Voluntary childlessness

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_childlessness

Voluntary childlessness, childfreeness, or being childfree, describes the voluntary choice not to have children.

In most societies and for most of human history, choosing not to have children was both difficult and undesirable (except for celibate individuals). The availability of reliable contraception along with support provided in old age by one's government or by one's savings rather than one's family has made childlessness an option for some people, though they may be looked down upon in certain communities.

The word childfree first appeared sometime before 1901 and entered common usage among feminists during the 1970s, The suffix -free denotes the freedom and personal choice of those to pick this lifestyle. The meaning of the term childfree extends to encompass the children of others (in addition to one's own children), and this distinguishes it further from the more usual term childless, which is traditionally used to express the idea of having no children, whether by choice or by circumstance. The term child-free has been cited in Australian literature to refer to parents who are without children at the current time. This may be due to them living elsewhere on a permanent basis or a short-term solution such as childcare.

Reasons cited for being voluntarily childless

Supporters of this lifestyle cite various reasons for their view. These reasons can be personal, social, philosophical, moral, economic, or a complex, nuanced combination of such reasons.

Psychosocial and personal

Woman jogging with a dog at Carcavelos beach, Portugal. Some people prefer pets to children. Many single childfree women are quite happy.

• Reluctance to replicate the genes of one's own parents in cases of child abuse.
• Parents can become less empathetic towards non-family members.
• Preference of pursuing personal development to raising children
• Lack of desire to perpetuate one's family line or pass on one's genes.
• Unwillingness to sacrifice freedom and independence to rearing children.
• Preference of having a pet over a child.
• Celibacy or a fear and/or revulsion towards sexual activity and intimacy or being an asexual
• Various fears for oneself or child
  • fear of a long-term stressful responsibility and performance anxiety
  • fear of not being able to love one's child
  • fear that one will give birth to a disabled child and taking care of whom is challenging
  • fear and/or revulsion towards children
• Perceived or actual incapacity to be a responsible and patient parent The view that spending time with one's nephews, nieces or stepchildren is sufficient for one's own happiness or otherwise already providing childcare as part of an extended family or godparent. Or situations where one's partner already has children from a previous relationship and one does not have a need or justification to bear or parent additional children.
• The view that one's friendships and relationships with adults are sufficient for one's own happiness
• Possible deterioration of interpersonal relationships.
• Dislike of (young) children's behavior, language, and/or biological processes.
• Uncertainty over the stability of the parenting relationship, and the damage to relationships or difficulties with them getting children may cause.
  • Partner does not want children.
  • Fear that sexual activity may decline. A long-term relationship or marriage might be in danger due to the stress created by children.
• Drop in the level of happiness after having a baby, though the level depends on a variety of factors, including sex, age, and nationality
• Gap in happiness between parents and the childfree in favour of the latter, even in places with generous social welfare programs
• The view that the wish to reproduce oneself is a form of narcissism

Cultural and demographic

Early twentieth-century postcard of a woman fighting a stork bringing her a child. As women's opportunities increase, they are less interested in having children.

• Lack of a suitable partner or difficulty getting married.
  • These trends are important in countries where having children out of wedlock is highly unusual.
• Disapproval of perfectionist attitudes towards child-rearing in modern societies
  • As a society becomes better developed, it is generally true that expectations of parental investment per child goes up, depressing fertility rates.
• Dislike of dedicated parents. In North American English, the (pejorative) term for this is 'soccer moms'.
• Changing cultural attitude towards children (known as the second demographic transition)
  • A result of women's liberation, education, and rising workforce participation
    • Women no longer need to marry and bear children in order to be economically secure
  • Transition from traditional and communal values towards expressive individualism
    • In the West, adherents of the countercultural or feminist movements in the 1960s and 1970s typically had no children
  • Growing awareness that childbearing is a choice
  • Declining support for traditional gender roles, and that people need to have children in order to be complete or successful
• Disapproval of the treatment and expectations of men and women
• Unwillingness to burden one's children with such care, or preventing a situation in which one's premature death will orphan one's children (at too young an age), or cause them too much sorrow at one's deathbed.

• Preventing long-term disruption of sleep.
• Availability of effective contraception, birth control, or sterilization, which makes the choice to remain voluntarily childless easier 
• Concerns over the effects and possible complications pregnancy has on the woman's body (weight gain, stretch marks, drooping breasts, hyperpigmentation on the face, looser pelvic muscles leading to reduced sexual pleasure for both the woman and her partner, hemorrhoids, urinary incontinence, death, among others)
• Pregnancy and childbirth can bring about undesirable changes:
  • Substantial neurobiological changes leading to postpartum depression, and feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, among other things. Men can also suffer from postpartum depression.
  • Lasting effects on women's health. In particular, research suggests a causal link between gravidity and accelerated cellular aging, because energy is diverted from somatic maintenance to reproductive efforts.
• The health of one's partner does not allow for children
• Personal well-being, health and happiness
• One's health does not allow for children, who are vector of infectious diseases.
• Existing or possible health problems, including genetic disorders that one does not want potential children to inherit and mental health issues
• Not feeling the 'biological clock' ticking and having no maternal or paternal instincts or drives
• Fear and/or revulsion towards the physical condition of pregnancy (tokophobia), the childbirth experience, and recovery (for example the erosion of physical desirability)
• One is too old or too young to have children

Economic

Modern welfare programs negate the need for children, some argue.

