With the exception of Israel, not a single Western country currently has an above-replacement-level fertility rate. American births have been in steady decline since 2008, and hopes of a coronavirus-induced resurgence of births have turned out to be misplaced. Wilfred Reilly comments:

As I noted in a recent article, . . . many members of Gen-Z seem to reject conventional dating and romance totally. Today, only 30 percent of senior high-school students have ever had sex even once, and only 21 percent are currently involved in a “sexually active” love relationship. About 20 percent identify as gay or otherwise “queer.” There are several possible reasons for the objectively rather-astonishing rise of childless celibacy as a trend among America’s young. Religiosity, which brought with it endless “moral” rules but also the formal duty to “be fruitful and multiply,” is on the wane—the fastest-growing religious identity in the United States if not the world is “none.”

But one additional and very obvious factor has received far too little attention in most past analyses of this topic. Almost certainly, one reason that many Americans—perhaps particularly urban liberal white women—are not having children is that they have been told throughout their entire lives that it is immoral or evil to do so. The extent to which this is the case almost cannot be overstated.

A recent large-[sample-size] survey found that fear of such variables as “climate change” influenced the child-bearing decisions of 53 percent of respondents. . . . [O]ne strongly suspects the people occupying Western civilization will figure out a solution to a problem like “higher sea levels”—rather than simply staring dully at the rising waters until we all drown. However, we may not as easily survive the downstream effects of our current fear of the rising waters.

Can the United States continue to lead the world? Sure. . . . But, to keep growing our population and retain our economic pole position while we do so, we will have to try something that we have not tried for decades—convincing our own citizens that having families is good. Suggestions on how to do that are welcome!

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.