RFK jr went on a rant about sperm. It’s a national security threat, you know!
Today, the average teenager in this country has 50 percent of the sperm count, 50 percent of the testosterone as a 65-year-old man. Our girls are hitting puberty six years early, and that’s bad, but also our parents aren’t having children.
Parents who want to have children do not have access. I have seven children. I feel that God has blessed me with that and I can’t imagine how different my life would be if I did not have that blessing.Sperm counts are known to decline with age, meaning a teenage boy is likely to have a much higher count than a man in his late sixties, according to experts.
our parents aren’t having children…
think about that one for a moment.
Then consider Parents who want to have children do not have access.
Access to what, you may ask, and also what makes them parents if they don’t have children? My head hurts reading whatever that ratfucker has to say about health.
It’s true that sperm counts have been reported to be declining, although very poor sampling of a variable parameter adds some doubt to the conclusion. We tend not to get sperm counts from teenagers! But I’d agree with him that environmental hazards, especially the ones that big capitalist corporations tend to spew everywhere, are almost certainly damaging the quantity and quality of gametes humans are producing. We should probably do something about that, but Republicans aren’t going to change anything that might affect the bottom line of Dow or Monsanto, so seeing a lackey of corporate interests piously expressing concern about forever chemicals contaminating the environment leaves me unmoved.
Also, making babies is a more complex process than just having a man making sperm (that’s probably the smallest part of the problem). Conception requires a consenting woman, and also requires that the parents have the time and money and interest to invest in raising a child. If you want more healthy babies in America, provide better medical care with low cost first — pumping up male sperm counts accomplishes nothing if no one wants or can afford children.
As for RFK jr himself — he has six children by two mothers (I think he’s counting his current girlfriend’s child as his own, which is fair). All of his marriages ended in divorce, and one was exceptionally acrimonious, and one of his former wives died of suicide. I don’t think he should be talking about “blessings”. He’s an old rich fuck and is not a role model for successful parenting. One of the causes of his divorce was the discovery of a book where he listed all of his extramarital affairs!
Wait…I thought conservatives blamed feminism for declining birth rates, but now it’s all due to those tainted, poisoned men shooting blanks? Cool.
(sarcasm alert) Maybe lower sperm counts among teenagers has a hidden (potential) benefit: Fewer teenaged pregnancies. Fewer sick children from too-young mothers (and too-young parents in general). More young women finishing high school, and even going to college, without the additional burden of pregnancy/parenthood, and then taking STEM courses — even starting STEM careers, facilitating more research like that that made ‘murika great in the 50s (before all of that pesky civil rights stuff in the 60s) — so they can understand the science behind sperm counts…
Oops. Never mind. They’d probably all insist on fluoridated drinking water, too.
I blame Tylenol. It’s the nutjob’s go to target for what ails ya.
Considering that my father’s dead and my mother is 76, I’d be quite surprised to find if they were having more kids.
This is just crypto-great replacement bullshit. Another week and he’ll start babbling about Jews/black men/Asians have higher sperm counts.
It is not even for sure that male sperm counts are declining.
The data from many studies are all over the place.
Changing methodologies over the decades is just one of the problems with these studies.
It is mostly irrelevant any way.
Sperm production isn’t rate limiting for population level reproduction rates.
People aren’t having a lot of children because of a lack of sperm.
They aren’t having children for cultural reasons and quite often, mostly because they can’t afford them.
We are becoming a poorer society rapidly with time for the average American.
The average cost to raise a middle class US child to age 18 is now $330,000.
People struggling to survive don’t have that kind of money.
“Parents who want to have children do not have access.”
Access to what, exactly? Anything Republicans have explicitly said they want to provide? RFKwack can’t even give a vague answer to that.
Also, as raven said (and anyone who’s taken a basic sex-ed class knows), if a guy’s sperm count goes down by 50%, he can still get a woman pregnant. It only takes one sperm cell, not a concerted gang-up.
This is just another “great replacement” dogwhistle.
Access to what? Child care? Time off to care for sick child? Access to medical care to prevent child diseases? Well funded education opportunities? Protection in school from deranged shooters? What?