Self-limiting Phenomena, part 2

kw: practical darwinism

Creating the former post, I thought of another hot-button topic that one may also consider in genetic terms. The modern litmus test for political correctness is "choice." By that is meant one's attitude toward "abortion rights."

Concerning my own position, I will not elaborate beyond saying that I believe abortion is not a moral form of birth control.

But here I take a darwinist perspective. Consider, of a number of women raised in similar environments and having similar beliefs, who become pregnant, in all cases surprised by it and not at all happy about it: some will abort, and some will not.

Perhaps if you dug deep enough into each woman's history, you would find some consistent environmental difference between the "aborters" and the "non-aborters." I think it unlikely. Rather, it is likely that there is a spectrum of attitudes, built into our brains, regarding the balance of convenience versus procreation. It is analogous to the spectrum of boldness-timidity, extraversion-introversion, and many others. Twin studies show there is a strong genetic component to all of these.

Here is the plain, evolutionary fact: women who are more likely to have an abortion for the sake of convenience will have fewer children than the others. Therefore, the tendency to abuse abortion is self-limiting, and will remain a minority of the population.

I imagine there are a number of other societal issues that have a Darwinian component...