• Rejection of the claim that the country's economy is at risk if some people do not procreate
• Belief that very few parents actually have children in order to support the country's economy
• Lack of support for working women
• Burden of taxes and debt
  • Some use the term "wage slaves" when referring to having to pay taxes to support welfare programs such as pensions.
  • Student debts, a serious problem among Millennials and Generation Z in the U.S., discourage many from having children.
• Stagnant or falling wages at the same time as high cost of living
• Rising cost of raising a child as a society industrializes and urbanizes
  • In an agrarian society, children are a source of labour and thus income for the family. But as it shifts towards industries other than agriculture and as more people relocate to the cities, children become a net sink of parental resources. This is known as the (first) demographic transition.
  • "When we advise clients about having children, we honestly don’t even give them the full real details and the real numbers, It’s one of those things if you see the math of it all, it might make you decide to not have children." Shannon McLay, founder of The Financial Gym, told CNBC.
• Being busy with work
• Loss of income and savings
• Possibility of early retirement
• Unwillingness to pay the cost of raising a child. For example, according to Statistics Netherlands and the National Institute for Budgetary Information (Nibud), raising a child cost an average of €120,000 from birth to age 18, or about 17% of one's disposable income as of 2019.
  • Inability to pay the cost of raising a child
  • Hard to arrange, or pay for, child care
  • Parental leaves are non-existent or too short
  • Expensive (higher) education
  • Not having a support network, especially when one is or risks becoming a single parent
• Living in a time of pestilence or economic recession
• Reduction in the quality of life.
• Hard to arrange, or pay for, child care
• Ability to invest some of the time and money saved by not raising children to other socially meaningful purposes
• Other possibilities in life opening up due to the lack of children, such as pursuing a career, retiring early, making charitable donations, having more leisure, being more active in the community, or other interests.
• No need for care by one's own children when one is old or close to dying
  • One can be cared for by the modern welfare state (including the establishment of retirement homes)
  • Having no children allows one to save more money for retirement.
  • Having children is not a guaranteed safety net for parent-child relations might be strained

Philosophical

Antinatalists such as philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer argued that having children is inherently wrong because life is full of suffering.

• Simply not wanting to have children. Supporters of this lifestyle argue that they should not have to justify why they do not want children. Any specific activity requires motivation or justification, not inaction.
• Various ethical reasons
  • Belief that one can make an even greater contribution to humanity through one's work than through having children (for example by working for or donating to charities)
  • Antinatalism, the philosophy asserting that it is inherently immoral to bring people into the world.
    • Antinatalists argue in favor of the asymmetry of pleasure and pain. The absence of pleasure is neutral whereas the absence of pain is positive. Hence, one may generally wish to spare a potential child from the suffering of life. This way, avoiding having a child can be thought of as a form of compassion for the unborn.
    • Moreover, the parent can never get the consent of the unborn child, therefore a decision to procreate would be an imposition of life. However, some childfree people explicitly reject antinatalism; they may even like the children of others, but just do not want any themselves.
  • Chance that one's child may grow up to become an immoral person
  • Belief that it is wrong to intentionally have a child when there are so many children available for adoption
  • Belief that one can still contribute to 'the education of children to become happy and empathic beings' that a society needs (for example, by being a teacher or babysitter) without being a parent oneself
• General existential angst.
  • Distress over politics or the state of the world.
• The opinion that not having children is less selfish than having them
  • Some argue that not having children is an unselfish act
• Questioning of the need for the next generation and refusal to be 'slaves' to the genes
• Belief in a negative, declining condition of the world and culture and in the need to avoid subjecting a child to those negative conditions
  • This includes concerns that calamitous events—effects of global warming, war, or famine—might be likely to occur within the lifetime of one's children and cause their suffering and/or death
• Belief that one is not 'missing out' on any of the alleged benefits of parenthood as long as one does not know what parenthood is like
• View that people tend to have children for the wrong reasons (e.g. fear, social pressures from cultural norms) Adherence to the principles of a religious organization which rejects having children or the rejection of procreative religious beliefs imposed by one's family and/or community
• Belief that it is irresponsible to 'just try' what parenthood is like when one is still in doubt, as it burdens one with a responsibility to raise a child to adulthood once it's born, with no turning back when one is disappointed and regrets the decision
• Opposition to capitalism, believed to necessitate procreation
• Opinion held by some radical feminists that the traditional family is "a decadent, energy-absorbing, destructive, wasteful institution"
• General discontent with modern society
  • Perception of the lack of mutual respect, human dignity, and privacy among individuals and institutions in modern societies; loss of faith in humanity
  • Perception of the inescapable, invasive use of modern technology and global surveillance; anticipation of a technological dystopian future
  • Social Darwinism and political polarization; general cynicism and existential nihilism

Environmental

Reduction of one's carbon footprint for various actions

• Rejection of the claim that the survival of the entire human species is at risk if some people do not procreate, especially in times of human overpopulation
  • Belief that very few parents actually have children in order to prevent human extinction
• View that human existence inflicts suffering upon other species just like the way they cause harm among themselves via predatory practices
• Countering human overpopulation and its effects by not reproducing
  • Concern regarding environmental impacts of human activities including population growth such as climate change, global warming, pollution, resource scarcity and famines, humanitarian crises such as refugee crises and resulting ethnic conflicts, loss of biodiversity or mass extinction (see the Holocene Extinction)
  • The belief that having one fewer child reduces one's carbon dioxide emissions significantly compared to, for instance, owning a car with improved fuel efficiency, replacing incandescent light bulbs with more energy efficient models, avoiding air travel, practicing comprehensive recycling, or adopting a vegetarian diet
  • Worries over the breakdown of civilization
• Opposition to anthropocentrism and belief in deep ecology, or putting non-human lives first
• Support for the eventual extinction of Homo sapiens
  • Opinion that the voluntary extinction of humanity will not be entirely a tragedy but an act of empathy and nobility

Statistics and research

General

Psychologist Ellen Walker argued in Psychology Today that the childfree lifestyle had become a trend in 2014. The Internet has enabled people who pursue this lifestyle to connect, thereby making it more visible. Worldwide, higher educated women are statistically more often choosing to remain childless. Research into both voluntary and involuntary childlessness and parenthood has long focused on women's experiences, and men's perspectives are often overlooked.

Asia

China

See also: Aging of China

In China, the cost of living, especially the cost of housing in the big cities, is a serious obstacle to marriage. In the 1990s, the Chinese government reformed higher education in order to increase access, whereupon significantly more young people, a slight majority of whom being women, have received a university degree. Consequently, many young women are now gainfully employed and financially secure. Traditional views on gender roles dictate that women be responsible for housework and childcare, regardless of their employment status. Workplace discrimination against women (with families) is commonplace; for example, an employer might be more skeptical towards a married woman with one child, fearing she might have another (as the one-child policy was rescinded in 2016) and take more maternity leave. Altogether, there is less incentive for young women to marry. In addition, Chinese Millennials are less keen on tying the knots than their predecessors as a result of cultural change. Because this is a country where having children out of wedlock is quite rare, this means that many young people are foregoing children.

