Last week the Chief Rabbi used a lecture to Theos, a religious thinktank, to outline the reasons religion and religious morality are necessary for our continued freedom and, ultimately, survival. He described of Europe's loss of faith as "the moral equivalent of climate change" and attributed the continent's population decline to a forsaking of the idea of sacrifice. "Parenthood involves massive sacrifice," he said, "of money, attention, time and emotional energy. Where today, in European culture with its consumerism and its instant gratification 'because you're worth it' ... will you find space for the concept of sacrifice for the sake of generations not yet born?"

Is the Chief Rabbi right? Should we worry about the decline in population, or celebrate it? Is there really a link between the consumer society, moral relativism and the choice to have fewer or no children? For those who agree that society suffers from a lack self-sacrifice, is parenthood indeed its best embodiment?

Monday's response

Mary Kenny: A fertile society is an energetic and resourceful one, and we must beware of being pessimistic about the problems of population

Tuesday's response

Nesrine Malik: The chief rabbi is blind to the high price traditional societies often pay for their moral certainty

Thursday's response

Caspar Melville: Atheists have an ingenious strategy for ensuring the survival of our gang: we don't have rules about who we can reproduce with

Friday's response

Madeleine Bunting: Boiling the complex issue of population decline down to selfishness, as the chief rabbi has done, is absurd