Maybe, just maybe it shouldn’t cost close to 10k to even TRY to have a kid through IVF? More like 15k out of pocket costs till the Medicare rebate anyway.
1 in 6 aussie couples will struggle with infertility whilst 1 in 20 kids is born of IVF. https://monashivf.com/one-in-six/
1 in 6 couples. 1 in 20 babies. You can see a fair gap here. Unless your comfortably “middle class”, you screwed. yes there are some public clinics with no gap, but the wait times are staggering. If we’re worried about falling birth rates FULLY funding IVF and fertility treatments through Medicare is a no brainer.
Yeah, fuck that. We need society that isn’t dependant on the next generation inheriting a ponzi scheme. Also faaaaaaar too many people have children, and I’m convinced most didn’t actually think it through beforehand.
I’m convinced most did not think at all.
There are eight young kids within my extended family, only two of them were planned - my child, and my sisters child.
The other six, I just feel sorry for. Their parents are… Well… You know…
I’m a trauma researcher. So many people shouldn’t have kids.
Sometimes I just have to shake my head.
It’s like they don’t know how babies are made…or what having a child actually requires…
Sometimes it seems to be announced about the same as “Oh, and we’re getting a new puppy!”
Sometimes I don’t even know if I should say “Congratulations!” or not…
Was at the kids park the other day. The other kids parents called for them.
They named their girl MEMPHIS
ARE YOU FUCKED IN THE HEAD? WE LIVE IN AUSTRALIA CUNT
The media: the world is going to end, covid, expensive housing, war, climate change, death, destruction, doom.
Also the media: Australians are having fewer kids, mystery deepens.
covid, expensive housing, war, climate change, death, destruction, doom
Honestly, I doubt any of these apart from expensive housing is playing a significant role. I haven’t seen any reliable data on it, but I suspect a vanishingly small number of people genuinely choose not to have kids “because I don’t want to bring kids into this terrible world”. The cost of living thing though? That’s something that affects the parents and their ability to feel like they even can raise a child right now.
I’m literally one of those people who you say is vanishingly small.
It’s not even a “the world is bad and I don’t want to subject my child to that” kind of decision. It’s more like a series of thoughts over the years: “is this the right time to have a kid?” and it’s never a good time.
Had a vasectomy about 30 years becase their are too many people on the planet. That was the case then, now it’s fucking ridiculous.
One of the reasons we increasingly have a “terrible world” is too many people.
I’d suggest tax laws to discourage people having children.
Can always adopt if you feel the need, the world seems awash with unwanted kids who already exist…
If you have enough money to afford housing, food, education for a large family, then lucky you — you can pay for your own IVF.
I’ve paid taxes for over 40 years, and I’m quite happy to fund Medicare, welfare, roads, things that benefit everyone. I don’t want my taxes paying for other people to fulfill their selfish desires, particularly when the future looks so bleak — climate change, housing, wages, to name a few.
Agreed. Sacrifice something if you want to have a child
From a purely business perspective, gaining a well-educated taxpayer in 20 years is going to cost a lot more than $10k (healthcare, education etc). But, is an extra $10k investment now worth that taxpayer in 20 years?
I personally pay well over this amount annually in taxes. It sounds like a good investment on the face of it I just don’t know how many people this will pay for.
It’s fucking gross when you treat babies as some good you can run out of and by extension I guess the people that give birth to them
Get knocked up for the economy! Create workers!
Silence peasant! We need more slaves!
Well, yes.
Our assorted clans, tribes, societies or cultures regardless of where or when in our species’ history have always relied on a stream of babies. Needing babies is not in question.
And when they didn’t have a stream of babies they traded to get more people. Or just outright stole them.
It’s going to be an interesting time when the generation of 10 people is faced with hunting and gathering for the generation of 1000. Pro-tip: It doesn’t end well for the generation of 1000
I look forward to seeing how this plan helps the indigenous peoples.
??? I don’t think this is targeted at Indigenous Australians, I think the point of the article is that the economy requires population growth in order to grow. I suppose economic growth may be a threat to Indigenous communities if more land is taken to support the growth.
There was a previous policy of involuntary sterilisation.
Okay, the above comment just seemed low-effort and rage bait
The second comment also seems low effort to me.
At least for the introduction of such a separate perspective to the one being discussed.
Maybe I’m reading it wrong but they just seem to insinuate that it is common knowledge when I doubt most people would be aware of the issue. It just seems really off topic - I suppose it’s important but as far as I know that practice does not continue today.