The "lying flat" movement, popular among Chinese youths, also extends to the domain of marriage and child-rearing. Over half of Chinese youths aged 18 to 26 said they were uninterested in having children because of the high cost of child-rearing, according to a 2021 poll by the Communist Youth League. While the Chinese economy is steeply rising, explosive bloom of the real-estate market post-2008 has triggered an increase in house prices disproportionate to income and this is the commonly cited reason for childlessness and "lying flat" among the Chinese youth. A normal apartment unit in Beijing (with an average area of 112 square meters), for instance, costs on average ¥7.31 million ($1.15 million) and one would need to work non-stop for at least 88.2 years at Beijing's average monthly income of ¥6906 ($1083.7) without any expenditures.

Taiwan

In Taiwan, it has become much more affordable for young couples to own pets instead of having children. In addition, those who want children face obstacles such as short maternity leaves and low wages. By 2020, Taiwan has become home to more pets than children.

Vietnam

As Vietnam continues to industrialize and urbanize, many couples have chosen to have fewer children, or none at all, especially in better developed and more densely populated places, such as Ho Chi Minh City, where the fertility rate fell to 1.45 in 2015, well below replacement. Rising cost of living and tiredness from work are among the reasons why. By 2023, polls show that significant numbers of married Vietnamese are choosing to not have children in order to focus on their lives and careers, or because they are wary of the demands of parenthood.

Europe

See also: Aging of Europe

In Europe, childlessness among women aged 40–44 is most common in Austria, Spain and the United Kingdom (in 2010–2011). Among surveyed countries, childlessness was least common across Eastern European countries, although one child families are very common there.

Belgium

In March 2020, Quest reported that research had shown that, in Belgium, 11% of women and 16% of men between the ages of 25 and 35 did not want children.

Netherlands

Children infringe on freedom			54%
Raising children takes too much time and energy			35%
Partner did not want children			28%
Hard to combine work and children			26%
No compelling need/unfit			23%
Health does not allow for children			18%
Children cost too much			7%
Hard to get child care			5%
Reasons why Dutch women chose not to have children, 2004

According to research by Statistics Netherlands from 2004, 6 in 10 childless women are voluntarily childless. It showed a correlation between higher levels of education of women and the choice to be childfree, and the fact that women had been receiving better education in the preceding decades was a factor why an increasing number of women chose childfreedom. The two most important reasons for choosing not to have children were that it would infringe on their freedom and that raising children takes too much time and energy; many women who gave the second reason also gave the first. A 2016 report from Statistics Netherlands confirmed those numbers: 20% of Dutch women were childless, of whom 60% voluntarily, so that 12% of all Dutch women could be considered childfree.

In March 2017, Trouw reported that a new Statistics Netherlands report showed that 22% of higher educated 45-year-old men were childless and 33% of lower educated 45-year-old men were childless. Childlessness amongst the latter was increasing, even though most of them were involuntarily childless. The number of voluntarily childless people amongst higher educated men had been increasing since the 1960s, whilst voluntary childlessness amongst lower educated men (who tended to have been raised more traditionally) did not become a rising trend until the 2010s.

In March 2020, Quest reported that research from Trouw and Statistics Netherlands had shown that 10% of 30-year-old Dutch women questioned had not had children out of her own choice, and did not expect to have any children anymore either; furthermore, 8.5% of 45-year-old women questioned and 5.5% of 60-year-old women questioned stated that they had consciously remained childless.

Russia

In October 2020, NAFI reported that 7% of population between the ages of 18 and 45 did not want children, this figure reached 20% within Moscow population. Most often, educated, wealthy and ambitious people refuse to have children. They are unwilling to sacrifice their comfort and career for the sake of their children. At the same time, the spread of ideology is prohibited in the country, and the founder of the movement Childfree Russia, Edward Lisovskii, is being persecuted by the government. 

Sweden

According to a 2019 study amongst 191 Swedish men aged 20 to 50, 39 were not fathers and did not want to have children in the future either (20.4%). Desire to have (more) children was not related to level of education, country of birth, sexual orientation or relationship status.

Some Swedish men 'passively' choose not to have children as they feel their life is already good as it is, adding children is not necessary, and they do not have to counter the same amount of social pressure to have children as childfree women do.

United Kingdom

A YouGov poll released in January 2020 revealed that among Britons who were not already parents, 37% told pollsters they did not want any children ever. 19% said they did not want children but might change their minds in the future and 26% were interested in having children. Those who did not want to be parents included 13% of people aged 18 to 24, 20% of those aged 25 to 34, and 51% aged 35 to 44. Besides age (23%), the most popular reasons for not having children were the potential impact on lifestyles (10%), high costs of living and raising children (10%), human overpopulation (9%), dislike of children (8%), and lack of parental instincts (6%).

North America

Canada

In 2010, around half of Canadian women without children in their 40s had decided to not have any from an early age. A 2023 report from Statistics Canada states that over a third of Canadians aged 18 to 49 do not want to have children. Many are also delaying having children or want to have fewer children than their predecessors. Among Canadian women aged 50 and over, about 17.2% had no biological children, as of 2022. Pursuit of higher education, unaffordable housing, economic precariousness, and the rising cost of living are among the reasons why. These trends have accelerated in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like the case in other countries, there is a generational gap in attitudes towards reproduction. Baby Boomers are more likely to consider raising (grand) children to be a source of fulfillment or the glue that holds a marriage together. But not that many young Canadians share this view. Moreover, while Canadians today are more tolerant towards the idea of not having children, many seniors still struggle with this decision coming from their own family members.

United States

See also: Aging of the United States

Being a childfree American adult was considered unusual in the 1950s. However, the proportion of childfree adults in the population has increased significantly since then. A 2006 study by Abma and Martinez found that American women aged 35 to 44 who were voluntarily childless constituted 5% of all U.S. women in 1982, 8% in 1988, 9% in 1995 and 7% in 2002. These women had the highest income, prior work experience and the lowest religiosity compared to other women. Research by sociologist Kristin Park revealed that childfree people tended to be better educated, to be professionals, to live in urban areas, to be less religious, and to have less conventional life choices.

