China is struggling to undo the damage of its former one-child policy. According to a recent report by China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the country’s population dropped by 850,000 people in 2022. The last decline was due to the Great Famine of 1961. This one is primarily due to a significant drop in the birth rate, which is only expected to worsen. 

According to one official, citizens have lost a “willingness to have babies” and are delaying “marriage and pregnancy.” There’s even been a decline in pre-menopausal women. All of these are marks of a culture whose people were forced to prioritize fears of overpopulation and conformity to the state over the natural order and gift of family.  

Ideas, and the policies that flow from them, have consequences. Even if not immediately apparent, policies opposed to life will eventually have significant consequences over the course of time, not only for individuals but also for entire societies.