On Wednesday's Joy Behar Show on HLN, the host asked about parents who are "overpopulating" the world, and guest Helen Fisher, a Rutgers University professor, compared having a large family to littering, "as if we've got too many people on this planet to begin with." Fisher also bizarrely stated that "for billions of years, we [humans] ended up having one or two children per woman."
Host Joy Behar devoted the last two segments of her 9 pm Eastern hour program to how women are trending away from having children. Besides Fisher, she brought on author Rachel Shukert and Laura Scott, who manages the "Childless By Choice Project" blog. Near the middle of the second segment, the host blurred the line between typical large families, most of whom have children by natural means, and celebrities such as the "Octo-Mom" and Kate Gosselin and her family. This is where Fisher made her extreme leftist remark:
BEHAR: What about these people who are overpopulating- the Gosselins, the octo-moms- these people who have been vitro with hundreds of things in there- you know what I mean? What's up with that?
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SHUKERT: You know, I think it's so interesting how the way that- like their kids have sort of- like, taken the role of kids in the olden days, when they all had to work as farmhands-
BEHAR: Yeah. Now, they're on reality shows-
SHUKERT: Now, they're on reality shows, instead of in the field.
BEHAR: Yeah, exactly. I mean, what do you make of that?
FISHER: Well, I think it's as if- I mean, now, people regard that as littering, and- you know, as if we've got too many people on this planet to begin with.
SHUKERT: That's true.
FISHER: So, it's interesting that-
SHUKERT: I was thinking how much greener it is to not have kids. That he feels he can have steaks and things because he doesn't have kids. It's like I can drive a Hummer. I don't have a kid.
FISHER: Well, you know, for billions of years, we ended up having one or two children per woman, and we're moving back to that now, one or two children per woman.
One wonders what the professor meant by her "billions of years" remark, as the human species obviously hasn't been around that long.
Earlier, at the beginning of the second segment, Behar asked the Rutgers professor, "Why do you suppose, Helen, people say that there's something odd about not having kid?"
Fisher first touted the obvious genetic disadvantage not having children carries, but then gushed over the innovation of making that very decision: "There is something odd about it- I mean, from a Darwin evolutionary perspective, you're choosing to not pass on your DNA on into tomorrow, and in terms of- you know, genetic survival, you have lost....On the other hand, times have changed so dramatically, and we're finally at a time in human evolution when women can make that choice, and I think that's what's a thrill."