From 2007 to 2011 the fertility rate in the U.S. declined 9%, the Pew Research Center reporting in 2010 that the birth rate was the lowest in U.S. history and that childlessness rose across all racial and ethnic groups to about 1 in 5 versus 1 in 10 in the 1970s; it did not say which percentage of childless Americans were so voluntarily, but Time claimed that, despite persisting discrimination against especially women who chose to remain childless, acceptance of being childfree was gradually increasing.

A growing share of American adults does not want to have children.

Over all, the importance of having children has declined across all age groups in the United States, especially the young. A cross-generational study comparing Millennials (graduating class of 2012) to Generation X (graduating class of 1992) conducted at Wharton School of Business revealed that among both genders the proportion of undergraduates who reported they eventually planned to have children had dropped in half over the course of a generation. In 1992, 78% of women planned to eventually have children. But by 2021, that number fell to 42%. The results were similar for male students. However, voluntary childlessness in the United States was more common among higher educated women but not higher educated men. A 2021 survey by Pew found that the number of non-parents aged 18 to 49 who said they were not too likely or not at all likely to have children was 44%, up seven points compared to 2018. Among these people, 56% said they simply did not want to have children. A 2023 poll by The Wall Street Journal and NORC at the University of Chicago found that about 23% of people adults below the age of 30 thought that having children was important, 9 percentage points below those aged 65 and above.

Psychologist Paul Dolan made the case that women who never married or have children are among the happiest subgroup in the United States by analyzing American Time Use Survey. 2019 data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve shows that among single people, women without children made more money than men without children or men and women with children.

In the U.S., although being voluntarily childless or childfree is not without its disadvantages, such as higher taxes, less affordable housing options, and concern of old age, parenthood continues to lose its appeal. After the Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022), which returned the right to regulate aspects of abortion not covered by federal law to the individual states, the number of young and childfree adults seeking sterilization went up. Previously, it was usually middle-aged fathers who obtained vasectomies.

Oceania

New Zealand

Statistics New Zealand estimated that the share of childfree women grew from under 10% in 1996 to around 15% in 2013. Professional women were the most likely to be without children, at 16%, compared with 12% for manual workers. At least 5% of women were childfree by choice.

Social attitudes to remaining childfree

Most societies place a high value on parenthood in adult life, so that people who remain childfree are sometimes stereotyped as being "individualistic" people who avoid social responsibility and are less prepared to commit themselves to helping others. However, certain groups believe that being childfree is beneficial. With the advent of environmentalism and concerns for stewardship, those choosing to not have children are also sometimes recognized as helping reduce our impact. Some childfree are sometimes lauded on moral grounds, such as members of philosophical or religious groups, like the Shakers.

There are three broad areas of criticism regarding childfreeness, based upon socio-political, feminist or religious reasons. There are also considerations relating to personal philosophy and social roles.

Feminism

Feminist author Daphne DeMarneffe links larger feminist issues to both the devaluation of motherhood in contemporary society, as well as the delegitimization of "maternal desire" and pleasure in motherhood. In third-wave handbook Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future, authors Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards explore the concept of third-wave feminists reclaiming "girlie" culture, along with reasons why women of Baby Boomer and Generation X ages may reject motherhood because, at a young and impressionable age, they witnessed their own mothers being devalued by society and family.

On the other hand, in "The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order" and in Utne Reader magazine, third-wave feminist writer Tiffany Lee Brown described the joys and freedoms of childfree living, freedoms such as travel previously associated with males in Western culture. In "Motherhood Lite", she celebrates being an aunt, co-parent, or family friend over the idea of being a mother.

Overpopulation

Main article: Human overpopulation

The human population has grown significantly since the start of industrialization, leading many to believe that overpopulation is a serious problem and some to question the fairness of what they feel amounts to subsidies for having children, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (US), free K–12 education paid for by all taxpayers, family medical leave, and other such programs. Others, however, do not believe overpopulation to be a problem in itself, regarding such problems as overcrowding, global warming, and straining food supplies to be problems of public policy and/or technology.

Some have argued that this sort of conscientiousness is self-eliminating (assuming it is heritable), so by avoiding reproduction for ethical reasons the childfree will only aid in the deterioration of concern for the environment and future generations.

Government and taxes

See also: Tax on childlessness

Some regard governmental or employer-based incentives offered only to parents—such as a per-child income tax credit, preferential absence planning, employment legislation, or special facilities—as intrinsically discriminatory, arguing for their removal, reduction, or the formation of a corresponding system of matching incentives for other categories of social relationships. Childfree advocates argue that other forms of caregiving have historically not been considered equal—that "only babies count"—and that this is an outdated idea that is in need of revision. Caring for sick, disabled, or elderly dependents entails significant financial and emotional costs but is not currently subsidized in the same manner. This commitment has traditionally and increasingly fallen largely on women, contributing to the feminization of poverty in the U.S.

The focus on personal acceptance is mirrored in much of the literature surrounding choosing not to reproduce. Many early books were grounded in feminist theory and largely sought to dispel the idea that womanhood and motherhood were necessarily the same thing, arguing, for example, that childfree people face not only social discrimination but political discrimination as well.

Religion

Abrahamic religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam place a high value on children and their central place in marriage. In numerous works, including an Apostolic letter written in 1988, Pope John Paul II has set forth the Roman Catholic emphasis on the role of children in family life. However, the Catholic Church also stresses the value of chastity.

There are, however, some debates within religious groups about whether a childfree lifestyle is acceptable. Another view, for example, is that the biblical verse "Be fruitful and multiply" in Genesis 1:28, is really not a command but an expression of blessing. Alternatively, some Christians believe that Genesis 1:28 is a moral command but nonetheless believe that voluntary childlessness is ethical if a higher ethical principle intervenes to make child bearing imprudent in comparison. Health concerns, a calling to serve orphans, serving as missionaries in a dangerous location, etc., are all examples that would make childbearing imprudent for a Christian. A small activist group, the Cyber-Church of Jesus Christ Childfree, defends this view, saying "Jesus loved children but chose to never have any, so that he could devote his life to telling the Good News."

Ethical reasons

Main article: Antinatalism

See also: Population ethics

Essayist Brian Tomasik cites ethical reasons for people to remain childfree. Also, they will have more time to focus on themselves, which will allow for greater creativity and the exploration of personal ambitions. In this way, they may benefit themselves and society more than if they had a child.

