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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.

Related More From The Stone Read previous contributions to this series.

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.”