Let’s start with a very simple truism: you can’t have prosperity without people.
Human beings are the most valuable resource, because it is human ingenuity that creates and cultivates all other earthly resources. We as human beings are the custodians and protectors of the planet, not its destroyers, as the radical environmentalists would have you believe.
The richer and more technologically advanced we become, the more likely we are to avert a catastrophic event like a giant meteor crashing into the planet and destroying all life.
Which brings us to a potentially ruinous trend: many countries are literally running out of people.
This alarming chart on births and deaths in Europe is a terrifying glimpse into the future of a new dark age of the western world, if birth rates don’t start rising — and quickly. Europeans are becoming extinct.
Negative population growth is a sure killer of prosperity and human flourishing. It’s also contrary to Christianity and most other religions, which instruct us to “be fruitful and multiply.”
It’s not just Europe. Japan and Korea will cut their populations in half over the next 80 years if they don’t start moving away from one child per couple rates of propagating.
Why are rich countries depopulating the planet?
For 60 years, prophets of doom like Paul Ehrlich (“The Population Bomb”) and governments around the world — including our own — warned that we all had a moral obligation to save the planet by having fewer babies. There were periods of forced abortions, forced sterilizations, forced birth control, and — in advanced nations like in Europe and the U.S. — a cultural sneering at families with four or five or six kids.
That mendacious propaganda campaign worked all too well. Look what it has wrought.
There are other explanations. As we have gotten richer — and especially as women’s earnings have risen — the “cost” of having a child in terms of lost income, has risen. Women are less likely to have more than one or two children. To be clear: I’m NOT suggesting that women should be paid less!
Marriage rates have declined, and vows are coming later in life, so the median year for a woman to have a child keeps rising — leaving fewer fertility years left for multiple children.
Religiosity has declined somewhat in our more secular “me first” society. That’s sad because childless couples tend to be less happy. And why have kids if you don’t believe there is a divine reason we were put on this planet?
The solutions to this problem aren’t obvious. Pro-natalist government policies, like paying people to have kids and offering free childcare have had spotty levels of success.
The U.S. has delayed the demographic crisis happening in Europe and much of Asia through immigration of young workers. Not only do immigrants increase the population, but they tend to have more kids than native-born Americans.
But even with immigration, we in America have an obvious aging problem.
One simple step is to start celebrating as a society the virtues and the self-sacrifice of motherhood. Our schools and our teachers and our clergy and our political leaders need to keep pushing the message that the greatest contribution men and women can give to saving our species is to have more kids — as soon as possible.
Stephen Moore is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, a cofounder of Unleash Prosperity, and a former senior economic advisor to President Donald Trump.
Governor Katie Hobbs announced that she would be recognizing birth control as a right, starting with state employees.
The governor issued an executive order on Monday announcing free birth control for state employees, and ordered the state’s Medicaid agency, Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), to expand contraception access to its members.
The state already issues oral contraceptives to employees at no cost, but only through a prescription. Hobbs’ executive order got rid of the prescription requirement, ordering the Arizona Department of Administration (ADOA) to cover the cost of current and future over-the-counter contraceptives for state employees.
Hobbs referenced Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borrelli’s take on contraceptives as a criticism of Republicans hesitant to make birth control a right for Arizonans through legislation dubbed the “Right to Contraception Act.”
“While members of our legislature would rather tell Arizona women to put aspirin between their knees than pass the Arizona Right to Contraception Act, I will continue to do everything in my power to protect our reproductive freedom and ensure every Arizonan can access contraception,” said Hobbs.
Access to contraception is a right — and now, I am taking action to protect that right by issuing an Executive Order to expand access to free and affordable birth control for Arizonans.
My EO will make birth control available at no cost to State employees and require @AHCCCSgov…
— Governor Katie Hobbs (@GovernorHobbs) May 20, 2024
Earlier this month, the governor signed into law a repeal of the longstanding and, until the past year, dormant total abortion ban. Now, state law only restricts abortions after 15 weeks.
The governor’s most recent executive order declared that contraceptives qualify as “essential health benefits” (EHB) required of health plans by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or “Obamacare.” And, recent changes to the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) enabled states to have more flexibility to determine its EHB-benchmark plan set of benefits.
Only the prescription contraceptives qualified as EHB, not over-the-counter ones. Hobbs’ executive order changed that. For now, that only applies to Opill, the only FDA-approved over-the-counter birth control option.
