I’m sorry you feel weirded out, but not everyone lives or has lived in Mayberry.
These situations are extremely, extremely rare. Even in war. Even in the Holocaust it practically never happened.
And not everyone lives or has lived in Mordor.
Among sustenance farmers, having more children actually increases the standard of living. Children increase the entire family’s wealth by working the fields, tending livestock, doing household chores and selling stuff in town or doing other informal paid work. The phrase “children are Africa’s wealth” is quite literally true. Your children are also your only retirement account. To be old without children to take care of you would be terrible- and with high mortality rates, you are going to want to have some extras just in case.
It’s not until people begin urbanizing that children become financial burdens because they cease to become food producers and start needing stuff like schooling. And, like clockwork, when populations begin to urbanize they automatically start having fewer children.
Infanticide in China and India is also an economic phenomena. Basically, women tend to cost a lot of money to raise and marry off, and traditionally do not contribute to the family’s wealth as adults. In China it is becoming less common now that women are making more money and using it to support their parents as well as their husband’s. In India, it is increasing as dowry prices increase.
Anyway, my point is that people generally make what they consider to be the best choice at the time, and Africans with large families often have large families for a good reason.
I was trying to think of a clever riposte, but I can’t do better than this. [high five]
I’m outta here. You can’t argue with a loon.
I sure hope I never get stuck in an elevator with you. 
The fear of situations like this is why I always carry a poisoned Twinkie.
“Look, he was coming right at me–I had no choice!”
Among substenance farmers having more children will only increase the standard of living to a point. Once resources are stretched to the limit extra children are just extra mouths to feed.
I’ve just read this BBC article about child sacrifice going on in modern Uganda.
Horrific.
However, it’s not quite what we’re talking about here.
Still, gives me the chills.
Where do you live? Mayberry? Out here in the real world, the rest of us have to shoot at babies just to get to work.
Baby blood fuels my SUV, and powers the cellphone I talk on when driving my SUV.
Can you please indicate the post where you inserted an anti-choice position on my part so that I can understand just exactly where you went wrong?
ZPG Zealot disturbs me more than Cesario.
I find people like you who put more value on the lives of infants than adults highly disturbing.
At least Cesario only wants to fuck them…
Oh, please don’t tell me you’re that naive of the world? Most people don’t like killing someone, but most of us will do it if we have to. This whole discussion threat arose when you freaked out because I’m willing to admitt that if abortion were banned, I would resort to infanticide before I would risk dying from an illegal abortion. Do a little research on how horrible septic abortion or ectopic pregnancy deaths were if you want to be really horrified?
I hate the idea of a world without abortion as much as anyone. And I believe that every woman has the right to a safe and affordable abortion. No matter what.
But I just can’t bring myself to say that infanticide is okay. In some situations, as we’ve covered. If your society is so horrible–i.e., slavery, the Holocaust, and other situations throughout history. Or if we’re talking about some situation where a very young girl is repeatedly raped, has no idea she’s pregnant, and freaks out and kills it…I wouldn’t be OK with that situation, but I’d be more likely to understand why the person did it. But if you’ve already given birth to the kid, I can’t see why killing it is suddenly the answer.
You do realise that even in third world countries illegal abortions are performed by doctors. Coathangers went out of fashion.