In a 1980s America different from our own, both familiar and not, Congress passed and President Henshaw signed the Birth Cessation Act. Once it became law, no one would be allowed to have a child for 25 years, any woman under 24 weeks pregnant was required to have an immediate abortion, and all men were called up to report for a vasectomy.“Conscious regulation of human numbers must be achieved.” Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich wrote in his 1968 bestseller, The Population Bomb. By the early 80s, the government had statistical projections that population growth was outpacing the available resources needed for all in America to live a comfortable and secure life. A situation that would inevitably lead to the chaos and violence of extreme civil unrest.Most Americans, liking comfort and security, supported the government’s action. Most, but not all. And those who didn’t—including a world-famous female billionaire entrepreneur/inventor/film producer; a TV salesman from Queens; a well-to-do Manhattan college radical; an unwed mother in Los Angeles who protests most horribly; America’s premier pundit-columnist; and a young man who talks to his dead brother—became loud enough to start a fresh new controversy in America.This is a portrait of that controversy.
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