The "selfish" issue

Main article: Asymmetry (population ethics)

Some opponents of the childfree choice consider such a choice to be selfish. The rationale of this position is the assertion that raising children is a very important activity and so not engaging in this activity must therefore mean living one's life in service to one's self. The value judgment behind this idea is that individuals should endeavor to make some kind of meaningful contribution to the world, but also that the best way to make such a contribution is to have children. For some people, one or both of these assumptions may be true, but others prefer to direct their time, energy, and talents elsewhere, in many cases toward improving the world that today's children occupy (and that future generations will inherit).

Proponents of childfreedom posit that choosing not to have children is no more or less selfish than choosing to have children. Choosing to have children may be the more selfish choice, especially when poor parenting risks creating many long-term problems for both the children themselves and society at large. As philosopher David Benatar explains, at the heart of the decision to bring a child into the world often lies the parents' own desires (to enjoy child-rearing or perpetuate one's legacy/genes), rather than the potential person's interests. At the very least, Benatar believes this illustrates why a childfree person may be just as altruistic as any parent.

There is also the question as to whether having children really is such a positive contribution to the world in an age when there are many concerns about overpopulation, pollution and depletion of non-renewable resources. This is especially true for the wealthy 1% of global population who consume disproportionate amounts of resources and who are responsible for 15% of global carbon emissions. Some critics counter that such analyses of having children may understate its potential benefits to society (e.g. a greater labour force, which may provide greater opportunity to solve social problems) and overstate the costs. That is, there is often a need for a non-zero birth rate.

Stigma

Main article: Infertility and childlessness stigmas

People who express the fact that they have voluntarily chosen to remain childfree are frequently subjected to several forms of discrimination. The decision not to have children has been attributed to insanity or derided as "unnatural", and frequently childfree people are subjected to unsolicited questioning by friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances and even strangers who attempt to force them to justify and change their decision. Some British childfree women have compared their experiences of coming out as childfree to coming out as gay in the mid-20th century. Some Canadian women preferred not to express their decision to remain childfree for fear of encountering social pressure to change their decision. Some women are told to first have a child before being able to properly decide that they do not want one. Some parents try to pressure their children into producing grandchildren and threaten to or actually disown them if they do not. Some childfree women are told they would make good mothers, or just "haven't met the right man yet", are assumed to be infertile rather than having made a conscious decision not to make use of their fertility (whether applicable or not). Some childfree people are accused of hating all children instead of just not wanting any themselves and still being able to help people who do have children with things like babysitting.

It has also been claimed that there is a taboo on discussing the negative aspects of pregnancy, and a taboo on parents to express regret that they chose to have children, which makes it harder for childfree people to defend their decision not to have them.

Social attitudes about voluntary childlessness have been slowly changing from condemnation and pathologisation in the 1970s towards more acceptance by the 2010s.

Organizations and political activism

Childfree individuals do not necessarily share a unified political or economic philosophy, and most prominent childfree organizations tend to be social in nature. Childfree social groups first emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, most notable among them the National Alliance for Optional Parenthood and No Kidding! in North America where numerous books have been written about childfree people and where a range of social positions related to childfree interests have developed along with political and social activism in support of these interests. The term "childfree" was used in a July 3, 1972 Time article on the creation of the National Organization for Non-Parents. It was revived in the 1990s when Leslie Lafayette formed a later childfree group, the Childfree Network.

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT, pronounced 'vehement') is an environmental movement that calls for all people to abstain from reproduction to cause the gradual voluntary extinction of humankind. Despite its name, the movement also includes those who do not necessarily desire human extinction but do want to curb or reverse human population growth in the name of environmentalism.^[42] VHEMT was founded in 1991 by Les U. Knight, an American activist who became involved in the American environmental movement in the 1970s and thereafter concluded that human extinction was the best solution to the problems facing the Earth's biosphere and humanity. VHEMT supports human extinction primarily because, in the movement's view, it would prevent environmental degradation. The movement states that a decrease in the human population would prevent a significant amount of human-caused suffering. The extinctions of non-human species and the scarcity of resources required by humans are frequently cited by the movement as evidence of the harm caused by human overpopulation.

The movement has been equated with extremism in Russia, and its founder, Edward Lisovskii, is under persecution.

Antinatalism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism

Arthur Schopenhauer is notable for expressing antinatalist sentiments in his works, such as in The World as Will and Representation (vol. 2) and Parerga and Paralipomena (vol. 2).

Antinatalism or anti-natalism is a family of philosophical views that are critical of reproduction — they consider coming into existence as bad or deem procreation as immoral. Antinatalists thus argue that humans should abstain from having children. Antinatalist views are not necessarily limited only to humans, but may encompass all sentient creatures, claiming that coming into existence is a harm for sentient beings in general.

There are various reasons why antinatalists believe reproduction is problematic. The most common arguments for antinatalism include:

• Life entails inevitable suffering.
• Death is inevitable.
• Humans are born without their consent—no one chooses whether or not they come into existence.
• Although some people may turn out to be happy, this is not guaranteed, so to procreate is to gamble with another person's suffering.
• There is an axiological asymmetry between good and bad things in life, such that coming into existence is always a harm.

Etymology

The term antinatalism (in opposition to the term natalism, pronatalism or pro-natalism) was used probably for the first time by Théophile de Giraud in his book L'art de guillotiner les procréateurs: Manifeste anti-nataliste (2006). Masahiro Morioka defines antinatalism as "the thought that all human beings or all sentient beings should not be born." In scholarly and literary writings, various ethical arguments have been put forth in defense of antinatalism, probably the most prominent of which is the asymmetry argument, put forward by South African philosopher David Benatar. Robbert Zandbergen makes a distinction between so-called reactionary (or activist) antinatalism and its more philosophical, originary counterpart. While the former seeks to limit human reproduction locally and/or temporarily, the latter seeks to end it conclusively.

