The most prosperous, the freest, the most technologically and scientifically advanced society the world has ever seen is committing suicide, by choice. The advent of feminism, the sexual revolution, and most importantly, the invention of the birth control pill, has given women of the first world, for the first time in the life of humankind on earth, the ability to decline to have babies. And they have so declined.

The playground stands there, hushed and stilled

The child not there was coldly killed

His mother killed him, killed her child

It’s legal, charges won’t be filed

The swings sit idle, seesaws rust

And chairs and benches gather dust

The state has issued its decrees

No child will feel the cooling breeze

The state proclaims a woman’s choice

And thus the playground has no voice