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Pretty much the definition of ’self-limiting’

Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers - and a voice calling her Mummy. But the very thought makes her shudder with horror. Because when Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet.

Incredibly, so determined was she that the terrible “mistake” of pregnancy should never happen again, that she begged the doctor who performed the abortion to sterilise her at the same time. He refused, but Toni - who works for an environmental charity - “relentlessly hunted down a doctor who would perform the irreversible surgery. Finally, eight years ago, Toni got her way. At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to “protect the planet”….

As Toni awaited the surgery which would destroy her fertility, she met her future husband, Ed…”A week before my sterilisation, I went to an animal rights demonstration and met Ed….”Every year, we also take a nice holiday - we’ve just come back from South Africa. We feel we can have one long-haul flight a year, as we are vegan and childless, thereby greatly reducing our carbon footprint and combating over-population.”

Think of the win-win if she had been previously destined to mother a future suicide-bomber.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 24th, 2007 at 1:22 pm and is filed under General, Science, idiots!, radical chic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Pretty much the definition of ’self-limiting’”

gs Says:
November 29th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Happily there’s a countertrend, and not just among people who accept a religious obligation to be fruitful and multiply. However, sages in the media are sneering:

In richest Manhattan, an alarming trend has risen from the primordial ooze that is hedge-fund money. This trend is flooding the chic nursery schools,clogging the fashionable secondary schools and sending many a billionaire from a sports car into a giant gas-guzzling Denali. Yes, the hot accessory of 2007 is children—but not just one or two. It seems that fashionable women in Manhattan just can’t stop popping them out…

But I believe (subscribing to the maxim that the rich are just like us, but with more money) that there is more to this boomlet than just showing off. Perhaps they are trying to keep their numbers up so their kids don’t have to venture to Second Avenue for a play date. Perhaps the loneliness and isolation of wealth in the face of global suffering is causing the baby blitz.

See also:

It seems the rich are pumping out children (almost) like it’s 1899. Yes, the latest conspicuous consumption is conspicuous reproduction - uber-rich women giving birth to the beginnings of a softball team: three, four, five, even six, children.

Hey, what’s the biggie if they can afford it? Well, the question is, can the rest of us?

There’s something in this that stinks of what I call “show brats”: children as the latest fashion accessory. Less well-to-do people have them, too — they just have fewer of them, and are less apt, simply by virtue of income, to pass their children’s rearing off on “the staff.”

Is such writing the sign of a social conscience, or are very different attitudes embodied in the wannabe-hip NYC commentary?

I can’t think of a better prognosis of a civilization’s vitality than people choosing to reproduce. Coming among many troubling cultural indicators, this news is extremely welcome.

Pretty much the definition of ’self-limiting’

One Response to “Pretty much the definition of ’self-limiting’”

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