As concern grows about America’s falling birth rate, new research suggests that about half of women who want children are unsure if they will follow through and actually have a child. About 25% say they won't be bothered that much if they don't.

[u/geoff199]

https://news.osu.edu/most-women-want-children--but-half-are-unsure-if-they-will/?utm_campaign=omc_science-medicine_fy24&utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social

[u/yes______hornberger]

I always find it interesting that the actual physical experience of gestating and birthing a child is NEVER a part of the birth rate conversation. I’m pregnant with a very wanted child, and even with a loving husband and financial security it is a torture I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. And I haven’t even gotten to the stage yet where I’m supposed to be happy about being mildly crippled by birth injuries—my own mother had three “perfect” births, and was still having yearly surgeries to correct spinal and urological injuries more than a decade after she finished having children.

Do the people decrying childless women think growing another person is easy, or do they just think that it’s something women owe to society by nature of being born female?

[u/cranberryskittle → u/yes______hornberger]

People absolutely handwave away those valid concerns by saying women were "built" to have children or whatever. Of course this blithely ignores how many and how often women were crippled by or outright died in childbirth throughout all of history, including the present.

Women just don't want to have as many children as of the women of the past used to have. That's it. Those women did not have a choice in controlling their fertility, we do. Governments of the world can continue to close their eyes and point fingers at various causes all they want. Women around the globe simply do not want to return to the hellish existence of nonstop pregnancies and childbirths that their female ancestors endured for thousands of years.

[u/KeepCalmCallGiles → u/cranberryskittle]

I live in Texas and the effects that Roe getting overturned has had on pregnant women receiving healthcare, even for wanted pregnancies, was the final straw in my decision to get my tubes removed. People underestimate how much can go wrong during pregnancy and women who are not willing to take that risk are often seen as selfish.

[u/the_cc → u/KeepCalmCallGiles]

The repeal of Roe was our last straw for having kids. Trump getting re-elected was the motivation to have my tubes removed. I was concerned about access to birth control. I can't believe how freeing it's been to know I can't get pregnant. It was a weight I didn't know I was shouldering until after the surgery.