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"not having children denies life to other humans. Your own children, no less". I fail to see how this is true in any sense without having some sort of moral fa
by Broken_Hippo 10y ago
"not having children denies life to other humans. Your own children, no less".
I fail to see how this is true in any sense without having some sort of moral fabric, religion, or something to base this off of. I can't possibly see how not having children is denying life to anyone. I can't deny life to something that doesn't exist, after all.
Could you explain how you come to the conclusion that a person not having children denies life to other humans - both your own children (who don't exist!) and folks that aren't?
- toasterlovin 10y agoMy reasoning is simple (and I am open to it being wrong): there are two possible futures. One in which you have children and one in which you don't. The future in which you have children has people in it that do not (and can not) exist in the other future. Which of these two futures happens is solely at your discretion. Thus, my thinking goes, if you choose not to have children, you are denying them the life they would otherwise have. This is not a legal argument. Unborn people do not have rights. Nor do I think choosing not to have children is equivalent to murder or anything like that. Nonetheless, this is a moral issue I think is worth considering. Furthermore, though my view may seem outlandish, I think most reasonable people engage in similar reasoning about the wellbeing of unborn people. For instance: Do you think it's important to leave the Earth a decent place for future generations of humans? If so, why? After all, those future humans don't exist yet.
- Broken_Hippo 10y agoThanks muchly for the reply - it was exactly the sort I was looking for, thank you. Always (Usually?) fun to understand other points of view.