Is it ethical to have children?

Its good that some people don't have children. Especially when they view them as a burden of some kind. I suspect involuntary celibacy helps them to not, at least most of the time. I think people who have an abundance mentality tend to be good parents and should have children.

Given the amount of resorces a single person in the first world consumes, it is not a bad idea to limit population growth. And deciding to not have kids now is not as final as it use to be in the past. People are having kids in their 40s after they change their minds.

leftrightleftrightleft said:

So if you might be a good parent, you should have children?

That's your argument for having children?

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Sounds like the best reason. If someone is good at a thing it is best for them to do it rather than an incompetent.

Thinking that not having children to save resources is somehow noble, seems to me to be simply childish lunacy from an environmental zealot.

leftrightleftrightleft said:

That's a terrible argument for doing something. So, if someone is good at murdering someone they should do so because it is better than an incompetent person murdering someone?

Makes no sense as a moral argument...

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Good thing no one made that argument. do you really think murdering and child bearing are in the same moral ballpark? I would think that being a good parent is something quite different than being a "good murderer". Wouldn't it be better for only those that are good parents to have children. Why good parents might even teach their children not to make 4.5 lbs of trash per day.

The average American makes 4.5 pounds of solid trash every day. Link.

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So what? Do you think making trash is immoral?

That's over 100,000 pounds for the average American adult's lifetime and only includes the trash that the person physically throws out. It doesn't include all the waste produced from creating the product or packaging which he/she throws out. And that doesn't include air pollution or sewage.

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How is that relevant to bearing children. What the average person does at a specific time in a specific place is kind of a silly reason to either have or not have children and again can you show me how making trash is immoral?

I'm no environmental zealot but that still seems like a lot. Furthermore, for what? You still haven't provided a reason why the creation of all that waste is worth it beyond some selfish thought like, "Hmmm, I think I'll be a good parent".

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I do not equate a living, breathing human being with trash. If you do not want to make trash then refrain from making it and teach any child you might have to do the same. There is no need to be average or to take the fatalistic view that any child will inevitably create 4.5 pounds of trash every day because that is how it averages out. There is surely a statistic about how many rapes or murders are committed on average by humans every day so let's none of us ever have children because every child will committ .0003 murders and .0009 rapes per year. If having children is immoral because that child might make a bit of trash then would you advocate extermination of already living people in order to slow down the rate of trash accumulation? Should we decide how many pounds of trash are acceptable per year and just randomly exrterminate the number of people it ought to take to meet that goal. Say we need to eliminate 9,000,000 lbs of trash per day , if we kill off any random 200,000 people we will surely meet our goal as every single one of them must make 4.5 lbs. of trash because that is what the stats say is the average amount.

Now you will have to excuse me as I have only made about 2.35 lbs of trash today and I do not want to be below average and throw all the statistics off so I must find a way to make some more trash before the day is over.

I wouldn't call it unethical to have children of your own. That's your personal decision, and everyone feels differently about it.

It's not something I'd do myself (I don't want to endure pregnancy), but that's just me and I know it doesn't hold true to everyone else. Thinking about possibly adopting in the future.

leftrightleftrightleft said:

One of my good friends does not want to have kids. He cites reasons such as overpopulation and suffering as reasons to not have them.

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Perhaps your friend shouldn't have kids then.
Or perhaps your friend might change his/her mind after the passing of time or circumstances.

His other big complaint is that those people that do want to have kids rarely have a good, logical reason for wanting to do so, nor do they consider the ethical implications of having kids.

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Hmm... Sounds like your friend might have some things in common with a few governments or dictators who declare themselves authorities on what is or isn't (for others) good, logic, or even "reason."
Is he/she from China?

And ethical implications?
Hmm... I might tend to agree (to a degree) with your friend on that very small facet in a certain light; although, most of the lack of actually considering anything, much more so regarding morality or ethics, isn't necessarily from people wanting kids so much as people wanting to go through the physical acts... that end up having kids.
There certainly are problems when a freedom exists and people are allowed to do things without getting it cleared with an authority on good, bad, logic and reason, etc.

I personally want to have kids some day, but I'm having trouble justifying why as a counter-argument to his reasoning for not having kids. I think there is something profound about having kids, continuing a unique genetic heritage on the "tree of life" while also combining DNA with another human being to create some new human being. But I don't know if this is a good enough reason because the reasons I state seem inherently selfish…which is disconcerting.

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Hmm... perhaps if you think you need to justify to your friend a why that passes his litmus test, you shouldn't have kids. I am assuming, of course, that your "friend" isn't the other half of your so-called "combining DNA" analogy.

Is it wrong to have kids that are going to consume more resources and inevitably suffer and die?

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Hmm... are you asking regarding yourself or asking in regards to speak for others or everyone? Do you think whoever bore you did something wrong and you feel compelled to chastise them? Sorry, you should understand that I find the "need" (for lack of a better term) to ask such a question more interesting than whatever someone might post as a yes, no, or maybe "answer" to the question posed.

