(It grieves me to no end that this is a question that many in this country take seriously. Actually, strike that. First, it angers me. Then it grieves me.)
Writing in The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert reviews a number of books about this question.
Taken seriously, Benatar’s logic leads to what might be called the Conclusive Conclusion. If we all saw the harm we were doing by having children and put a stop to it, within a century or so the world’s population would drop to zero. For Benatar, this is an outcome devoutly to be wished. “Humans have the unfortunate distinction of being the most destructive and harmful species on earth,” he writes. “The amount of suffering in the world could be radically reduced if there were no more” of us.
Thankfully, Douthat is able to take the discussion a bit more seriously and offers a response:
Life itself is an extraordinary gift, the act of bringing a life into the world (and nurturing it and protecting it and rearing it and so on) involves enormous sacrifice on the part of parents, and so the best way to express an appropriate gratitude for what Burke calls “the unbought grace of life” is to make the same sacrifice yourself, and extend that grace to another generation (and thus to generations beyond that). This logic doesn’t require everyone to have children: You might never meet an appropriate partner, you might have psychological or (as in the case of the hypothetical couple B) medical issues that would militate against becoming a parent, you might find an alternative way of expressing gratitude and giving as you received. But it demands some reason from Couple A for their permanent childlessness, rather than simply assuming that they have nothing to justify or defend.
But the most important response comes from Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry:
Why should the genetically diseased not reproduce?
Not because they would sully the gene pool. Surely, we don’t think that. (Do we?)
Ah, it’s because their child would “suffer terribly.” But this is a non-sequitur.
I actually agree with Benatar: all life involves suffering. But this is precisely why it cannot be a criterion for whether a life should be lived (or else you reach Benatar’s conclusion that all human life should be extinguished). All life involves measures of terrible suffering and measures of bliss. And, most importantly, we cannot know ahead of time what the mix will be, for anyone. Including those with a “genetic disease”.
It is the height of arrogance to believe otherwise. It is, in a fundamental sense, inhumane because it entails a lack of real empathy: yes, even the sick, even the handicapped, even the poor, even the downtrodden, have life experiences that are worth living.
If you truly put yourself in others’ shoes—truly, not as “How would I feel if I were…” but truly take others’ perspective, it is impossible not to see this.
It is, of course, an impulse of good intentions that lead us to believe some lives are not worth living. But it is a logically and humanely intenable position.
(And, obviously, the slippery slope is real: once we decide that some lives are more worth living than others—literally, worth more than others—the circle of the blessed keeps ever narrowing. Those who use Rawls’ veil of ignorance to justify redistributive taxation ought to apply it to more areas of life.)
There are, of course, countless examples. Many with genetic diseases lead very happy, productive lives. No one who has met children with Down syndrome would seriously claim that they do not by and large enjoy life immensely. (I can think of, in fact, a couple exactly like the B’s: both of them wheelchair-bound with degenerative diseases, who had a daughter who is lovely and precious, and take care of her very well thank you very much. Since you ask, the girl does not share their disease, though there was a big chance she would have.)
But once we’ve decided that we can determine a priori which lives will be worth living, that some people have a duty not to bring into the world people who are different, then truly we are missing something fundamental.
Do I think the B’s have a duty to reproduce? I don’t think they have more or less of a duty than the A’s, because I think all people are equal in dignity. I do think society has a duty to make it easier for the B’s to lead normal lives, which includes bringing up children should they want to.
It’s kind of amazing that this has to be said.
And… I can’t help myself. I work in a special ed classroom with a number of precious, beautiful kids who would probably have been aborted if some of the perverted beings who wrote the books reviewed by The New Yorker had their way. So here’s my response to them.
That photo is exactly the right response!
I disagree with both of you, especially Douthat. No one has a right to demand from me an explanation of what I’ve done with my body parts unless I have used them to actively harm others (and before we derail into abortion, I wouldn’t consider a fetus one of my body parts). Douthat’s argument that we, as a population, have a responsibility to have children because we exist, is silly; in fact, it’s ridiculous, for several reasons. For one thing, it boils down to “we should have children because someone had us,” which is arguing from tradition in the worst way. It also presumes a contract, a responsibility, that one party had no part in making– I don’t remember a sign saying “By exiting this womb you agree to have children.” No one asked us if we wanted to be born, and certainly none of us agreed to have children as recompense for being born.
His naming of reproduction as the “best way to express an appropriate gratitude for… ‘the unbought grace of life’” is also oddly specific and rather inaccurate. Why does he presume to speak for all parents as to what they want and expect from their children in return for being born? What gives him the status necessary to say that this one act is, without question, the “best way”? If you desire to do something out of gratitude for being alive in the world, then make the world a better place; the best way to “pay back” is to make the world better, not to make more people, which we are not running out of. And having children does not necessarily make the world better; often it makes it worse. Nor are our parents the only ones responsible for our lives. If we wish to give thanks to God for being alive, then surely we should do that by following his commandments. Both Christ and Paul tell us that having a family can make working for the Kingdom more difficult.
