I was more confused by abstinence leading to coitus interruptus, which seems logically incoherent.
It sounds like they were still having sex, just not having enough babies to replace themselves, which could have been dealt with on its own in a very dry demographic way.
Bringing abortion, beastiality and sexual abstinence into it seems to muddy the waters for no clear benefit to the point that they were trying to make, which I think is, that if you have less than replacement rate babies, then your population will fall. But maybe that seemed a little too tautological without the extra details to distract the reader.
Also, the writers own story seems to suggest that these people (e.g. his great-grandmother) did have descendents (e.g. the author) it's just that they moved to the city, which I think was a big trend everywhere.
It sounds like they were still having sex, just not having enough babies to replace themselves, which could have been dealt with on its own in a very dry demographic way.
Bringing abortion, beastiality and sexual abstinence into it seems to muddy the waters for no clear benefit to the point that they were trying to make, which I think is, that if you have less than replacement rate babies, then your population will fall. But maybe that seemed a little too tautological without the extra details to distract the reader.
Also, the writers own story seems to suggest that these people (e.g. his great-grandmother) did have descendents (e.g. the author) it's just that they moved to the city, which I think was a big trend everywhere.