Last month, The Wall Street Journal published a review of Larissa MacFarquhar’s book “Strangers Drowning,” which consists of profiles of extreme “do-gooders,” such as the woman who was morally torn over the idea of having a child. The author writes that in this woman’s view, a child of her own would be an enormous line item on her “moral spreadsheet,” and “the most expensive nonessential thing she could possibly possess.”
By diverting some of the world’s precious limited resources to her own baby, the woman believed that “she would be in effect killing other people’s children.”
That book was just published, but sadly, the idea of a child or children being “immoral” is nothing new. U.S. academic Paul Ehrlich, author of 1968’s “The Population Bomb” is still around, living off the Earth’s limited resources and flying around the world giving lectures about the end of the world.
Because he's been wrong for almost 50 years and never changes. https://t.co/kuXvDAfYN5
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) November 3, 2015
The Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens writes this week about the “embarrassed eulogies … being written for China’s one-child policy, which Beijing finally eased last week after a 35-year experiment in social folly and human cruelty.” He notes that Ehrlich, now in his 80s, has held strong to his anti-child views.
https://twitter.com/kyleopeterson/status/661592584989601793
. @TheRickWilson I thought the population limition argument was discredited AGES ago
— Blue Tsunami ? (@1truprophet) November 3, 2015
@kyleopeterson @instapundit "Paul Ehrlich says having babies is like throwing garbage into your neighbor's yard."
In his case, its true.— Gumlegs (@Gumlegs) November 3, 2015
@Gumlegs @instapundit @kyleopeterson He is under the misapprehension that it is anybody's business besides the parents.
— David Pecchia (@dpecchia) November 3, 2015
https://twitter.com/TPCarney/status/661633705522372608
@kyleopeterson @instapundit @WSJopinion @StephensWSJ Geez is that guy is a wrong way driver down a one-way street.
— George Eliseo (@GeorgeEliseo) November 3, 2015
@kyleopeterson @moderncomments @WSJopinion Wonder what his stance is on pets. If less people is truly better, why not remove himself?
— Syntropy (@syntropy_42) November 3, 2015
https://twitter.com/TPCarney/status/661636709227057152
Paul Ehrlich is one sandwich board away from standing on a street corner and yelling about doomsday. #qanda
— Rick Morton (@SquigglyRick) November 2, 2015
It’s a bit unfair to imply that Ehrlich isn’t thinking of the children who have already been born. He has all sorts of ideas in that big brain.
https://twitter.com/VirgilTMorant/status/661646883492790272
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