Every Sperm Is Sacred (Not)

World Population Day, July 11
Commemorating the day (in 1989) when the world's population
reached 5 billion

I had a good laugh recently about a serious subject.  My subject in this post is not sperm, but the joke is, although, I suppose the joke is not funny either.  Jessica Grose has written an excellent piece for the New York Times talking about male fertility, as in male sperm counts seem to be on the decline--worldwide.  Her point is that new and more persuasive research is validating the conclusion about sperm rates, noting that it is time for a shift in the viewpoint that tends to blame women for any issue related to fertility.  That is, just as men (IMO) need to step and do their fair share of work around the house and family, they also need (in Grose's opinion, with which I concur) to accept that it takes two to tango and/or make a baby, so get a check up, for garden seed.  OK, she was more polite.  But the effects of plastic on the endocrine system--which makes sperm--which makes babies--is becoming ever clearer through the research that is being done to figure out what effects our extensive use of fossil fuels is having on our bodies.

One small paragraph in Grose's fairly long essay, just quietly and gently inserting itself before the discussion moves on, stated a point that was already fairly shouting in my mind by the time I got to it:

At the very least, men should be aware that half of all infertility cases are caused by male infertility. Not just because it may make them start embracing healthier lifestyles if they hope to have children some day, but also because if they are intimately aware of their own deficient sperm, they might be more motivated to push for the policy changes that would really help fix male infertility on a larger scale. [emphasis added]

Yea, verily.  Perhaps men, with their well-known fascination with their own junk and its potential uses, might pause their intense focus on the body part and look at the system that makes that body part so important.  No, not orgasm, but the purpose of that orgasm, which is not fun and games but survival of the species.  The fun and games part is just part of the incentive to produce the orgasm which is in turn meant to promote the survival of the species.  The sensation of orgasm, in evolutionary terms, is a by-product, not the ballgame (no pun intended).

I have been continuing my search for publications by Ethical Culture's thought leaders in various serials over the past few days.  One such serial is Free Inquiry, a publication of the Center for Inquiry.  (My work with that serial is just beginning, but already I can note that Ethical Culture's presence was much stronger in FI's earliest years than in later years.)  One item that sparked my attention, however, was its cover story for Spring 1999:  "The Population Bomb--The Fallout Continues," illustrated with a mushroom cloud.  The articles and opinion pieces inside range from "India's Population Time Bomb" (Paul Kurtz) to "Playing with People's Lives" (Craig Lasher) and reflect what we have heard for some time about the concerns with increasing population on a finite planet with finite resources.

These articles caught my attention because the opposite stories have been filling our news media recently, given some impetus by figures in the current administration, to reflect concern that, in fact, the birth rate is declining in many countries, causing concern (drama) about population decline.  That, in turn, has led to recent moves by the current administration to incentivize birth and push back against various forms of birth control.  I thought, seeing the FI issue, how ironic that we have seen such a turnaround in public discussions.  And yet, the same arguments against the concerns related to over-population and now for the concerns about population decline are still very much present, wolves in sheep's clothing.

• Women must have all possible babies (no birth control, no abortions, no choice).
• Men must make sure that women have all possible babies (men are still the majority in all US halls of government, with, perhaps, some local exceptions).
• Some people--meaning white people--are still more important than others (not all countries are seeing this reduction in fertility, but they are not "white countries").

Oddly enough, in re that latter bullet, those non-white countries have less robust economies.  Is there a correlation between those economies and the prevalence of plastic?  I couldn't say, since my experience in a couple of those economies is older than the FI issue that I was reading.  Certainly there were plastics in the supply chain, but the lifestyles were (in those days) seemed less reliant on plastic-packaged "convenience" items.  My perceptions and recollections are insufficient for any conclusions, but they are enough to raise the question.

And that question brings me back to the joke.  Grose ended her essay with the suggestion that, instead of our national anthem, we should start playing "Every Sperm is Sacred" at national sporting events.  I had to laugh when I watched the video.  But I am deadly serious--if the bros are so damned concerned that we are in a population decline, why don't they address the root cause for their own infertility?  Why don't they spend some time solving the problem of excess plastic in our environment and our bodies instead of looking for ways to blame women for both the cause and effect of the mess they have made? Not that I'm advocating for more sperm, mind you, but all of us would be a lot healthier if we weren't eating and breathing plastic.