VOLUME 57 | ISSUE 3 | September 2025
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There Are Many Threats to Humanity. A Low Birth Rate Isn’t One of Them.
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In a strange alliance, right wing traditionalists, tech professionals, and an abominable billionaire are pushing a pronatalist agenda on Americans, while cutting the very programs that help parents and children. They warn of an impending population collapse followed by human extinction, and insist that it’s women’s duty to avert this false crisis.
Their declarations are unfounded, and they completely ignore the actual population collapse that’s happening right now: the sixth mass extinction of species.
Click through below to read the featured article of the September 2025 issue of Population Connection.
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PROGRAM UPDATES
[[link removed]] #Fight4HER at the WorldPride Street Festival
Despite five long months of attacks [[link removed]] on abortion, contraception, health care coverage, and LGBTQ+ rights, this year’s Pride festivities in June were filled with joy, hope, and resolve.
Read updates from the field [[link removed]]
[[link removed]] Trump to Destroy Contraceptives, Costing Lives
Leading Democrats have introduced a bill intended to prevent destruction of contraceptives by theTrump administration.
See the latest updates from the Hill [[link removed]]
[[link removed]] Messages on Innovation and Adaptability
Announcing the winners of the 14th annual World of 8 Billion International Student Video Contest!
"Meet" the students and watch the videos [[link removed]]
[[link removed]] Supporters Enjoy Cool Virtual Events During Steamy Summer
Population Connection members and supporters have brought loads of energy and enthusiasm to our slate of summer events — we hope you’ll be inspired to join us in the future!
Find recaps and more here [[link removed]]
[[link removed]] Global Partner Spotlight: Tareto Africa
Tareto Africa is a grassroots organization based in Narok County, Kenya, working to promote reproductive health and rights and eliminate harmful practices including female genital mutilation (FGM), gender-based violence (GBV), and child marriage.
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[[link removed]] President’s Circle Member Profile: Keith Burridge
Originally from England, Keith Burridge was fascinated with the natural world from a young age. “I’d read The Population Bomb as a student, and the message stuck with me. Population growth, environmental collapse, reproductive justice … they’re all connected. And it never made sense to separate them.”
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LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
Dear Friend,
“Human Fertility Levels Need to Be Higher to Avoid Extinction.”
That recent U.S. News & World Report headline [[link removed]] implies we may soon join the dodo bird, woolly mammoth, and Tyrannosaurus rex on the vanished species list.
It’s absurd, of course. There are more of us today than ever before. In fact, global population has more than tripled just since 1950.
That doesn’t prevent birth dearthers from hyperventilating over relatively recent reductions in average family size — while glossing over the fact that world population will increase by more than 70 million people this year.
Pronatalists constantly claim that small families will bankrupt the United States due to increased costs relating to an aging population. Goldman Sachs recently reported [[link removed]] that this is much ado about not much since additional care costs are more than offset by revenue generated due to Americans extending their working years. Their report concludes: “Transitions are often difficult to manage, but this is one transition that we are currently managing well.” Certainly, there are funding challenges facing Social Security and Medicare, but they can be met as in the past.
Meanwhile, let’s not overreact to recent reports of sharp reductions in US family size. A 2023 study [[link removed]] published in Population Research and Policy Review reported that “the lifetime fertility is (or can be projected to be) at or near replacement levels for the oldest cohorts of US women.” Regarding those now in their teens and early 20s, the researchers concluded, “Similar clues for these cohorts can be obtained by monitoring their future fertility intentions and desires, which to date continue to follow a two-child norm and thus closely resemble those in older cohorts.”
While we simply don’t know what we can’t yet know, it can be hard for some to avoid “jumping to confusions” when we are constantly bombarded with narratives that elide inconvenient facts such as continued rapid population growth. Every day, we deplete nonrenewable resources and destroy the fabric of nature. And now we must deal with the Trump administration’s wholesale assault on reproductive health here at home and its callous cancellation of US investments in international family planning—a program that has been in place since Lyndon Johnson was president. Those are the extinction events we should be worrying about this very minute.
We face an uphill battle fulfilling the right to all forms of reproductive health care as well as ensuring that children everywhere are planned, wanted, and have a great future. If, in the meantime, we see reductions in population numbers in the US and around the world due to people choosing smaller families, that could alleviate all sorts of social and environmental pressures. Just imagine if we could proclaim the extinction of climate change, hunger, water shortages, extreme poverty, and biodiversity loss. What a world that would be.
[[link removed]] John Seager
PRESIDENT AND CEO
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