There is one more factor to consider, though it’s not easy to know how great it is: Today, young men have diversions available to them that their fathers and grandfathers didn’t. The Internet, high-definition TV, Playstation 3… the list goes on and on. Having gotten a taste of this fascinating new technological world, how many would give it up, or even cut back on it, to raise children?

Between this and the contraception angle already discussed, it seems to me that it’s not enough by a longshot for Western civilization to encourage biological fathers to play a greater role in raising the kids that they helped create. We must also find some way to discourage men from actively avoiding becoming biological fathers in the first place.