# Potential problems with an extremely high birthrate.



## Stormcat (Jul 10, 2018)

If the handmaid's tale takes place in a world with an extremely low birthrate, what would it look like in a world with an abnormally high birthrate?

I'm brainstorming a story where every act of unprotected sex results in pregnancy, and most protected sex results in the same thing! Virtually all women of childbearing age are stuck in pregnancy after pregnancy and multiples are shockingly common. All the associated problems with carrying a pregnancy to term and childbirth are still there, and abortions are illegal on top of this. Men cannot seem to contain their "Supersperm" and feel no need to stop having sex with so many women, so the birthrates continue to skyrocket.

Pregnancies aside, I'm not sure what an extreme surplus of babies would result in for the rest of this world. I plan to make it a result of a disease outbreak, so the population boom is a relatively recent event. It first started about five years ago, so the first wave of "Supersperm babies" are still very young.

What would happen in a world where babies outnumber adults?


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## Jack of all trades (Jul 10, 2018)

Stormcat said:


> If the handmaid's tale takes place in a world with an extremely low birthrate, what would it look like in a world with an abnormally high birthrate?
> 
> I'm brainstorming a story where every act of unprotected sex results in pregnancy, and most protected sex results in the same thing! Virtually all women of childbearing age are stuck in pregnancy after pregnancy and multiples are shockingly common. All the associated problems with carrying a pregnancy to term and childbirth are still there, and abortions are illegal on top of this. Men cannot seem to contain their "Supersperm" and feel no need to stop having sex with so many women, so the birthrates continue to skyrocket.
> 
> ...



A few things come to mind.

Look to real places where babies and young children outnumber the adults. Orphanages of the past, is one example. Many children died. Most of neglect or just failure to thrive. Humans need social interaction. Modern daycare centers are another place. While more children live than the orphanages of old, violence and narcissism are increasing, possibly as a result of the lack of adult interaction when they were young.

Another thing that popped to mind was the women rebelling and beginning to kill the men in order to stop the pregnancies.  

I can't see a scientific way for "supersperm" to counter all forms of birth control, though. Barrier methods can fail, but that failure isn't caused by the sperm. It would have to be that they are no longer being manufactured. Pills do not really prevent conception. They just interfere with the progress of the pregnancy. Then there's the morning-after pill. That, too, doesn't prevent pregnancy, just blocks progress of it. So these, too, would have to no longer be manufactured.

That makes the situation social and political, not natural. Which increases the women's anger, making some kind of backlash likely.

Some things to think about.


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## CyberWar (Aug 2, 2018)

One thing universal to societies with a large number of young people is violence. When you have an abundance of testosterone-laden young men without education or employment opportunities that tends to come with overpopulation, you have plentiful source material for trouble. Impressionable and disgruntled young folks eager to assert themselves in the world make a prime material for radicalization in the absence of more constructive ways to spend their energy. At best, you'll have aplenty of street gangs and sports hooligans. At worst, you'll have aplenty of terrorist organizations, rebel groups and insurgents.

Worse still, societies with a large excess of young men tend to try and expand outwards. It was the case with the Vikings, the conquistadors, and it is the case with the Third World today. You can look forward to a whole lot of violent, aggressive young men looking to make their fortunes elsewhere and stirring up trouble wherever they go.


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## Bardling (Apr 2, 2019)

Some of the immediate repercussions that popped into my mind, and I think some of the most likely?  Lots of dead women and dead babies, with yet more sick babies and crippled women.  Look at most of recorded history, where women were having up to 12 kids.  Pregnancy was the most common killer of women.

We just aren't_ designed_ for constant pregnancies.  The healthiest rate of pregnancies for women is about one baby every five years.  When you start having babies every year, then you start running into babies with low birth weights and malnourished mothers that have all sorts of health problems.  So after five years there are going to be a lot of dead women.  

I don't know what kind of society you will be writing about but the grown women in the population will fall, leading to lots of men never having the chance to have kids.  If a woman has a choice about marriage and sex, they will probably choose not to have sex with men - not if it will lead to constant pregnancies.  If the woman doesn't have a choice, then they will become a commodity.  Maybe not to the point of outright slavery but pretty close.  Most women will have older husbands, there may be harems (depending on the society) and again - younger men and poorer men will not have a chance at forming families.

I really don't know where it would go from there, but women will recognize the dangers to their life and men will notice when only the fortunate few have access to women.


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## Amnesiac (Apr 2, 2019)

Chronic diaper shortage and massive, yea, _gargantuan_ loads of baby crap. *shudder*


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## moderan (Apr 2, 2019)

Stand on Zanzibar
334
Make Room, Make Room
Billennium
et al


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## Kevin (Apr 2, 2019)

Men cannot seem to contain their "Supersperm" and feel no need to stop having sex with so many women, so the birthrates continue to skyrocket.-

Mm. Seems like if the men are all so busy having sex the women and babies would have to do all the work, like growing things or chores. A problem is that everything is built for adult size people, like cars and car seats, and regular chairs, and kitchen counters. All the tools are adult size too.


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