In the 1960s, sci-fi captivated TV audiences. “Lost in Space” offered an adventurous, family-friendly program. The show revolved around the Robinson family and a stowaway initially bound for Alpha Centauri before being hopelessly knocked off course. In the original, the Robinsons left Earth as colonizers heading for the final frontier due to overpopulation. Fast forward to 2018’s Netflix reboot of “Lost in Space,” and the reason for their departure is not overpopulation but environmental issues.
Just as modern culture is concerned with the environment, a societal fear that had spread in the 1960s involved inevitable overpopulation, an idea that gained much traction after the publication of Prof. Paul Ehrlich’s book “The Population Bomb” (1968). “Lost in Space” was a product of the times. People feared there would not be sufficient food to sustain an expanding populace.
Today, such fears can be laid to rest. Since the 1960s, says researcher Dr. Hannah Ritchie, population growth has slowed, and our food production has increased exponentially. In 2022, the world witnessed only 1% population growth. Analysts expect the decreasing fertility trend to continue. In some countries, fertility has fallen below replacement rates, meaning there will be fewer young people in those regions as time goes on. If this continues, it will endanger economic stability, sufficient care for the aging, and the future of the human family.
The overpopulation myth, like other reasons for not having kids, is overrated. The big ethical dilemmas of our day stem from the view that people are the problem. When we think there are too many people, it is comparable to looking at them like a cancer, says Dr. Ritchie. When unborn babies are unwanted, they are viewed in a similar light. When someone nearing the end of life requires care and attention, they’re often seen as a problem. The problem is not people but how we perceive them.
Pope Francis bemoaned that too many couples have few children, if any. A child is a gift from God! My wife Ellen and I learned, on Easter Sunday night, that we are expecting our first child! We prayed for this for months. The answer to our prayers was our own little Easter miracle.
As we tried to get pregnant over the last several months, we became a little worried that we might struggle with infertility. It turned out we didn’t need to worry because, through prayer and perseverance, God allowed us to participate in procreation, and He bestowed on our baby a unique and immortal soul.
I think the kind of wait that Ellen and I experienced makes you value the life growing inside the mother’s womb even more than you otherwise would. That’s because it’s clear that it is a gift, a blessing from God. Nothing entitles us to this baby, but this new life has been entrusted to us. With blessings come responsibilities.
In “A Dad Is Born” (2025), Dr. James Walters writes, “Children do not come for us but through us, and it is our responsibility to God and to all of creation to nurture and love them so they can do the same for others.”
It’s a refreshing reminder of the vocation of parenthood that God established in Genesis. We can constantly return to the earliest chapters of that first book of the Scriptures and find deep theology and high beauty. There we are given the basis of human dignity, sexuality, morality, marriage, worship, and work. It’s also there that God says to man and woman, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28).
This truth remains. Despite uncertainties and hardships, God asks married couples to rely on Him, bring new life into this world when possible, and love all people, since God Himself believes they are worthy of life and love.
