I’d quote Mr. Pope in saying, “To err is human,” but this morning it was the error of the router in our office that stalled our blogging temporarily. To those who came by seeking a tidbit of insight or humor, you’ll be glad to hear the problem’s now fixed and the FT blog is back in business.

From over on starboard side, Nicholas Provenzo of the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism is “troubled” by the implications of Gov. Sarah Palin’s “decision to knowingly give birth to a child disabled with Down syndrome.” He thinks “it is crucial to reaffirm the morality of aborting a fetus diagnosed with Down syndrome (or by extension, any unborn fetus)—a freedom that anti-abortion advocates seek to deny.” Here’s his line of thinking:  

A parent has a moral obligation to provide for his or her children until these children are equipped to provide for themselves. Because a person afflicted with Down syndrome is only capable of being marginally productive (if at all) and requires constant care and supervision, unless a parent enjoys the wealth to provide for the lifetime of assistance that their child will require, they are essentially stranding the cost of their child’s life upon others.

 
Meanwhile, on the port side, Paul Ehrlich, author of “The Population Bomb,” treats us to this little thought:

I believe it is immoral and should be illegal for people to have very large numbers of children because they are then co-opting for themselves and their children resources that should be spread elsewhere in the world. You only get a chance to get your fair share. 

To the follow-up question, “How many is ‘very large’”? Ehrlich responds:

The issue is: What is the political position to take? In a country like the United States, we should stop at two. But if you had an ideal situation, you might have a lot of people who have no children at all, and some people who have as many as three or four because they happen to be particularly good parents, and are going to raise their children very well. 

Amanda posted yesterday an excerpt from a book entitled A Discourse of the Married and Single Life: Wherein by Discovering the Misery of One, is Plainly Declared the Felicity of the Other. This made me think back twenty-six years to my wedding reception.

My wife and I and our families and the groomsmen and maids-of-honor were waiting to enter the reception hall and be introduced to the guests. My older brother William was my best man and was to give the toast, and he hadn’t thought of anything witty to spice up his remarks. My father stepped in to help, and offered these words from Samuel Johnson: “Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.”

It got a big laugh, but afterwards a physics colleague of mine (now a professor at a prestigious university) came up to me with a confused look his face, and said, “I don’t understand the joke your brother told. What does celibacy have to do with it?” It suddenly dawned on me what his problem was: The idea that an unmarried person would be celibate was so foreign to his way of thinking, that Dr. Johnson’s statement seemed like a pure non sequitur to him.