History

Antinatalist sentiments have existed for thousands of years. Some of the earliest surviving formulations of the idea that it would be better not to have been born can be found in ancient Greece. One example is from Sophocles's Oedipus at Colonus, written shortly before Sophocles's death in 406 BC:

Not to be born is, beyond all estimation, best; but when a man has seen the light of day, this is next best by far, that with utmost speed he should go back from where he came. For when he has seen youth go by, with its easy merry-making, what hard affliction is foreign to him, what suffering does he not know? Envy, factions, strife, battles, and murders. Last of all falls to his lot old age, blamed, weak, unsociable, friendless, wherein dwells every misery among miseries

From Ecclesiastes 4:2–3:, 450–180 BC:

And I thought the dead, who have already died, more fortunate than the living, who are still alive; but better than both is the one who has not yet been, and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.

From Seneca's De Consolatione ad Marciam, written around 40 AD:

Nothing is so deceptive, nothing is so treacherous as human life; by Hercules, were it not given to men before they could form an opinion, no one would take it. Not to be born, therefore, is the happiest lot of all

From Giacomo Leopardi, Operette Morali, Remarkable sayings of Philip Ottonieri, 1827:

Being asked for what purpose he thought men were born, he laughingly replied: To realize how much better it were not to be born.

From Gustave Flaubert, The Letters of Gustave Flaubert 1830–1857, 1846:

The idea of bringing someone into the world fills me with horror. I would curse myself if I were a father. A son of mine! Oh no, no, no! May my entire flesh perish and may I transmit to no one the aggravations and the disgrace of existence

From Schopenhauer's Parerga and Paralipomena, 1851:

If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence?

From Heinrich Heine, Morphine, 1856:

Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all.

Arguments

In religion

Buddhism

The teaching of the Buddha, among other Four Noble Truths and the beginning of Mahāvagga, is interpreted by Hari Singh Gour as follows:

Buddha states his propositions in the pedantic style of his age. He throws them into a form of sorites; but, as such, it is logically faulty and all he wishes to convey is this: Oblivious of the suffering to which life is subject, man begets children, and is thus the cause of old age and death. If he would only realize what suffering he would add to by his act, he would desist from the procreation of children; and so stop the operation of old age and death.

The issue of Buddhist antinatalism is also raised by Amy Paris Langenberg, she writes among other things:

In the medieval Tantric traditions of India and Tibet documented by David Gray and Janet Gyatso, insertive but non-ejaculative sex is theorized as a fast path to liberating realizations, one deemed superior to celibacy for qualified practitioners (Gray 2007; Gyatso 1998). These developments also support the idea that the sex problematic in ancient, classical, and medieval Buddhism had at least as much to do with female fertility and the production of children as with the dangers of errant desire.

Buddhism was understood as antinatalist by Jack Kerouac. Masahiro Morioka argues that ancient Buddhism was both antinatalist and anti-antinatalist:

According to ancient Buddhism, all births are births into the world of suffering; hence, coming into existence must be evaluated negatively. If we focus on this aspect, we can say that ancient Buddhism is antinatalist. However, we can also interpret ancient Buddhism as saying that being born into this human world is affirmed because there is a possibility of reaching nirvana here. Therefore, if we pay attention to this aspect, we cannot instantaneously say that it is antinatalist.

Christianity and Gnosticism

The Marcionites, led by the theologian Marcion of Sinope, believed that the visible world is an evil creation of a crude, cruel, jealous, angry demiurge, Yahweh. According to this teaching, people should oppose him, abandon his world, not create people, and trust in the good God of mercy, foreign and distant.

The Encratites observed that birth leads to death. In order to conquer death, people should desist from procreation: "not produce fresh fodder for death".

The Manichaeans, the Bogomils, and the Cathars believed that procreation sentences the soul to imprisonment in evil matter. They saw procreation as an instrument of an evil god, demiurge, or of Satan that imprisons the divine element in the matter and thus causes the divine element to suffer.

Shakers believe that sex is the root of all sin and that procreation is a sign of the fallen state of humanity.

Augustine of Hippo wrote:

But I am aware of some that murmur: What, say they, if all men should abstain from all sexual intercourse, whence will the human race exist? Would that all would this, only in “charity out of a pure heart, and good conscience, and faith unfeigned;” much more speedily would the City of God be filled, and the end of the world hastened.

Gregory of Nyssa warns that no one should be lured by the argument that procreation is a mechanism that creates children and states that those who refrain from procreation by preserving their virginity "bring about a cancellation of death by preventing it from advancing further because of them, and, by setting themselves up as a kind of boundary stone between life and death, they keep death from going forward". Søren Kierkegaard believed that man enters this world by means of a crime, that their existence is a crime, and procreation is the fall which is the culmination of human egoism. According to him, Christianity exists to block the path of procreation; it is "a salvation but at the same time it is a stopping" that "aims at stopping the whole continuation which leads to the permanence of this world."

Segments in the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes express antinatalist thought:

And I thought the dead, who have already died, more fortunate than the living, who are still alive; but better than both is the one who has not yet been, and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 4:2–3, New Revised Standard Version)

Taoism

Robbert Zandbergen compares modern antinatalism to Taoism, stating that they both "view the development of consciousness as an aberration in an otherwise fluid and fluent universe marked by some sense of non-human harmony, stability and tranquility." According to Zandbergen, antinatalism and Taoism view human consciousness as something that cannot be fixed, for example by returning to a more harmonious way of life, but rather it has to be undone. Humans are tasked with a project of a peaceful, non-violent dismantling of consciousness. From the Taoist perspective, consciousness is purpose-driven, which goes against the spontaneous and unconscious flow of the Tao, hence humans have an imperative to return to the Tao. Humans have to do it spontaneously, and it cannot be brought about from "the outside" (the Tao, the Heaven, or anything else). Zandbergen quotes John S. Major et al. 2010 to make the parallel between Taoism and antinatalism even clearer:

冰之凝，不若其釋也，又況不為冰乎 Ice is better once it melts; how much better if it had never been frozen.

Water is a traditional representation of the Tao, as it flows without shape. Ice represents the arrest of the natural flow of the Tao in rigid human consciousness. Taoist sages return to the flow like ice melting to water. But it would have been better if human consciousness never appeared.

