In vitro fertilization (IVF) is often seen as a triumph of reproductive freedom, but its origins are deeply entangled with patriarchy, pronatalism, and eugenics. Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos, IVF survivor and author of Silent Sorority and Finally Heard, discusses how under-regulation and cultural obsession with biological motherhood allows the multi-billion dollar fertility industry to obscure the truth about its low success rates and the trauma it causes. Highlights include:

• What the IVF process entails how time-consuming, expensive, and emotionally and physically wrenching it is;
• How John Rock, pioneer of the birth control pill, was motivated by a religiously pronatalist desire to help specifically Catholic women conceive, and how IVF pioneer, Patrick Steptoe, performed experimental gynecological procedures on hundreds of women without their consent;
• How the multi-billion dollar fertility industry both benefits from and exacerbates pronatalism and exploits the hope of vulnerable patients, who are often treated as commodities, through aggressive marketing, unproven add-on services, and cherry-picked success rates;
• How Pamela found deep emotional connection with online communities around the world - the 'silent sorority' of IVF survivors;
• How pronatalist culture magnifies the emotional pain for IVF patients, surrounding them with pronatalist expectations and deeply rooted stereotypes, especially against women without children;
• Why feminist empowerment rhetoric can backfire if it uncritically promotes fertility services without acknowledging the exploitative practices and emotional toll experienced by the many female patients in the fertility industry;
• How individuals struggling with infertility can make better informed decisions about their available options.

See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:

https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/pamela-mahoney-tsigdinos

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

OVERSHOOT tackles today’s interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity’s excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recreating human life in balance with all life on Earth. With expert guests from wide-ranging disciplines, we examine the forces underlying overshoot: from patriarchal pronatalism that is fueling overpopulation, to growth-biased economic systems that lead to consumerism and social injustice, to the dominant worldview of human supremacy that subjugates animals and nature. Our vision of shrinking toward abundance inspires us to seek pathways of transformation that go beyond technological fixes toward a new humanity that honors our interconnectedness with all beings.

Hosted by Nandita Bajaj and Alan Ware. Brought to you by Population Balance.

Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://www.populationbalance.org/subscribe

Support our work with a one-time or monthly donation: https://www.populationbalance.org/donate

Learn more at https://www.populationbalance.org

Copyright 2025 Population Balance

The meat industry and its defenders promise ethical consumption and sustainable farming, but animal agriculture fuels ecological destruction, entrenches human supremacy, and masks cruelty with comforting myths. John Sanbonmatsu, philosopher and author of The Omnivore’s Deception, shatters the myths of “humane meat” and the 'naturalness' of eating meat, and explains why abolishing the animal economy is essential to living an ethical human life. Highlights include:

• Why growing up as the child of a Jewish mother and Japanese-American father in the U.S. sensitized John to bullying and injustice - against both human and nonhuman animals;
• Why the origins of human domination over animals are rooted in patriarchy and an ancient human estrangement from animals, and reinforced today by a toxic nexus of masculinity, human supremacy, neoliberal capitalism, and pronatalism;
• Why focusing only on factory farming misses the fundamental problem of human domination of animals and the planet - and how books like Michael Pollan's The Omnivore’s Dilemma and the new American pastoral ethos perpetuate myths of so-called ethical meat while attacking the animal rights movement;
• Why justifying meat-eating as “natural” is ethically bankrupt - on par with past appeals to nature to justify slavery or denying women’s rights - and how vegans and vegetarians provoke defensive ridicule because they reveal uncomfortable truths;
• Why the flood of scientific studies on animal cognition and emotion hasn’t changed behavior - and how cultural fascination with AI and plant consciousness distracts from our brutal treatment of fully sentient animals;
• Why bad faith - our self-deception about how we treat animals - is the most destructive force preventing moral progress, and why what we’re doing to animals deserves to be called 'evil';
• How empathy, an evolved trait we share with animals and desperately need to nurture, is being eroded by increasing social disconnection and anti-empathy tech bro ideologies;
• Why lab meat, also known as 'clean meat', is not the solution to speciesism and human supremacism and consuming our way to animal liberation is a delusion;
• Why the animal rights movement is being undermined by the money pouring into utilitarian effective altruism and “realistic” approaches - when true compassion demands not animal welfarism, but the abolition of animal exploitation and a direct challenge to the entrenched power structures that prevent moral progress.

See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:

https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/john-sanbonmatsu

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

OVERSHOOT tackles today’s interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity’s excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recreating human life in balance with all life on Earth. With expert guests from wide-ranging disciplines, we examine the forces underlying overshoot: from patriarchal pronatalism that is fueling overpopulation, to growth-biased economic systems that lead to consumerism and social injustice, to the dominant worldview of human supremacy that subjugates animals and nature. Our vision of shrinking toward abundance inspires us to seek pathways of transformation that go beyond technological fixes toward a new humanity that honors our interconnectedness with all beings.

Hosted by Nandita Bajaj and Alan Ware. Brought to you by Population Balance.

Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://www.populationbalance.org/subscribe

Support our work with a one-time or monthly donation: https://www.populationbalance.org/donate

Learn more at https://www.populationbalance.org

Copyright 2025 Population Balance

The nuclear industry and its boosters promise clean, abundant energy, but nuclear power delivers expensive electricity while posing catastrophic radiation risks and a constant threat of nuclear war. M. V. Ramana, physicist and author of Nuclear is Not the Solution, explains why respecting the limits of the biosphere means reducing our energy use and rejecting elites’ push for endless growth. Highlights include:

• Why nuclear energy is inherently risky due to its complex, tightly coupled systems that are prone to catastrophic failures that can't be predicted or prevented;
• Why nuclear waste poses long-term threats to all life by remaining dangerously radioactive for thousands of years, with no safe, permanent disposal solution and frequent storage failures;
• Why nuclear energy is expensive, with projects routinely running over budget and behind schedule;
• Why the expansion of nuclear energy increases the likelihood of devastating nuclear war;
• How climate change and war-time accidents or direct targeting increase the risks of nuclear catastrophe;
• Why nuclear Uranium mining and its wastes often require ‘sacrifice zones’ that are disproportionately found in indigenous land and less powerful communities;
• How the nuclear industry shapes nuclear policy and debate by capturing regulators and creating an energy ‘panic’ based on one-sided narratives that block democratic discussion and scrutiny;
• Why, despite the hype from the nuclear industry, new nuclear plant designs like small modular reactors are subject to the same cost and safety concerns as the old designs;
• Why the best answer to dealing with renewable energy's variability is not nuclear or fossil fuels but reducing demand;
• Why renewable energy is no panacea for planetary overshoot and why we need to have a broadly democratic conversation about living within the limits of the planet.

See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:

https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/mv-ramana

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

OVERSHOOT tackles today’s interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity’s excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recreating human life in balance with all life on Earth. With expert guests from wide-ranging disciplines, we examine the forces underlying overshoot: from patriarchal pronatalism that is fueling overpopulation, to growth-biased economic systems that lead to consumerism and social injustice, to the dominant worldview of human supremacy that subjugates animals and nature. Our vision of shrinking toward abundance inspires us to seek pathways of transformation that go beyond technological fixes toward a new humanity that honors our interconnectedness with all beings.

Hosted by Nandita Bajaj and Alan Ware. Brought to you by Population Balance.

Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://www.populationbalance.org/subscribe

Learn more at https://www.populationbalance.org

Copyright 2025 Population Balance