That aside and by all means: if you have reason for why you should not have kids, then don't have kids right now.
Hope you find what you need.

leftrightleftrightleft said:

So you think it might be a good idea not to have kids but then also suggest that people have kids later on?

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No, I think your friend has a justifiable reason not to have kids, but he could change his mind later on, thanks to medical science.

This sounds even worse because the risks in pregnancy go up exponentially after the woman has past the age of 35. Not only risks to the woman, but risks to the fetus as well.

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It is not as bad as you think, provided your in a hospital or maternity ward. I am not saying the risk doesn't up, but it can be midigated by location to advance medical care and early preventive care.

I don't see what is unethical about having children. If you have 1 or 2 children, you are either reducing the population, or keeping it the same. I think we will be okay.

Personally, I don't know if I want children. I want children, but I don't want pregnancy, or crying, moaning, poopy-ness. I do think there is value in having children though... and my parents probably want grandchildren... so I have to make mummy and daddy proud.

leftrightleftrightleft said:

... If I can't justify it to myself and/or to others, then it means I'm acting irrationally.


... We are both still in post-grad schooling...

... And as I said before, I like to have reasons and justifications for my actions, otherwise I am acting irrationally...

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If you are in post grad schooling, please allow me to take a moment to point out a fallacy for you: Perhaps reviewing bifurcation, false dilemma, black-or-white, either/or, etc. may help see a flaw in the above selections of your post.
I'll go further: a person CAN BE "justified" to himself or herself, but that does not equate it to being rational, moral or ethical. Conversely, one's inability to fully understand the reasons or be able to adequately articulate their actions to a degree another accepts does not mean they are (by default) acting irrational. It may be that the person only has partial understanding or are unable to articulate to another who holds the bar unreasonably high with regards to what may be a complex consideration.
It is a LEAP of faith to inherently equate all things irrational that doesn't pass over an arbitrary qualifier. It would also be a break in logic to expect the intangible aspects of life to qualify as an oversimplified tangible that can be put in a small box that fits all situations and all people.

Speaking for myself and my family, we had children because children are (and ours have proven to be thus far) a blessing to each of us. There is joy in the sharing, caring, and growing together as unique creations, but united as mother, father, brother, sister... family. Each brings an attribute that if taken away would be considered a loss now that it is valued by all.
As for suffering and death, I am a Christian. I anticipate there to be suffering in this fallen world and I am under no misconceptions that our bodies will live forever or that this mortal coil will be taken away without God's intervention.

I think its up to a couple to decide. However... I do think theres needs to be laws in place for those who have children with no regards to their actions.

By that I mean in todays world everyone wants kids, but most just marry young and pop out kids without saying "Can we afford one?" or "Can we handle one?". And some of those people are living off of the government. Between food stamps, welfare....ect. Instead of having no more kids, they have 12. They don't bother caring about the fact its costing the system, but they also don't care about the childs welfare. Do 12 kids really want to grow up in a rundown tiny apartment? Do they really want to eat junk food because its all the parents can afford? Do they really want to not have alot of friends?

So in cases like that I think theres needs to be some sort of law. Now some might say "Its up to them!". But what happens to those kids when the parents get in trouble? They end up being put up for adoption. Being throw around the system for years on end. They end up with issues too. Its not fair to the child if mom and dad are selfish.

However I do realize the government programs are not actually hurting the economy much. If anything they barley effect it. Its other things like military budgets and junk like that, that puts us in debt.

I think that it is simple: to survive, do you need children?

For most people past and present, the answer is "Yes".

For some people, such as probably 99% of people today in industrialized countries, the answer is "No". For those people, children are an economic liability. For those people, children contribute nothing to household income and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to take care of and support. Meanwhile, I do not think that the argument that one will need his/her adult children to take care of him/her when he/she is old is a good argument--one can pay people who are not his/her friends or family to provide such care.

If your answer is "No"--if you can survive without children--then you have to ask what else you would hope to accomplish by having children and if those things could be accomplished some way other than having children. If the answer to the latter is "Yes" then you probably should not have children--having children simply for the sake of having children is probably never good for anybody.

leftrightleftrightleft said:

"If someone is good at a thing (e.g. murder, having children, playing sports) it is best for them to do it rather than an incompetent."

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I hope you realize it is somewhat unethical to insert your own parenthetical into something that is supposedly a quote.

Your statement does not mention any conditions on what that "thing" should be. So, in a way, you did make that argument because you never said that "being good at a thing" cannot include certain "things" (like murder, rape, etc). That's why its a bad argument, because it leads to ridiculous conclusions.

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"If someone is good at a thing it is best for them to do it rather than an incompetent."
No reasonable person, knowing the context of the discussion. would say I was talking about criminal activity here. Unless they were shown a version in which someone unethically inserted some parenthetical examples making it seem that I for some reason thought that criminal activity needed to be carried out competently and wanted to mention it in a tangent far removed form what the topic was.

