should humans stop procreating?
“Again I looked, and I considered all the oppression taking place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed, and they had no comforter; the power lay in the hands of their oppressors, and there was no comforter. So I admired the dead, who had already died, above the living, who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet existed, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun. - Ecclesiastes 4:1”
Last week I discovered the term “anti-natalism”. As you may have been able to guess, anti-natalists are against natalism - giving birth, procreation, or otherwise the continuation of life on this planet. They believe birthing children into an inherently flawed world is ethically wrong..environmentally irresponsible, even.. and in a way I don’t blame them. The fact that a set of humans can assume the responsibility of creating and then birthing another human into the world without its consent, exposing it to a lifetime of danger and suffering doesn’t exactly seem fair to me. No one ever asks a child whether or not they want to be born. Their souls are brought to earth against their will and are then expected to just deal with the circumstances they’ve been given.
We are all fighting for our lives here, until our inevitable death.
Parents selfishly procreate with regard to only their own self-interest. Because, lets face it, even the most well-intentioned parents may be unknowingly nurturing serial killer, rapist, mass murderer, pedophilic sociopath spawn from within the womb. How a child perceives the world on its own and what it then does with this perception out in the world is always a mystery until AFTER the child is born. So having children is a risk…always a risk.Â
Take Ted Bundy, for instance, who had a relatively normal childhood and even claimed to be treated very well by his parents. He would later grow up to be truly horrendous - kidnapping, raping, and murdering at least 30 women all before the age of 43. There are many others out there, just like Ted Bundy; and many more waiting to be born...
Every year, thousands of kids end up in foster care because their parents can’t take care of them. Thousands more go hungry and get sick. The fact that a child will be bullied and experience emotional abuse at some point is inevitable. And it’s all their parent’s fault. There are dangers in this world that no amount of sheltering will protect their children from; suffering is just a consequence of a child being born. What if we could spare any more lives from experiencing that same fate by just not having children?
We’ve been warned for years that the world is becoming overpopulated. Whether that’s true or not is consistently up for debate; but there’s no denying the human race’s impact on the earth has not always been a fruitful one. In fact, we are the ones destroying the world and each other while we’re at it. We are the very monsters that we assume only exist in works of fiction and fantasy. Yes, there is plenty of good we have done since being given the responsibility of populating the earth. But what if populating the earth is the very thing that is destroying us? This is the question that anti-natalism postulates and concludes that life is pointless and there’s no real reason to procreate. That life should end with us and it shouldn’t be an aspiration while living to continue it. The only real way to achieve world peace is to ultimately stop creating human beings. And it is when, and only when, humans cease to exist that world peace will truly be achieved.Â
How’s that as food for thought?
Throughout my life this notion of anti-natalism and wishing I’d never been born has been a recurring theme. Unhealed trauma will do that to a person. I’ve had moments where I thought the wounds being inflicted upon me were intentional by some unseen force and that all of life was just a sick game where I was at the mercy of a sadistic god that hates me.Â
Viewing the world through that type of lens, why would I want to bring more children here? What the earth really needs is to be destroyed, so pressing that red button right now would be doing all of us a favor. I would be lying if I said I didn’t have fantasies of being the one to smash it. I’m human; and at the core of every human is a shadow side with which we coexist.
So, why are people still having children? Are the ones having them oblivious to the fact that they’re contributing to world suffering? Or have they realized something anti-natalists haven’t?
As much as we’d like to, we can’t remove suffering from the world ourselves. Though we may try, it’s impossible. As much as we hate to accept it.. life is suffering, and perhaps people having babies have learned to accept something Buddha discovered along time ago.
There’s no escaping it.
But there are ways to cope.
For some, having children brings them the hope that they may be able to find a little joy in living…because life is short, and is suffering, but joy can be found in things as typical as having a child. For some, having children takes the focus off themselves and their own suffering and inspires them try and make life better for someone else. While still arguably a selfish act, it’s a good deed nonetheless. What can we do? We were given these bodies…are we not supposed to use them? We’ll never be able to control all the unpleasant experiences waiting to happen to our kids, but we can at least TRY to give them a good life and help guide them along with what we know. As with most things in life, we can only do our best… and isn’t that all God should be expecting of us anyway? We’re only human.
One of the core and founding components of the bible was that Jesus was born and gave hope to all humanity. Born of another human into a flesh and blood body made him a mortal being, susceptible to all the things we’re susceptible to. But yet, it was His destiny to become Jesus. And has since been the light and life-giving figure we know today. What if Jesus had never been born?
He was born, however, to save humans…aaand if there were no humans we wouldn’t need saving now would we?
But the fact of the matter is that there ARE humans. And there are some humans who are born to leave a legacy behind.Â
There are two types of people: those that save and those that need saving…. maybe you’re one of them? And maybe, just maybe, that’s the purpose of being given life.
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