If we’re going to pretend to get all logical and ethical about it we should not stop halfway. If we’re serious about this line of thinking we’d follow through and off ourselves too. Otherwise we’re just saying to the next generation “I got mine but you can’t have yours, because - ethics.”

All the people who think not having any children is the way to deal with climate change (not having a dozen is a different matter) should indeed not have any - get that faulty logic out of the gene pool! As long as they don’t start trying to tell me what to do, I’m all for it!

(I have no offspring, but it had nothing to do with climate.)

I think the most ethical thing to do would be to make long term effective birth control free, easily available and encouraged for any human that is willing to use it.

I get mad when i see large families being interviewed on TV or in papers, how tremendous they are, but I just want to go and smack those two adults and take them both at once to the hospital, have his tubes cut and hers as well. So selfish, they cannot take care of the needs of those children. People say it is fine if they can afford them but it is not only about money. There is no way you can give all those kids emotional support if you have so many.

In my opinion the world is a really user-unfriendly shity place. If you want your Offspring to live in a shity place then yes have them.

I might not say it's unethical, but may be irresponsible in some cases. I live where people are having 4-6 kids per family. I feel it's rather irresponsible at a time when our resources and environment are incredibly strained.

I chose to not have children mostly because I can't stand kids, especially babies. I made this decision when I was 6 years old!!! My brothers chose to not have children as well. My parents are somewhat disappointed because the family name ends with us. But the world will go on just fine without our name or our genes. My mother never liked children and had us just because it was expected/tradition (you get married, you have children). We never experienced feeling like we were wanted. If people choose to have children, I hope they put some thought into the impact their decision could make on themselves, their families, their community, and the planet.

I have them three times a day - for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They're all raised in free-range conditions and are slaughtered humanely, so I consider it ethical.

The problem isn't htat people are having children, it's that people are having more children than the planet can sustain. So is it ethical that a couple has a child? I'd say yes, if they also have the ability and desire to raise a child. Is it ethical for a couple to have 10 children? I say no.

I believe most children are good arguments for birth control. Maybe I'm an old troglodyte, but I believe children are annoying, expensive, & more trouble than they're worth

Some may say it's selfish, but when you have children, it's not about you anymore. You spend about 25 years of your life nurturing them, handling their endless problems, putting them through college, grad school & such. Then they don't give a damn about you until they come around to put you in a nursing home where you will be treated badly & grab your inheritance.

I know if everybody felt like I do, the human race would come to s screeching halt, but that might not be a bad idea

Not more than one child. Natural carrying capacity of naked killer apes on Earth is less than a billion, as it was for 7 million years, including proto humans. Our present INSANE number of nearly 8 billion heading towards a projected 10 or 12 billion is caused by Oil Production. Once people KNOW this it is hard to argue with those facts. Three times as many of us now than when I was born in 1955! Turn down oil taps and our numbers will fall.

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To me the ethics of having a child has to do more with what kind of life you can reasonably expect to provide for it. The only place that climate change comes into it, is whether you believe it will oblige your child to live in a dystopian reality.

There is, of course, the antinatalist argument that even a relatively ideal life is a life of suffering, whereas not existing means no suffering. I think that takes it to the extreme, and even if it didn't, it's not a practical view that you're going to sell to anything but a handful of nutters. For it to work, the whole human race would have to strongly determine that having children is immoral, and go against every instinct it possesses, to bring itself to extinction.

I am still on the fence about the viability and worthiness of the human experiment. But it's going to go on whether I like it or not. I have paid the sunk cost to be here -- or at least, what's left of me. I'm not going to impose my view on children on anyone else, but both my wife and I agree, as much as we love the two children apiece that we brought into this world, we shouldn't have done it. It's not been a good deal for them OR for us. Too much suffering, too much unwanted drama.

Ethics doesnt come into it, because those who cite climate change and over population as reason for not having children....well, they are being a bit short sighted. They are not doing a basic reality check. Also I suspect they are simply using those topics as a cover for just not wanting to have children.

Overpopulation of earth is not really a problem. Overpopulation of a few cities is the issue. They are forgetting that we have populated only 25% of the earth surface...and a lot of it is empty of humans. There is also 75% of the earth's surface, vast oceans we can expand to and build cities. They are also forgetting that we are expanding space, which is filled with resources and is so big we could never over populate it. So overpopulation is only an issue if we don't create tech that will allow us to colonize a small portion of the oceans and space.

They are forgetting that we manipulate our enviroment to suit us. That we are still learning to do it with better precision control and understanding, with better efficiency and concern of other living creatures.

Climate change is only a problem if we don't use technology to fix it. Right now most solutions proposed just involves cutting back use. That's not happening.
What we need are technologies that capture co2 methane and other gases that raise the global temperature. NASA has a CO2 capture technology challenge where we create biotech that mimic trees to capture CO2 and convert it into sugar or fuel. That has a bette chance of suceeding than trying to force several billion people to cut back.

