Approximately 85 billion people had existed by 1998, a rough estimate made by Anne Dillard in her essay, The Wreck of Time, which accounts for every person who had ever been born up until then (including me, but just barely), and why is it that I choose to talk about people and our tendencies, a topic many people hate? Because experts believe that with new abortion laws cropping up in Indiana, Texas, and Ohio, there will be too many on the earth at one time, something that we have never *cough* achieved in human history; up until this point, having spent roughly 160,000 years existing as a species, we have not managed to breed enough to overpopulate the earth, or even come close to it. This can be attributed to the fact that we didn't have experts projecting the growth of the population like we do now, nor did we have technological advancements to enhance and prolong life.

Now that we do have this knowledge, we need to figure out how to aptly apply that to this situation. Effective as of December 19th, abortions can only be performed within the first month and a half of pregnancy, before many women even know they're pregnant. There is also skepticism going into the new year that this is not the only right we have in which protection is compromised.

As we know, "[Nuclear weapons] aren't off the table," and we know that there have been many promises to repeal Obama care and cut social security. However, like I had stated in my post-election piece, there are measures we can take to try to minimize the effects this will have on us. Many people say they don't work but, as reported disappointment in both voters and non-voters of all candidates reveals, this could be due to three main causes:

1. Much of the American government is bought out to fulfill various agendas

2. Many people don't use the measures we have written in place, the loopholes written into the Constitution, if you will

3. The electoral college

Now, to address these claims:

1. While it is true that the government is bought out by many major corporations you've probably never heard of, they still profit off of the interests of the people to a degree, and there are still laws that need to be followed. There are still ways we can change outcomes before the inevitable inauguration. Take, for instance, the number of peaceful protests that have taken place directly before and after the election, and the fruitful acts that have already taken place--women in middle eastern countries learning music, starting underground orchestras without the male supervision that is routinely sought out there. Even in situations that are more dire, we are not powerless.

2. Out of several developed countries (and groups of countries) that have been polled over the last 2 decades, the United States has had significantly less voters than those that only developed democratic practices AFTER the Revolutionary War. Both Britain and Australia have shown 94 and 95 percent voter turnouts, compared to the US, which only had about 30% of the population vote for this most recent election.

3. Before you say that I'm just an angry Democrat, let it be known that I'm neither a Democrat nor Republican but, much like daylight savings, I believe the Electoral College has outlived its purpose. While excluding accusations that Russia interfered with the election, I can say that Trump did win under the circumstances we had in place--no explicit requirement for law experience, an electoral system favoring smaller states whose electors can defect from the requests brought upon them by a small percentage of the total population--and this is as good a time as any to change them.

Education is a wonderful thing, ladies and gentlemen, and we are a brilliant nation with a lot of it. We just need to keep changing with the times, keep changing with the best interest of the majority at heart while still trying to ensure all people are treated fairly and, no matter how many people are brought into this world, we will always have reasons to change and rights that will allow us to do so.