Childbirth can indeed be dangerous, but it is not NEARLY as dangerous as people think it is. The maternal mortality rate differs rather dramatically from one place to another. The U.S. is the worst and least safe place to give birth in the industrialized world -- also the most expensive.

I'd love to see the planet eventually reach a population of something like 3 billion, with everyone living a fairly equal life. It's gross that a great number of people in my country enjoy huge houses with central air, more calories than we need, meat at every meal in many cases, a car for every adult, etc., when in other countries people are struggling just to survive and sometimes lose that battle. It isn't right. It's only within living memory that we've had lots of young adult for every elderly person. I'm 57. I expect to work well into my 70s, if all goes well, and so do most people. I do NOT expect to retire at 65 and let the taxes of struggling young people support me -- not unless I become disabled. I won't have enough money to retire in any case, so it's a moot point.

Do you want the planet to be livable? It's not just "greater good of climate change" we are talking about. It's whether this place remains habitable. Look again at how the population increased from 1950 to today. The surest way to kill off all of humanity is to just keep indiscriminately popping out babies.

The Afghan woman's supposed statement sounds like propaganda. A country full of impoverished, starving, uneducated people is not going to "win" anything. Those babies they are having keep starving to death, and that sad state of affairs will continue as long as they keep their women treated like livestock.