{"id":9935,"date":"2009-06-25T10:39:59","date_gmt":"2009-06-25T15:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=9935"},"modified":"2012-10-19T01:53:39","modified_gmt":"2012-10-19T06:53:39","slug":"gods-stimulus-package","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2009\/06\/25\/gods-stimulus-package\/","title":{"rendered":"“God’s Stimulus Package”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen W. sent us a photograph of a billboard in Rock Valley, IA.\u00a0 It suggests that keeping your baby, instead of having an abortion, is good for the economy:<\/p>\n

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Sociologists talk about how nations are invested in reproduction.\u00a0 Without babies, nations literally disappear; too many babies and nations collapse under the strain of a population they cannot support.\u00a0 Because nations need babies (but not too many babies), states adopt pro- and anti-natal policies (e.g., the one child rule or medals for mothers<\/a>) that encourage or discourage childbearing.\u00a0 This billboard is an interesting example of a call to women to have children so as to help the nation (though it is sponsored by a pro-life organization, not the state).\u00a0 Women, in this argument, have a responsibility to the nation (perhaps equivalent to military service?) that transcends their individual reproductive preferences.<\/p>\n

(See this related post on making babies for the military<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

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Lisa Wade is a\u00a0professor of sociology at Occidental College<\/a>. You can follow her on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen W. sent us a photograph of a billboard in Rock Valley, IA.\u00a0 It suggests that keeping your baby, instead of having an abortion, is good for the economy: Sociologists talk about how nations are invested in reproduction.\u00a0 Without babies, nations literally disappear; too many babies and nations collapse under the strain of a population […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2083,36,55,2105,2088,272,304],"class_list":["post-9935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abortionreproduction","tag-economics","tag-gender","tag-gender-economics","tag-gender-marriagefamily","tag-marriagefamily","tag-the-state"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9935"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52050,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9935\/revisions\/52050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}