\n<\/p>\n
A recent YouGov poll found that 47% of Americans view overpopulation<\/a> in the United States as a \u201cvery or somewhat serious problem,\u201d while only 41% say the same about low birth rates.<\/span><\/p>\n The consequences of such inverted priorities are already catastrophic. America\u2019s total fertility rate has collapsed to roughly 1.6 children per woman \u2014 far below the 2.1 replacement level needed to sustain a population without immigration.<\/span><\/p>\n But don\u2019t share those statistics with Sunny Hostin over at \u201cThe View.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The View\u2019s Sunny Hostin: \u201cI think it\u2019s really reckless to be suggesting that people should have children in this country.\u201d pic.twitter.com\/iNRzG6AfcG<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 TheBlaze (@theblaze) March 30, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Source: @theblaze\/MRC\/ABC\u2019s The View\/X.com<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really reckless to be suggesting that people should have children,\u201d <\/span>said Hostin<\/span>. \u201c\u2026when you now know, in this country, there is this affordability crisis and for a two-person household \u2014 a married household \u2014 you need over $400,000 for childcare.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Now, you may think planning an armored car heist \u00e0\u00a0la Michael Mann\u2019s 1995 classic \u201cHeat,\u201d is reckless, but according to Hostin, I need <\/span>$1.6 million<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to take care of my eight children. Anything less and they <\/span>would be<\/span><\/a> impoverished, uneducated, homeless, and starving.<\/span><\/p>\n A taken-aback Ana Navarro then blurted out, \u201cover the lifetime of a child, or what? A year?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNo, a year,\u201d Hostin said.<\/span><\/p>\n Hostin\u2019s fearmongering would be laughable if it weren\u2019t so effective. In April, the CDC announced that America reached a <\/span>record low<\/span><\/a> in births in 2025, down 1% since 2024 and 23% since 2007. With an estimated population of 342 million, the United States witnessed <\/span>3,606,400<\/span><\/a> births last year. In 1966, however, America saw a similar number, <\/span>3,661,000<\/span><\/a> births, drawn from a population of less than 200 million.<\/span><\/p>\n Hostin was born in October 1968, six months after Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich<\/a> published his landmark book, \u201cThe Population Bomb.\u201d When every single one of Ehrlich\u2019s predictions \u2014 from mass starvation in the 1970s to global mineral shortages in the 1980s \u2014 turned out wrong, he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant in 1990.<\/span><\/p>\n Only 10% of Americans held a favorable opinion of Ehrlich at the time of his death, according to <\/span>YouGov<\/span><\/a> \u2014 not too shabby given that only 20% of respondents knew who he was. And yet a full 100% of us have been living in his world \u2014 or at least his narrative \u2014 ever since he sounded the false alarm that human beings are a form of pollution.<\/span><\/p>\n The MacArthur Foundation tipped its cap to Ehrlich\u2019s checkerspot butterfly expertise, but anyone can study the \u201cbehavior of an invertebrate population\u201d. His true genius lay in marketing to other spineless populations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cA pioneer in alerting the public to the problems of overpopulation,\u201d the award <\/span>citation<\/span><\/a> says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Paul Ehrlich may have been perennially wrong as a scientist, but he had a generational talent for scaring the wits out of dimwitted media personalities, craven politicians, cunning public health authorities, unimaginative screenwriters, and over-imaginative teachers. Exactly the type of marks a good con artist would need to capture if he were going to advance a narrative at war with reality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It worked.<\/span><\/p>\n On the same episode of \u201cThe View,\u201d Sara Haines said, \u201cThe world has over 8 billion people. We no longer need to force people to procreate and pump out babies. We have arrived.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Socially, the fallout is devastating.\u00a0<\/span>Smaller families mean fewer siblings, weaker extended kinship networks, and the erosion of the \u201csocial capital\u201d that once bound communities together. Low fertility <\/span>reduces<\/span><\/a> community participation, trust, and mutual support \u2014 the very glue of civil society.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Militarily, the danger is existential.\u00a0<\/span>Fewer young Americans mean a smaller pool of potential recruits at the exact moment great-power competition intensifies. The Pentagon already struggles with recruitment shortfalls; an aging, childless society cannot field the force required to deter adversaries like China.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Economically, the math is brutal.\u00a0<\/span>A shrinking native-born workforce cannot support the entitlement programs built for a growing population. Social Security and Medicare face insolvency as the ratio of workers to retirees plummets. Every country that has experienced persistent sub-replacement fertility has seen its GDP growth slow, innovation shrivel, and burden younger generations with crushing tax loads to fund the vacations of the old.<\/span><\/p>\n The problem with effective propaganda campaigns is that they are hard to reverse. South Korea serves as a warning. In 1960, the average South Korean woman had six children. After decades of state-backed \u201cfamily planning\u201d and \u201cvoluntary\u201d sterilization services lovingly provided by USAID, fertility fell below replacement and eventually below 1. The Clinton State Department <\/span>lauded<\/span><\/a> South Korean population control as one of America\u2019s standout achievements.<\/span><\/p>\n No 20th-century public intellectual better apprehended how misanthropic an elite could be. Gilded Age robber barons were at least honest about their rapacious need for more; the postwar meritocrats of the 1960s thought themselves too enlightened for greed but enjoyed all that money just the same. Then, along came a Stanford butterfly researcher, insisting that your neighbors\u2019 kids are hurting the environment, and if only you kept more resources for yourself, nature would heal.<\/span><\/p>\n A growing cohort of Americans, particularly young Americans, is waking up to the fact that Paul Ehrlich was wrong all along. <\/span>And Sunny Hostin\u2019s fearmongering, not the science, has always been the point. Gallup found that 43% of Americans aged 18-29 now say the ideal family will have more than 3 children \u2014 a <\/span>13% jump<\/span><\/a> from the same cohort in 2011.<\/span><\/p>\n I remember the halcyon days of 2011 well. I welcomed my second daughter that year.\u00a0<\/span>Back then, the majority of my peers told pollsters that \u201cTwo is too many!\u201d As Millennials settle into middle age, that number has plummeted by more than 20%. <\/span><\/p>\n We are older and wise enough to know to turn the channel when \u201cThe View\u201d comes on. Besides, chances are Michael Mann\u2019s \u201cHeat\u201d is playing on some random cable channel at the very same time.<\/span><\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Terry Schilling is president of the American Principles Project.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n