of being pregnant.
When I was younger, I considered myself as being very different from all those people around me, who declared breeding as the natural wish and need of every woman. Maybe this was enhanced by my growing up in the aftermath of the German culture still too much influenced by the glorification of fertility by the Nazis.
My first readings about evolution and psychobiology reinforced my impression, that everybody would want to breed, and that I alone were some kind of a mutation. That was years ago, before there was the Internet to find out about like minded people. When I got in contact on the web with other childfree people I started to wonder, if maybe there were a minority of people with a recessive non-breeding gene as I speculated about in entry 205.
Since Wyman's lecture I now wonder, how many people in the western society are potentially non-breeders, who would get aware of their inclination in the situation of needing to make a conscious decision. But the availability of contraception and the many good reasons to postpone procreation without a conscious choice for remaining childfree may just cover the absence of the mythological maternity urge in many women.
According to the myth, having an abortion would cause a woman guilt, remorse, even psychological trauma. I always thought, that those women, who experience and perceive an abortion as an operation comparable to the removal of a parasite or a cancer, were a minority.
After watching lecture 21 of Wyman's course on Global Demography of Abortion
http://www.cosmolearning.com/video-lectures/global-demography-of-abortion-6765/
I have to reconsider the myth. Not only about how many or how few women ever do feel guilty, but also about the reason, why.
They could feel guilty not because of acting in defiance to their breeding instinct, but because they have been brainwashed by the myth of women's natural urge for maternity.
The absence of guilt could indicate the absence of the procreation instinct being triggered by hormonal changes at the beginning of pregnancy either in them or in all or most women.
According to the lecture, abortions are very widespread and very often considered as a normal form of contraception by women having several abortions during their lifetime. This would not be possible, if the majority of them would have to override an instinct to continue the pregnancy and to overcome guilt.
The prevalence of abortions is too widespread to be consistent with the myth, that women only have an abortion, if they are forced to do so by external circumstances, their husband or their family.
Some quotes:
"There's one abortion for every 3.2 live births [.....] Each year about 3% of women in childbearing ages have an abortion, and if you consider a 30 year reproductive lifespan with each woman having a 3% chance each year that's 90% [.....] Basically, for every woman in the world, there's one abortion in her reproductive lifetime."
"when there's an unplanned pregnancy about a quarter of them end in abortion."
"The most interesting case might be Cuba which has one of the highest abortion rates in the world, 78 per 1,000 women per year".
"'so when they get pregnant the go to get an abortion. They talk about it like it's nothing; it's like drinking a glass of water. Some people have problems when they get an abortion but most people don't. Almost always the procedure goes fine.' That's a 17 year old girl after her first abortion."
"Abortion makes a huge difference in the global rate of population growth. As I told you, there's ballpark 75 million increase in the world now. If the abortion rate is about somewhere between 40 and 50 million, that means the rate of world population increase goes up by 75% or something. "
The lecture is worth watching or reading.
This topic will be continued in another entry.
