The Problems Of Population

Reduction

To the Editor:

Our government is proposing, in effect, a financial subsidy for the contraception pill, by mandating coverage in all plans. I find this troubling because our nation already has a birth rate below replacement level (the immigrants make up the difference). Russia, China, and much of Europe are already facing demographic disasters, where a shrunken working age population is expected to support a swelling population of retirees.

The Congressional Budget Office tells us that Medicare and Social Security will be severely financially stressed in the near future. With fewer workers paying into the system, the only choice to save the system will be to cut benefits or raise taxes.

For this letter I’m putting aside the troubling questions of individual conscience, religion, safety questions of the pill and asking you to consider the impact on future generations of promoting population reductions when much of our social system (even Obamacare!) is designed to spread costs and risks among a large working population.

Helga Roegele

40 Chestnut Hill Road, Newtown                                  June 10, 2012