It's the Brian Larris show on WNYC.

Good morning, everyone, heading into the Memorial Day weekend.

Our team has the day off.

So we've gathered some favorite segments for you from our WNYC

Centennial Series, 100 Years of 100 things. You'll remember that this year-long series began in July

24 on the day that WNYC turned 100 years old, July 8th. Today, 100 years of the Equal Rights Amendment,

100 years of New Yorker cartoons,

and because it's now the summer vacation season, 100 years of roller coasters. But we start with back-to-back examinations of how birth rates and causes of death in the United States have changed

over the past century. Really interesting

for seeing who we've become as a nation and how life expectancy has increased with medical

science. Birth rates first, and you know birth rates are a big policy issue right now. Here we go.

On birth rates, we know the slur from our vice president calling some Americans

childless cat ladies, right? The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that gave us

Project 2025, also gave us a critique of American culture last December that referred to, quote,

the harmful overconsumption of schooling, unquote, pushing the average age

of childbearing later and the number of total births down. Also, Elon Musk had said, quote,

a collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far, unquote. So those worldviews are in power, and they connect with a religious

and cultural right push against abortion rights and for a return to traditional gender roles.

And coupled with the anti-immigration movement, it also becomes a campaign to mostly have more

white babies. The grain of truth here is that the U.S.

population is growing more slowly than in the past, and people are living longer. So the number

of senior citizens is likely to pass the number of children in the country soon for the first time

...