Theodicy and anthropodicy

Julio Cabrera considers the issue of being a creator in relation to theodicy and argues that just as it is impossible to defend the idea of a good God as creator, it is also impossible to defend the idea of a good man as a creator. In parenthood, the human parent imitates the divine parent, in the sense that education could be understood as a form of pursuit of "salvation", the "right path" for a child. However, a human being could decide that it is better not to suffer at all than to suffer and be offered the later possibility of salvation from suffering. In Cabrera's opinion, evil is associated not with the lack of being, but with the suffering and dying of those that are alive. So, on the contrary, evil is only and obviously associated with being.

Karim Akerma, due to the moral problem of man as creator, introduces anthropodicy, a twin concept for theodicy. He is of the opinion that the less faith in the Almighty Creator–God there is, the more urgent the question of anthropodicy becomes. Akerma thinks that for those who want to lead ethical lives, the causation of suffering requires a justification. Man can no longer shed responsibility for the suffering that occurs by appealing to an imaginary entity that sets moral principles. For Akerma, antinatalism is a consequence of the collapse of theodicy endeavors and the failure of attempts to establish an anthropodicy. According to him, there is no metaphysics nor moral theory that can justify the production of new people, and therefore anthropodicy is indefensible as well as theodicy.

Jason Marsh finds no good arguments for what he calls "evil asymmetry"; that the amount and kinds of suffering provide strong arguments that our world is not an act of creation made by a good God, but the same suffering does not affect the morality of the act of procreation.

Peter Wessel Zapffe

Peter Wessel Zapffe viewed humans as a biological paradox. According to him, consciousness has become over-evolved in humans, thereby making us incapable of functioning normally like other animals: cognition gives us more than we can carry. Our frailness and insignificance in the cosmos are visible to us. We want to live, and yet because of how we have evolved, we are the only species whose members are conscious that they are destined to die. We are able to analyze the past and the future, both our situation and that of others, as well as to imagine the suffering of billions of people (as well as of other living beings) and feel compassion for their suffering. We yearn for justice and meaning in a world that lacks both. This ensures that the lives of conscious individuals are tragic. We have desires: spiritual needs that reality is unable to satisfy, and our species still exists only because we limit our awareness of what that reality actually entails. Human existence amounts to a tangled network of defense mechanisms, which can be observed both individually and socially, in our everyday behavior patterns. According to Zapffe, humanity should cease this self-deception, and the natural consequence would be its extinction by abstaining from procreation.

Negative ethics

Julio Cabrera proposes a concept of "negative ethics" in opposition to "affirmative" ethics, meaning ethics that affirm being. He describes procreation as an act of manipulation and harm — a unilateral and non-consensual sending of a human being into a painful, dangerous and morally impeding situation.

Cabrera regards procreation as an ontological issue of total manipulation: one's very being is manufactured and used; in contrast to intra-worldly cases where someone is placed in a harmful situation. In the case of procreation, no chance of defense against that act is even available. According to Cabrera: manipulation in procreation is visible primarily in the unilateral and non-consensual nature of the act, which makes procreation per se inevitably asymmetrical; be it a product of forethought, or a product of neglect. It is always connected with the interests (or disinterests) of other humans, not the created human. In addition, Cabrera points out that in his view the manipulation of procreation is not limited to the act of creation itself, but it is continued in the process of raising the child, during which parents gain great power over the child's life, who is shaped according to their preferences and for their satisfaction. He emphasizes that although it is not possible to avoid manipulation in procreation, it is perfectly possible to avoid procreation itself and that then no moral rule is violated.

Cabrera believes that the situation in which one is placed through procreation, human life, is structurally negative in that its constitutive features are inherently adverse. The most prominent of them are, according to Cabrera, the following:

1. The being acquired by a human at birth is decreasing (or "decaying"), in the sense of a being that begins to end since its very emergence, following a single and irreversible direction of deterioration and decline, of which complete consummation can occur at any moment between some minutes and around one hundred years.
2. From the moment they come into being, humans are affected by three kinds of frictions: physical pain (in the form of illnesses, accidents, and natural catastrophes to which they are always exposed); discouragement (in the form of "lacking the will", or the "mood" or the "spirit", to continue to act, from mild taedium vitae to serious forms of depression), and finally, exposure to the aggressions of other humans (from gossip and slander to various forms of discrimination, persecution, and injustice); aggressions that we too can inflict on others (who are also submitted, like us, to the three kinds of friction).
3. To defend themselves against (a) and (b), human beings are equipped with mechanisms of creation of positive values (ethical, aesthetic, religious, entertaining, recreational, as well as values contained in human realizations of all kinds), which humans must keep constantly active. All positive values that appear within human life are reactive and palliative; they do not arise from the structure of life itself, but are introduced by the permanent and anxious struggle against the decaying life and its three kinds of friction, with such struggle however doomed to be defeated, at any moment, by any of the mentioned frictions or by the progressive decline of one's being.

Cabrera calls the set of these characteristics A–C the "terminality of being". He is of the opinion that a huge number of humans around the world cannot withstand this steep struggle against the terminal structure of their being, which leads to destructive consequences for them and others: suicides, major or minor mental illnesses, or aggressive behavior. He accepts that life may be – thanks to human's own merits and efforts – bearable and even very pleasant (though not for all, due to the phenomenon of moral impediment), but also considers it problematic to bring someone into existence so that they may attempt to make their life pleasant by struggling against the difficult and oppressive situation we place them in by procreating. It seems more reasonable, according to Cabrera, simply not to put them in that situation, since the results of their struggle are always uncertain.

Cabrera believes that in ethics, including affirmative ethics, there is one overarching concept which he calls the "Minimal Ethical Articulation", "MEA" (previously translated into English as "Fundamental Ethical Articulation" and "FEA"): the consideration of other people's interests, not manipulating them and not harming them. Procreation for him is an obvious violation of MEA – someone is manipulated and placed in a harmful situation as a result of that action. In his view, values included in the MEA are widely accepted by affirmative ethics, they are even their basics, and if approached radically, they should lead to the refusal of procreation.

