The population bomb, redux

Mark Steyn in National Review ($) makes a good case against Roe v. Wade:

Before the century is out, the Left will come to regret the conflation of feminism and abortion.. . .

The most urgent problem facing the Western world right now is the big lack of babies. On the Continent, abortion is part of the settled political consensus and its persistence as an issue over here is seen as further evidence � along with guns, capital punishment, and functioning militaries � of American backwardness. The result is collapsed birthrates in Mediterranean countries of around 1.1, 1.2 children per couple � that's to say, about half of what's called "replacement rate." Why be surprised that Spanish voters don't have the stomach for war? To fight for king and country is to fight for the future, for your nation, for its children. But Spain has no children, and thus no future. What's to fight for?

Even if you subscribe to the premise of Roe vs. Wade � that abortion is a privacy issue � society as a whole has no interest in elevating a "woman's right to choose" to state policy. The government's interest lies in increasing birthrates, to avoid the death spiral of post-Catholic Italy. If any Democrat understands that, she or he is in no hurry to speak up.

The point is often made that economic prosperity causes reduced birth rates, but I imagine that birth control and abortion do their share as well.