Excluding the universities and Board of Regents, both of which operate their own personnel systems, nearly 56 percent of the state’s nearly 38,300-strong workforce is female: around 21,300 individuals.
Age ranges weren’t defined by ADOA’s annual report, though the average age across both genders was about 44 years old, under the average age of menopause.
The retail price of Opill, the over-the-counter targeted by Hobbs’ executive order, retails at up to $20 per month for a one-month supply.
ASU has more than 20,600 employees. According to their last 10-year report of campus demographics ending in 2022, the university had nearly 10,600 female employees, though the age ranges weren’t disclosed.
The University of Arizona reported nearly 16,700 employees last fall, with about 56 percent of them identifying as female. Age wasn’t disclosed.
Northern Arizona University’s annual report shared they had over 4,600 total faculty and staff last year, not distinguished by gender or age.
ADOA will also be required to provide several reports to Hobbs’ office, one of which will be on benefits and feasibility of access expansion for state employees. That report will be due by June 30.
Another report with ADOA and the Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions will study the benefits and feasibility of a new Arizona Essential Health Benefits Benchmark Plan mandating reproductive healthcare benefits for individual and small group private health insurance plans, including prescription and over-the-counter contraceptives, reversible contraceptives, infertility treatment, and in vitro fertilization.
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Former Gov. Doug Ducey enacted the birth control deregulation that took effect earlier this month, but Gov. Katie Hobbs is taking the credit.
In a press release, Hobbs framed the deregulation as timely on her part considering that “extremists across the country” have been threatening access to contraceptives.
“Reproductive freedom is critical to the individuals and families working hard to create a life for themselves in Arizona,” said Hobbs. “We are building an Arizona for everyone, which means ensuring people across the state have what they need to live a free and healthy life. I will never stop fighting to protect freedoms for Arizonans and standing up to the extremists who threaten access to the basic healthcare our families rely on.”
However, Ducey signed the deregulation into law through SB1082 in 2021. Former State Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, a Republican, introduced the legislation.
Considering the highly politically divided environment we live in and grappling with controversial topics like contraceptives, abortion and prescription authority it was no small feat getting this bill passed and signed into law and doing it with broad bipartisan support to boot.… https://t.co/3DkwlLY3Zr
— Michelle Ugenti Rita (@MichelleUgenti) July 1, 2023
It took several years for Arizona’s regulatory agencies to secure final approval for the deregulation, mainly due to delay on the part of the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy (ASBP). SB1082 directed the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy (ASBP) to work with the Arizona Department of Health Services (AZDHS) to adopt procedural rules for pharmacies to distribute the contraceptives.
During ASBP’s final discussion of rulemaking on the deregulation last month, ASBP Executive Director Kam Gandhi explained that they prioritized other issues.
“We’re just now getting to it, but obviously over the last two, three years, we’ve had other challenges and that was more pressing than hormonal contraceptives,” said Gandhi.
The Governor’s Regulatory Review Council (GRRC) issued the final approval.
Under the deregulation, Arizonans over 18 years old no longer need to secure a prescription in order to buy hormonal birth control or contraceptives. Instead, those seeking the contraceptives will need to receive a blood pressure test and annual screening at the pharmacy. Pharmacists retain the right to refuse to dispense contraceptives if they believe the drug would pose a harm to the patient, or if contraceptives violate their religious or moral beliefs.
Pharmacists are also required to tell the patient when and how to use the contraceptive, the risks associated with the contraceptive, and when to seek medical assistance while taking the contraceptive.
As part of the deregulation, ASBP expanded pharmacists’ continuing education requirements to mandate three hours minimum on hormonal contraceptives prior to receiving a license renewal every two years.
The ASBP discussed implementing the legislation during a Task Force Rule Writing Work Group meeting last September that included Lisa Villarroel with AZDHS and Laura Mercer with the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).
In drafting the procedural rules, ASBP relied on precedent established by the 21 other states that allow pharmacists to distribute birth control without a prescription. Those states are Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawai’i, Idaho, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia (in their documentation, ASBP recognized the District of Columbia as a state, which made their total 22 states).
The ASBP task force again discussed the rulemaking for the deregulation in February, followed by public comment on the proposed procedural rules in May, and final approval last month.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
