The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers on issues both timely and timeless.
As
a young woman in my 20s I pondered whether or not to have children. Is
there a way, I wondered, to decide thoughtfully rather than carelessly
about this most momentous of human choices?
Having children has impact far beyond the family circle.
It’s
a tough decision because you can’t know ahead of time what sort of
child you will have or what it will be like to be a parent. You can’t
understand what is good or what is hard about the process of creating
and rearing until after you have the child. And the choice to have a
child is a decision to change your life forever. It’s irreversible, and
therefore, compared to reversible life choices about education, work,
geographical location or romance, it has much greater ethical
importance.
Choosing whether or not to procreate may not seem like
the sort of decision that is deserving or even capable of analysis. The
Canadian novelist Margaret Laurence wrote, “I don’t really feel I have
to analyze my own motives in wanting children. For my own reassurance?
For fun? For ego-satisfaction? No matter. It’s like (to me) asking why
you want to write. Who cares? You have to, and that’s that.”
In fact, people are still expected to provide reasons
not
to have children, but no reasons are required to have them. It’s
assumed that if individuals do not have children it is because they are
infertile, too selfish or have just not yet gotten around to it. In any
case, they owe their interlocutor an explanation. On the other hand, no
one says to the proud parents of a newborn, Why did you choose to have
that child? What are your reasons? The choice to procreate is not
regarded as needing any thought or justification.
Nonetheless, I think Laurence’s “Who cares?” attitude is mistaken.
We
are fortunate that procreation is more and more a matter of choice. Not
always, of course — not everyone has access to effective contraception
and accessible abortion, and some women are subjected to enforced
pregnancy. But the growing availability of reproductive choice makes it
clear that procreation cannot be merely an expression of personal taste.
Leif Parsons
The
question whether to have children is of course prudential in part; it’s
concerned about what is or is not in one’s own interests. But it is
also
an ethical question, for it is about whether to bring a person (in some
cases more than one person) into existence — and that person cannot, by
the very nature of the situation, give consent to being brought into
existence. Such a question also profoundly affects the well-being of
existing people (the potential parents, siblings if any, and
grandparents). And it has effects beyond the family on the broader
society, which is inevitably changed by the cumulative impact — on
things like education, health care, employment, agriculture, community
growth and design, and the availability and distribution of resources —
of individual decisions about whether to procreate.
There are
self-help books on the market that purport to assist would-be parents in
making a practical choice about whether or not to have children. There
are also informal discussions on Web sites, in newspapers and magazines
and in blogs. Yet the ethical nature of this choice is seldom
recognized, even — or especially — by philosophers.
Perhaps people
fail to see childbearing as an ethical choice because they think of it
as the expression of an instinct or biological drive, like sexual
attraction or “falling in love,” that is not amenable to ethical
evaluation. But whatever our biological inclinations may be, many human
beings do take control over their fertility, thanks to contemporary
means of contraception and abortion. The rapidly declining birthrate in
most parts of the world is evidence of that fact. While choosing whether
or not to have children may involve feelings, motives, impulses,
memories and emotions, it can and should also be a subject for careful
reflection.
If we fail to acknowledge that the decision of whether
to parent or not is a real choice that has ethical import, then we are
treating childbearing as a mere expression of biological destiny.
Instead of seeing having children as something that women
do, we will continue to see it as something that simply
happens to women, or as something that is merely “natural” and animal-like.
The
decision to have children surely deserves at least as much thought as
people devote to leasing a car or buying a house. Procreation decisions
are about whether or not to assume complete responsibility, over a
period of at least 18 years, for a new life or new lives. Because
deciding whether to procreate has ethical dimensions, the reasons people
give for their procreative choices deserve examination. Some reasons
may be better — or worse — than others.
My aim, I hasten to add,
is not to argue for policing people’s procreative motives. I am simply
arguing for the need to think systematically and deeply about a
fundamental aspect of human life.
The burden of proof — or at
least the burden of justification — should therefore rest primarily on
those who choose to have children, not on those who choose to be
childless. The choice to have children calls for more careful
justification and thought than the choice not to have children because
procreation creates a dependent, needy, and vulnerable human being whose
future may be at risk. The individual who chooses childlessness takes
the ethically less risky path. After all, nonexistent people can’t
suffer from not being created. They do not have an entitlement to come
into existence, and we do not owe it to them to bring them into
existence. But once children do exist, we incur serious responsibilities
to them.
Because children are dependent, needy and vulnerable,
prospective parents should consider how well they can love and care for
the offspring they create, and the kind of relationship they can have
with them. The genuinely unselfish life plan may at least sometimes be
the choice not to have children, especially in the case of individuals
who would otherwise procreate merely to adhere to tradition, to please
others, to conform to gender conventions, or to benefit themselves out
of the inappropriate expectation that children will fix their problems.
Children are neither human pets nor little therapists.
Some people
claim that the mere fact that our offspring will probably be happy
gives us ample reason to procreate. The problem with this argument is,
first, that there are no guarantees. The sheer unpredictability of
children, the limits on our capacities as parents, and the instability
of social conditions make it unwise to take for granted that our progeny
will have good lives. But just as important, justifying having kids by
claiming that our offspring will be happy provides no stopping point for
procreative behavior. If two children are happy, perhaps four will be,
or seven, or 10.
The
unwillingness to stop is dramatized by the so-called Octomom, Nadya
Suleman, who first had six children via in vitro fertilization, then
ended up with eight more from just one pregnancy, aided by her
reprehensible doctor, Michael Kamrava. Higher-order-multiple pregnancies
often create long-term health problems for the children born of them.
It’s also unlikely that Suleman can provide adequate care for and
attention to her 14 children under the age of 12, especially in light of
her recent bankruptcy, her very public attempts to raise money, and the
impending loss of their home. Was Suleman’s desire for a big family
fair to her helpless offspring?
Consider also reality television
“stars” Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar, the parents of 19 children. The
Duggars claim to have religious motives for creating their large family.
But it’s not at all clear that God places such a high value on the
Duggar genetic heritage. Unlike Suleman, the Duggars don’t struggle to
support their brood, but mere financial solvency is not a sufficient
reason to birth more than a dozen and a half offspring, even if the kids
seem reasonably content.
People like the Duggars and Suleman
might respond that they have a right to reproduce. Certainly they are
entitled to be free from state interference in their procreative
behavior; compulsory contraception and abortion, or penalties for having
babies, are abhorrent. But a right to non-interference does not, by
itself, justify every decision to have a baby.
We should not
regret the existence of the children in these very public families, now
that they are here. My point is just that their parents’ models of
procreative decision making deserve skepticism. The parents appear to
overlook what is ethically central: the possibility of forming a
supportive, life-enhancing and close relationship with each of their
offspring.
After struggling with our own decision about whether to
procreate, in the end my spouse and I chose to have two children, whom
we adore. The many rewards and challenges of raising kids have gradually
revealed the far-reaching implications of procreative decision making.
In choosing to become a parent, one seeks to create a relationship, and,
uniquely, one also seeks to create the person with whom one has the
relationship. Choosing whether or not to have children is therefore the
most significant ethical debate of most people’s lives.
Christine
Overall is a professor of philosophy and holds a University Research
Chair at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. She is the author of
“Why Have Children? The Ethical Debate.”
