Catching eyes across the city of Portland, Oregon are a series of new billboards that demand people “Stop Having Kids.”
The black and white advertisements, the project of a secretive pro-abortion group of the same name, display the simple message along with a cancel symbol across the silhouette of a baby. Christianity Daily reports the group also paid for a billboard in Salem that reads, “A lot of humans wish they were never born.”
On its website, the group claims having children is selfish and unethical. Stop Having Kids also describes itself as “pro-choice all the way” and displays messages like “Enough People Already” and “Parenthood Regret Is a Silent Epidemic” all over its website.
“We believe there are no reasons for having children that aren’t self-focused (besides through force) and that having children is unethical and irrational—despite the fact that birth is a natural process,” the website states.
The group describes itself as “antinatalist,” meaning it opposes childbearing. It claims that refraining from having children “is the most efficient and effective means of minimizing suffering for all current and future sentient beings.”
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Willamette Week investigated who is behind the controversial billboards and found few details. When asked about its founder, group spokeswoman Ashley Riddle only would tell the news outlet that his name is “Dietz.” The news outlet found state records showing a man named Eric Dietz Goldberg incorporated the group in January 2021.
Riddle also said an anonymous donor gave them the money for the billboards.
The disturbing rise in anti-child attitudes has many people alarmed, including pro-life advocates. Obianuju Ekeocha, founder of Culture of Life Africa, expressed incredulity after noticing the billboards.
“OMG. This is a real billboard in Portland Oregon. There is really a ‘Stop Having Kids’ movement,” she responded on Twitter.
Birth rates already are at historic lows in many countries across the world. Willamette Week noted that, in Oregon, where Stop Having Kids is based, the number of deaths outnumbered births for the first time in the history of the state in 2020.
Across the world, many countries are facing a demographic winter as their populations age and young couples forgo having children. As a result, companies are struggling with worker shortages, men cannot find wives due to sex-selection abortions and aging, childless couples wonder who will care for them in their old age.
A 2020 study in “The Lancet,” a prestigious medical journal, predicted the global fertility rate will drop drastically through 2100 – with devastating consequences on the whole of society. According to the study, 183 of 195 countries are expected to have a fertility rate below replacement level by the end of the century.
“While population decline is potentially good news for reducing carbon emissions and stress on food systems, with more old people and fewer young people, economic challenges will arise as societies struggle to grow with fewer workers and taxpayers, and countries’ abilities to generate the wealth needed to fund social support and health care for the elderly are reduced,” said Professor Stein Emil Vollset, the lead author of the study.
Even Pope Francis recently addressed the growing problem. In January, he urged couples to have children or adopt, saying those who choose to have pets instead are hurting themselves and society.
“Having a child is always a risk, either naturally or by adoption,” Pope Francis said. “But it is riskier not to have them. It is riskier to deny fatherhood or to deny motherhood, be it real or spiritual.
“Yes, dogs and cats take the place of children,” the pope continued. “Yes, it’s funny, I understand, but it is the reality. And this denial of fatherhood or motherhood diminishes us, it takes away our humanity. And in this way civilization becomes aged and without humanity, because it loses the richness of fatherhood and motherhood. And our homeland suffers, as it does not have children.”
Billionaire Elon Musk also dismissed the fear-mongering about overpopulation in an interview with the Wall Street Journal last year, saying people really should be concerned about rapidly declining birth rates.