Also we are studying the weather enough to realize we can create tech that can control it locally. Tech that can diffuse or capture energy from tornadoes and hurricanes. Space or high atmosphere tech that can help control sun light and clean the environment. These are what we should be focusing on.

So we have to focus on these areas: climate control, air quality control tech, ocean colonization, space colonization, energy harvesting, efficient and symbiotic cities, efficient automated farming tech. These solutions will eliminate the apparent problems of overpopulation and climate change.

And we need a lot of scientists to accomplish all that. A LOT. So we actually need people to have children! And we need to spend more money on better educating them in the sciences and techs focusing on these areas.

That's how we are going survive and have a better quality of life.

So is it unethical to not have children? Well depends on whether one thinks children are more essential to the survival of humanity than simply existing. I say we need more to survive and have a better quality of life, not less.

I never gave it a moments thought, I just didn't have children then I did. My children are a credit to their environment and do good things.

If you haven’t already, I would recommend checking out some of David Benatar’s videos on antinatalism. Although unsurprisingly controversial, it is a philosophy with which many people could empathize, perhaps.

The conservative notion that women should not have access to birth control because if they don’t want to have children they should just not have sex, comes to the opposite conclusion but uses a thought process similar to the liberal notion that women should not have babies because if they don’t want climate disaster, then they should just not participate in the most fundamental natural impulse humans possess - the desire to have a family. Just don’t participate in life’s most fundamental processes they both say.

It would make as much sense to tell people if you don’t like climate change then just stop eating. Sure, it would solve the problem, but it’s inhumane, unrealistic, and not gonna happen.

What the human race is suffering from is story-poisoning. We need a new narrative.

After reading some comments;
If you are having children or planing to have children so that they could take care of you and wipe your ass, then I must tell you that you really are a selfish and mean person who wants to have children so that they could take care of you when you are old enough that you can't take care of yourself. The best option according to my opinion is Voluntary euthanasia, when you figure out that you have lived your life and now you are not able to take care of yourself then it is better not to put others in trouble and bother them and also yourself.

Who's going to wipe our asses when we get old if we don't? At least this is what I tell my 9 year old.

"The decision "Children: yes or no" is not made in the prefrontal cortex, it is not rational, but comes from the depth of your personality and character. " Or in the case of the female, a seemingly hormonal imperative...and as your observation, not a rational decision at all.

I don't think it is immoral for people who want to have children to do so. I'm too old to have more now and, even if that were not so, I would make a conscious decision not to (and I wish my parents had been of the same opinion). However my attitude doesn't spring from adherence to fashionable obsessions like climate change or population growth. It emanates from my philosophical position (itself a bit fashionable, I admit) that life is not worth living.

If they found a way of paying people money to not have kids then they wouldnt and the population (Over 7 Billion} would go down and the earth would have a chance to heal.

I like to believe words matter and we need a more positive spin on people who chose to remain childfree.
I was like you and never had the desire to have a child and despite my first wife and my to stay that way one came along. Even though I am close to my daughter I learned my lesson and got snipped. My 2nd partner had alcoholism in her family and she and her dad were alcoholics. She wanted children but decided not to have any as she didn't want to take a chance and cause another to have to go through what she was deal with. Also, she was struggling enough and couldn't add another stressful element in her life.

I disagree with you in part on 2 points. I was a regional board member of ZPG and there was a woman who had 2 kids (but wanted many more) but when she discovered the impact on the environment (Climate change is only one of a myriad of major problems) she and her husband decided to have no more and she became an advocate for a reduced fertility rate. Foregoing having a child does have huge ramifications on the environment especially when one lives in the US. In the end things do add up.

To answer the question I would say at this point in time it is immoral to have kids especially when one knows of the impact not only on the planet but even on that child's future. I agree it is not rational and is often pushed by society and one's own selfishness.

Watch idiocracy movie and then think

Climate change is due to the aggregate consumption of vast numbers of human individuals! And peeps in the Western world consume with greater avarice than other people on the planet (although the Chinese are catching up). Therefore, having children of course negatively impacts climate change, and is basically a selfish act. It’s a no brainer! However, for some (including me), having a child can turn a meaningless life into one of meaning. Even as a young woman, I was aware that overpopulation was wreaking ecological havoc on the planet. And that deciding to have even one child was a selfish act! But I opted to have that one child. Now I have two grandchildren who face a life in a rapidly warming climate, making my decision seem even more selfish. Your post reflects an attitude of privilege so characteristic of western world. Look where this lack of humility has gotten us!

Well, I would ask more about how many people mistreat their kids while would give their lives to have one and they can't. In ethical terms I think this would be more relevant.

For me? No.

I laid those groundrules long ago and for reasons I will not relate.