Yes. But that doesn't say anything about whether having children is ethical or not. It only says that good parents would be "better" at raising kids than bad parents. This is self-evident by the definition of "good parent".

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That is simply an irrelevant question as having children is not in itself unethical anymore than not having children is unethical. There is no good moral argument to be made that either of those are.

In certain situations, yes.

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Then think the same thing about having children. It is not inherently immoral but only immoral if you were a bad parent , could not care for your child, didn't like children etc. but just having children is an amoral act neither good nor bad in and of itself.

Killing people that are already living is significantly different than willfully bringing another human into existence. You can't hurt or cause pain to something that doesn't exist; you can however cause pain to people that are alive and exist.

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So. making trash then is not the greatest of all evils I take it?

Your point about rape and murder is a good one though. By having children you are acknowledging that the child you have will suffer. It is unlikely they will be raped or murdered or rape or murder (although there is some chance). However, there is a 100% chance they will suffer. They will enter the world crying and cold.

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Then comfort them and clothe them so they feel better. I take the fact that the suicide rate is somewhat less than 50% and the seeming determination of the vast majority of humans now living to remain living as evidence that the suffering you seem so worried about is not sufficiently horrendous to offset the enjoyment of life for most people. They must prefer suffering a bit more than they desire non existence.

Also, you have still not provided any sort of positive argument on why one should have kids.

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That was not the topic and not the reason I weighed in on the subject. I see no reason why i should provide one. I am not arguing that everyone ought to have children nor that it is immoral not to. My point is that there is no reason not to other than if a person knows that they would botch the job of parent.

Is there a compelling reason why people should have kids?

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Preservation of the species. If no one has children the human race dies out. However, we cannot say that the general must apply in the specific. If a particular person does not have children, it does not lead to extinction of the race. We also know from experience that, minus some global catastrophe, there will always be enough humans willing and eager to bear children for the species to survive. Therefore any human not willing,eager and competent to do so has not only the right but the responsibility to refrain. Refraining for spurious reasons, like trash accumulation or the existence of suffering in the world, by one who is willing and eager and able and competent is just silly though. Trash accumulation is not a constant nor is it a given that each person will accumulate the average especially if the person is raised not to accumulate that amount. Suffering is not a constant and must be weighed against the joy of living that also exists in the world as evidenced by the amount of people that have obviously decided that it is better to live than not to live.

leftrightleftrightleft said:

One of my good friends does not want to have kids. He cites reasons such as overpopulation and suffering as reasons to not have them. His other big complaint is that those people that do want to have kids rarely have a good, logical reason for wanting to do so, nor do they consider the ethical implications of having kids.

I personally want to have kids some day, but I'm having trouble justifying why as a counter-argument to his reasoning for not having kids. I think there is something profound about having kids, continuing a unique genetic heritage on the "tree of life" while also combining DNA with another human being to create some new human being. But I don't know if this is a good enough reason because the reasons I state seem inherently selfish…which is disconcerting.

Is it wrong to have kids that are going to consume more resources and inevitably suffer and die?

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Quite frankly, who gives a tinker's damn whether anyone else, friend or not, thinks it's ethical to have kids, If you truly want them, then have them, to hell with what "friend" thinks, if you don't want them, then again to Hell with what friend thinks. On one extreme, some panty-waist bozos thinks it's unethical and "environmentally and ecologically" incorrect to have kids, on other extreme, these quiver creeps that think having 20 or 30 kids is ordained and commanded from God and raise their girls to be future brood-mares.
I say do your own thing, [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse], don't worry about anyone else. It's your body, your house, your wallet, your sanity, not theirs. If your concerns or statements are selfish, then so be it, being selfish never bothered me in the least. I am loudly and proudly selfish, no lame apology here, doesn't disconcert me in the least. And "bless and do not curse", blah, blah, blah.

leftrightleftrightleft said:

One of my good friends does not want to have kids. He cites reasons such as overpopulation and suffering as reasons to not have them. His other big complaint is that those people that do want to have kids rarely have a good, logical reason for wanting to do so, nor do they consider the ethical implications of having kids.

I personally want to have kids some day, but I'm having trouble justifying why as a counter-argument to his reasoning for not having kids. I think there is something profound about having kids, continuing a unique genetic heritage on the "tree of life" while also combining DNA with another human being to create some new human being. But I don't know if this is a good enough reason because the reasons I state seem inherently selfish…which is disconcerting.

Is it wrong to have kids that are going to consume more resources and inevitably suffer and die?

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Your friend is over analyzing this.

If every couple sat around searching for a logical reason, considering the ethical implications of having children, justifying their personal reasoning for their desire to become parents.....we'd probably be extinct. If we did so, nobody would have the guts to conceive.

Desiring children is probably the one acceptable selfish feeling one could ever have. But even it in its selfishness is selfless...and how? You're at the same time choosing to give life to another human being. To give it food, shelter, protection, and love.