Kudos to Eliza Anyangwe for reporting on the most important issue of our time: The changing way we are all having children, the massive impact it will have on our futures, and the policies that control these matters.

But after rightly criticizing Prince William for his place in the inequitable systems in which we all live (the monarchy is a dead giveaway), Eliza then endorses the isolation model of family planning that prioritizes subjective parental choice and growth over objective values like birth equity for all children as a means to eliminate the gap between rich and poor, the restoration of nature, and ensuring functional democracies where all voices matter. The isolation model evades collective obligations to level the playing field and serves the wealthy (many of whom benefit as advertisers on CNN), not women or children.

Fact: That model, by not prioritizing the needs of future children, fundamentally created the crises we face today.

As Equals must be committed to equality, for all entities, and we only get there through Fair Start reforms that change the way we plan families, moving us away from the model that created the climate crisis and vast economic inequity, and towards birth equity based reparations for future generations.

Take action: Urge @ElizaTalks to consider alternative policy models, like Fair Start, as the most just and effective solution to the crises we face today.

Facts:

• A clear link exists between rapid unsustainable growth and poverty. Better family planning and sustainable families increase economic prospects by allowing greater investment in each child.  
• According to the World Bank, in 2015, almost 2 billion people (26% of the world’s population) were living on less than $3.20 per day, and nearly half of the world (46%) was living on less than $5.50 a day. 

• The costs and benefits of overpopulation under globalization are now distributed by class more than by nation. Labor bears the cost of reduced wage income; capital enjoys the benefit of reduced wage costs. 
• The United State and much of the capitalist world believed that new bodies were needed to produce more labor. This pro-natal, pro-capital belief has created a world in which huge inequities exist. For example, the world’s 2,153 billionaires have more wealth than 4.6 billion people, which is more than 60% of the planet’s population. 
• Family size affects those in developed countries as well as underdeveloped nations: In the U.S., the Kansas City Star reported that of more than 6,000 prisoners in 12 states, 1 in 4 was a product of the foster-care system; there is a foster-care-to-prison pipeline in many states. Foster children are also diagnosed with PTSD at a rate greater than Iraq War veterans, and every year, more than 4,000 former foster care kids end up homeless after leaving the system. Meanwhile, the number of American children in foster care increased 12% between 2012 and 2017. 
• Our current family planning systems provide no minimum standard of well-being for future children, allowing children to be born into failing state systems because their parents cannot care for them. That exacerbates inequity and ensures rich kids stay rich and poor kids stay poor. 

• Current pronatalist policies sow the seeds of nation destabilization by further increasing inequality.