What's so bad about drop in birthrate?

One of your headlines on Aug. 8 proclaimed, "Recession blamed for lower birthrates." It reported on a drop in U.S. births in 2008, the first decline of the decade.

In the article, professor Carol Hogue of Emory University is said to have named the recession as the "most likely culprit" for fewer babies in the U.S., making the situation sound like a rise in crime or the spread of some horrible disease.

I have to wonder why anyone would consider the lower number of U.S. births a bad thing. The world's human population is pushing 7 billion; the earth's resources are being used up at an alarming rate; and U.S. residents have one of the highest if not the highest per capita rate of consumption in the world.

A better headline for the story would be, "At last - a silver lining for the recession cloud."

Kathy Sutton

Elgin