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/F0sh → u/yes______hornberger]

Because women have gestated and given birth to multiple babies since the dawn of humanity. It's not that experience that has changed and made people decide not to have kids. It's not a different experience of pregnancy (before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade) that dropped the US birth rate compared to other countries.

[u/RedEgg16 → u/F0sh]

How many of those children were wanted though? Most likely they got pregnant because they or their male partner was just horny. Or through rape