At one time, people might have made the argument that fewer children was something that was desirable from a development perspective. That happened in the context of various coercive population controls that tried to push the message on women that they should have smaller families, that they needed to have smaller families.
A lot of emerging data—I'm referring to a paper by Wesley Peterson, “The Role of Population in Economic Growth”, which does a sort of historical survey. It notes:
In low-income countries, rapid population growth is likely to be detrimental in the short and medium term because it leads to large numbers of dependent children. In the longer run, there is likely to be a demographic dividend in these countries as these young people become productive adults.
We're seeing in countries that have had higher population growth rates, for example, dramatic economic growth. Such is the case in many countries in Africa, and there are many other countries, such as China, that have had aggressive, coercive population control policies that have been very violent in their implications. The impact of those policies now is an aging population and inevitable impending demographic problems.
Is the case you're making that we should emphasize choice for people, or is it that we should try to push the message that people should not have larger families, even if that's what they wish to have in some of these countries?