I don’t believe it’s ever immoral not to have children, but it may be immoral to choose to have them. The number of people on the planet is hurting the poorest of us, and those of us living resource-intensive lifestyles have a disproportionate impact (even though a lack of gross resources is not necessarily the cause of these problems). I believe that choosing to have children beyond the replacement rate is immoral; given that the global population is exploding upwards, choosing not to have children may often be a better choice than choosing to have children at or below the replacement rate.
The “burden of proof” is not on non-parents to explain why they are not having children, it is on parents to explain why they are. Bringing a new person into the world is a significant event that absolutely should not be undertaken as a matter of course, as the “default.” You should know what you’re getting into and have concrete reasons why you want to have children before you choose to do so– not just because everyone else does it. It’s a new person. That’s not a decision you should undertake without understanding and reason!
I do not plan to have children. I do not owe anyone an explanation about that, but if I did, “I don’t want to” is and should be considered a sufficient explanation. Of course having children is considered the default, and a good thing to do, because we experience a strong evolutionary drive to reproduce. But call a spade a spade; don’t wrap that drive up in terms of morality. Yes, “be fruitful and multiply,” but the most famous instance of that verse was uttered when there were two people on the planet. We have multipled past the point of fruitfulness, as it were.
I also feel that Gobry’s response misses the point, at least in terms of the arguments you chose to highlight in your post. It’s not about the suffering of the child you may have, but about the suffering that child may cause in others.
Aydan – Good response there, lots to talk about. One brief response before dinner, I’ll try to get back a bit more later.
One of the real issues with contemporary morality is that we think of it exclusively in terms of how our decisions affect other people. That’s part of ethics, but it’s not the sum total. Lewis uses the analogy of a fleet of ships: Ethics consists of making sure those ships sail in right relationship with each other, individual upkeep of each individual ship and insuring that the ships reach the right destination.
Put another way, ethics is relational, ontological, and teleological. I think there’s a strong relational argument for having kids. Namely, the many good things those children might do for the world. But the best arguments, in my opinion, are the ontological and the teleological. Ontologically speaking, one of the chief agents for change in my own life will be having kids. If I’m going to be a good parent, I’ll have to learn greater patience, compassion, discernment, and perseverance. Finally, teleologically speaking… I think a Christian ethic of sex that separates sexual expression from having children is a bad Christian ethic. (Obv. if you choose celibacy that’s your choice and you’ve every right to do so, Christianly speaking. But if you’re going to be married, then I don’t think Christianity really gives the option to consciously choose against having children. Obv. some couples will be unable to get pregnant, other complications can arise, etc. etc. and I understand that and want to accommodate those exceptional cases. At the same time, in Christianity I don’t think you can separate the sexual embrace of a married couple from having children. I think they’re one and the same.
One other point – The point of this post was certainly not to say “everyone must have children.” I understand that for most people outside the church there isn’t a single compelling reason to do so. And that’s fine. Likewise, many will choose to be celibate and that is also fine. The issue I was taking up in the post was to say “those who do choose to have children are not committing an evil act, contra the writers reviewed in the New Yorker piece.
Thanks for your reply, Jake.
It’s true that children might do good things for the world, but it’s equally true that they might do bad things for the world. The way we Americans live, in general, hurts other people, and by having more children, we’re contributing to that problem. It’s not a moral issue, or something to get emotional over, it’s just a fact; it’s something to be acknowledged and deliberately chosen– “owned,” if you will– if you have children.
I don’t think you can argue from “I think having children would make me a better person” to “having children should be the default” (which is what’s implied by Douthat saying childless couples have something to explain). What’s true for you is not true for everyone else. There are ways to learn patience, compassion, discernment, and perseverance without having children, and those ways don’t necessitate making a whole new person so you can have someone to practice on. In fact, while I don’t mean to condemn your choices, I think that having children to motivate personal change is a poor reason to have them; it’s analogous to adopting a pet to make you more responsible. It can have that effect, but it’s not really fair to the pet (and no comparison between pets and children is meant here besides the explicit one).
I am Christian, and “inside” the church, and I believe that birth control is moral (without getting into the side issue of birth control as abortificacient); I, personally, don’t think there’s a “single compelling reason” to have children. I don’t say that in an attempt to make you acknowledge that I’m right– far from it– but my position is also one that exists in Christianity. It’s not just about inside the church vs. outside the church.
I realize, too, that your post was not about forcing everyone to have children, but by uncritically quoting Douthat’s passage about permanent childlessness demanding some explanation, you appear to be taking a stronger stance than simply saying “having children is not an evil act.” There’s plenty of space in between the two.