Should we be trying to correct it by encouraging Indigenous Australians to have more children? It’s up to the individuals really but I don’t think it’s wise to encourage people to have children if it’s not economically sustainable for them just so we can feel satisfied that some past wrongdoings have been “corrected” (at least on the population size front, not the socio-economic front). Personally, I don’t think we really need to increase our population size too much anyway, as we’re seeing now “baby booms” aren’t actually that good long term, when there is a massive ageing population in need of care. Simply put I think that quality of life is inversely proportional to population size.
I believe this is what they were referring to: https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-too-many-aboriginal-babies-australias-secret-history-of-aboriginal-population-control-in-the-1960s-189249
Good article. Fuck eugenics.
Government financed IVF will not solve the birth decline, nor will a plethora of government carrots and incentives for short term fixes. Because Australia has a long tradition with immigration I don’t see low birth rates as a dire problem, it is bad news for older homogenous societies like Russia, China and Japan. What will be necessary though is a shift in our composition of tax policies and handouts. Much more tax collections will have to come from non personal income.
No.
I’m likely infertile, and no thanks. I’m having enough trouble existing and being employed with long covid on top of pre-existing medical issues for which i have long run out of medical options, certainly all that are available under Medicare. Maybe I would sort of want children if I weren’t struggling to just eat, work and sleep? Or maybe the bleak future of humanity would still be enough to convince me not to condemn another person to it.
Falling birth rates might be a little more than just an IVF cost issue. Perhaps we should look into that instead of slapping on a subsidy bandaid and hoping it cures the symptoms.
Maybe I’m weird, and I am open to that as a possibility, but I don’t see low birthrates as a problem. I feel like the human race could actually benefit from a reduced population. If the population was to reduce by half or more because people did not want to procreate and did so voluntarily and of their own free will, many of our climate change issues would be reduced and might even reverse without changing anything else.
Unless and until the human population gets down to two billion or less, there is little to no danger of a non-man made disaster wiping us out.
Perhaps it’s unfair to people who want to have kids but can’t that IVF is so expensive, but really, there’s one thing that affects birth rate more than anything else: cost of housing with decent nearby amenities, infrastructure etc. If housing were cheaper, people would have more kids… Simple.
So if you want to solve the social equity problem, subsidize IVF. If you want the birth rate to increase, knock down the barriers to entry and high costs in the housing market.
More and more people are turning to IVF because they’re ageing out of peak or have stressors completely b0rking their reproductive systems. Both of which would be fixed if we stabilised our fcking housing and affordability issues for the general population instead of the landed few.
Maybe if the cost of living is addressed than people would be more likely to want more kids.
I’m late to this conversation but I’ve gone 5 rounds of IVF and it’s cost us most of our savings. IVF didn’t work for us and we’re looking at egg donors. Did you know it’s illegal to pay someone or receive money for being a surrogate or egg donor? We’re having to look overseas because hardly anyone here will do it for free (understandably).
Clearly, the government isn’t interested in anything remotely related to female health.
@Peddlephile We had a costly and convoluted IVF journey, so big hugs.
But it’s not just female health! It’s human health. It meant just as much to me as a ‘man’ as it did to my wife. It’s so strange to make it a female thing.
Thank you so much. I hope you and your wife’s IVF journey was more successful than mine.
Agree - human health. I guess I was thinking about my surgery costs for endometriosis on top of IVF and how it wasn’t covered by Medicare at all. Medicare coverage has huge gaps and I hate how the government whittles away at it rather than expanding it.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Dr Davies said the country was already testing using artificial intelligence (AI) bots and services in the support workspace, in preparation for an increasingly elderly population.
“There are already a lot of tech companies developing in that space … AI robots and services to check up on people’s health and wellbeing, remind you to take your pills, have a chat to it to keep your mental faculties going,” she said.
Dr Davies said for migration levels to stay the same in Australia — about 220,000 people per annum — the country was going to have to learn to compete on an international stage to attract migrants.
The current generation of Australians in their 20s were born under Mr Costello’s baby bonus policy, where their parents were given tax incentives to have children.
Dr Davies said this combination of factors, along with the current cost of living and housing crisis, meant she could not see Australia’s fertility rate change any time soon unless the government acts now.
“Australia needs to continue to improve its work and family policies such as the provision of affordable childcare, but more for the well-being of mothers than to increase the fertility rate,” he said.
The original article contains 998 words, the summary contains 199 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
You just gotta go outside and do the baby dance similar to how one would call a rain storm.
