Yes, I do, because they give people a moral argument that outweighs the ethical problems of creating a human being capable of suffering from hunger when you know you probably can't feed her (well).

If that is true, then Americans are violating eachother's human rights, and laws should be changed until that stops being a valid concern, because the US has signed the human rights treaty. It's that simple. The same goes for other concerns that stand in the way of poor people having children.

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/#a16

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/#a25

And if the problem is food, then I would say the US is violating far more than just those 2 rules.

Ah, but now you are talking about expanding government (which can't do anything right) and taking from people what they've rightfully earned by being superior people and "working harder." And if you believe in supply-side economics, preventing growth which would trickle down into food for those children. Some people consider that a violation of their human rights too.

I don't. I think a little socialism is healthy. But I defy you to solve this without screwing over at least one large group of voters. If that were possible, it probably would have been done already.

Why do you equate lack of population growth with a bad future?

USA was a perfectly fine country back in 1990 when it had 250m people; and it would be a perfectly fine country if it'd have 250m people today instead of the current 315m.

In fact (contrary to "nothing that increases happiness half as much as having a child") I'd say that the Earth might be a happier place if the future had, say, 1-2 billion people instead of the current 7b or expected 10b - as everybody would have a larger share of the fundamentally limited natural resources, freshwater and space.

If the current resources were distributed somewhat fairly, then noone could have a lifestyle approaching even the "first world" working class - quality life is possible either for an unfairly small part of population, or if there is less population in the first place; and low-by-choice fertility is the most reasonable way to achieve that.

>Why do you equate lack of population growth with a bad future?

When the health of your social programs is based on continued population growth the future may indeed be grim without it.

Actually, the health of our social programs isn't that based on continued population growth; they'd work pretty much the same with a stable population size.

However, the bane of those social programs is quickly increasing lifespans. No matter if population growth is zero or huge, if you're currently below 45, you anyway have to "prepare for yourself" rather than expect them to survive in the current form - unless the retirement age moves beyond 80 within this decade.

I don't see how you can separate the two. The current system used to work because the population was growing and people didn't live as long. Either change would be enough to result in lower benefits.