Erin Brockovich has an op-ed in The Guardian about this book by Shanna Swan with the alarming prediction that by 2045 her research suggests sperm counts could reach zero. Though I have known for a very long time what an awful influence the chemical industry has and that the pervasive chemicals in our environment are not good for reproduction in general, my thoughts after reading this article, went in the direction of this blog where I consider issues related to adoption.

I realized that increasing infertility will put increasing pressure on the availability of adoptable babies. This is not a happy thought for me. From personal experience, I know that medical science has the ability of offset fertility deficiencies with assisted reproductive techniques, so there is that as a natural counter for decreasing reproduction among humans without tearing babies away from the mothers who conceive easily.

I remember my own science experiment with our aquarium. The snail population had spiraled into filling the entire space with snails. I didn’t take any actions but to my utter surprise, the snails quit reproducing and eventually there were none, their dying bodies happily goggled up by our albino catfish who yet lives solitarily now in our aquarium. So could a major die-off of humanity simply be a natural event, much like there are no dinosaurs left on the earth today ?

Of course, we do need to care about our environment !! The truth of the matter is – the Earth does not need saving but humanity might. However, I also happen to believe there are more than enough people, as regards sustainability and resources, and that is why I am in favor of allowing any woman who does not want to commit herself to 9 months of pregnancy to have an abortion. Not that women should be coerced to have abortions and any woman who wants to carry, birth and then give her baby up for adoption will find an eager and more the willing market to accommodate her. Not that I am in favor of adoption as I have expressed in this blog many many times.

Swan’s book includes statistics such as these – “In some parts of the world, the average twentysomething woman today is less fertile than her grandmother was at 35.” and “A man today will have half of the sperm his grandfather had.” Swan’s research finds that these chemicals are also shrinking penis size and volume in the testes.

And of course, aggressive regulation is lacking in the United States in no small part due to lobbying by chemical industry giants. Chemicals are killing us, literally, but also by harming and attacking the very source of life: our reproductive capacities. And not only are they doing that but this will likely guarantee there will be more couples looking for that baby to love that they can’t birth themselves. So that is the relationship between chemicals, infertility and ultimately adoption.