For Cabrera, the worst thing in human life and by extension in procreation is what he calls "moral impediment": the structural impossibility of acting in the world without harming or manipulating someone at some given moment. This impediment does not occur because of an intrinsic "evil" of human nature, but because of the structural situation in which the human being has always been. In this situation, we are cornered by various kinds of structural discomforts while having to conduct our lives in a limited amount of time and in limited spaces of action, such that different interests often conflict with each other. We do not have to have bad intentions to treat others with disregard; we are compelled to do so in order to survive, pursue our projects, and escape from suffering. Cabrera also draws attention to the fact that life is associated with the constant risk of one experiencing strong physical pain, which is common in human life, for example as a result of a serious illness, and maintains that the mere existence of such possibility impedes us morally, as well as that because of it, we can at any time lose, as a result of its occurrence, the possibility of a dignified, moral functioning even to a minimal extent.

Kantian imperative

Julio Cabrera, David Benatar and Karim Akerma all argue that procreation is contrary to Immanuel Kant's practical imperative (according to Kant, a man should never be used as merely a means to an end, but always be treated as an end in himself). They argue that a person can be created for the sake of their parents or other people, but that it is impossible to create someone for their own good; and that therefore, following Kant's recommendation, we should not create new people. Heiko Puls argues that Kant's considerations regarding parental duties and human procreation, in general, imply arguments for an ethically justified antinatalism. Kant, however, according to Puls, rejects this position in his teleology for meta-ethical reasons.

Impossibility of consent

Seana Shiffrin, Gerald Harrison, Julia Tanner and Asheel Singh argue that procreation is morally problematic because of the impossibility of obtaining consent from the human who will be brought into existence.

Shiffrin lists four factors that in her opinion make the justification for having hypothetical consent to procreation a problem:

1. great harm is not at stake if the action is not taken;
2. if the action is taken, the harms suffered by the created person can be very severe;
3. a person cannot escape the imposed condition without very high cost (suicide is often a physically, emotionally, and morally excruciating option);
4. the hypothetical consent procedure is not based on the values of the person who will bear the imposed condition.

Gerald Harrison and Julia Tanner argue that when we want to significantly affect someone by our action and it is not possible to get their consent, then the default should be to not take such action. The exception is, according to them, actions by which we want to prevent greater harm of a person (for example, pushing someone out of the way of a falling piano). However, in their opinion, such actions certainly do not include procreation, because before taking this action a person does not exist.

Asheel Singh emphasizes that one does not have to think that coming into existence is always an overall harm in order to recognize antinatalism as a correct view. In his opinion, it is enough to think that there is no moral right to inflict serious, preventable harms upon others without their consent.

Chip Smith and Max Freiheit argue that procreation is contrary to non-aggression principle of right-wing libertarians, according to which nonconsensual actions should not be taken toward other people.

Negative utilitarianism

Negative utilitarianism argues that minimizing suffering has greater moral importance than maximizing happiness.

Hermann Vetter agrees with the assumptions of Jan Narveson:

1. There is no moral obligation to produce a child even if we could be sure that it will be very happy throughout its life.
2. There is a moral obligation not to produce a child if it can be foreseen that it will be unhappy.

However, he disagrees with the conclusion that Narveson draws:

3. In general – if it can be foreseen neither that the child will be unhappy nor that it will bring disutility upon others – there is no duty to have or not to have a child.

Instead, he presents the following decision-theoretic matrix:

	Child will be more or less happy	Child will be more or less unhappy
Produce the child	No duty fulfilled or violated	Duty violated
Do not produce the child	No duty fulfilled or violated	Duty fulfilled

Based on this, he concludes that we should not create people:

It is seen immediately that the act "do not produce the child" dominates the act "produce the child" because it has equally good consequences as the other act in one case and better consequences in the other. So it is to be preferred to the other act as long as we cannot exclude with certainty the possibility that the child will be more or less unhappy; and we never can. So we have, instead of (3), the far-reaching consequence: (3') In any case, it is morally preferable not to produce a child.

Karim Akerma argues that utilitarianism requires the least metaphysical assumptions and is, therefore, the most convincing ethical theory. He believes that negative utilitarianism is the right one because the good things in life do not compensate for the bad things; first and foremost, the best things do not compensate for the worst things such as, for example, the experiences of terrible pain, the agonies of the wounded, sick or dying. In his opinion, we also rarely know what to do to make people happy, but we know what to do so that people do not suffer: it is enough that they are not created. What is important for Akerma in ethics is the striving for the fewest suffering people (ultimately no one), not striving for the happiest people, which, according to him, takes place at the expense of immeasurable suffering.

Miguel Steiner believes that antinatalism is justified by two converging perspectives:

1. personal – no one can predict the fate of their child, but it is known that they are exposed to numerous dangers in the form of terrible suffering and death, usually traumatic,
2. demographic – there is a demographic dimension of suffering in connection with which the number of victims of various types of problems (e.g. hunger, disease, violence) increases or decreases depending on the size of the population.

He maintains that our concept of evil comes from our experience of suffering: there is no evil without the possibility of experiencing suffering. Consequently, the smaller the population, the less evil is happening in the world. In his opinion, from an ethical point of view, this is what we should strive for: to narrow the space in which evil – which is suffering – takes place and which space is widened by procreation.

Walking away from Omelas

Bruno Contestabile and Sam Woolfe cite the story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin. In this story, the existence of the utopian city of Omelas and the good fortune of its inhabitants depend on the suffering of one child who is tortured in an isolated place and who cannot be helped. The majority accepts this state of affairs and stays in the city, but there are those who do not agree with it, who do not want to participate in it, and thus they "walk away from Omelas". Contestabile and Woolfe draw a parallel here: for Omelas to exist, the child must be tortured, and in the same way, the existence of our world is related to the fact that someone innocent is constantly harmed. According to Contestabile and Woolfe, antinatalists can be seen just as "the ones who walk away from Omelas", who do not accept such a world, and who do not approve of its perpetuation. Contestabile poses the question: is all happiness able to compensate for the extreme suffering of even one person? The question of whether universal harmony is worth the tears of one child tormented to death has already appeared before in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, and Irina Uriupina writes about it in the context of antinatalism.

David Benatar's arguments

Asymmetry between good and bad things

Further information: Benatar's asymmetry argument

David Benatar argues that there is a crucial asymmetry between the good and the bad things, such as pleasure and pain:

1. the presence of pain is bad;
2. the presence of pleasure is good;
3. the absence of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone;
4. the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation.

Regarding procreation, the argument follows that coming into existence generates both good and bad experiences, pain and pleasure, whereas not coming into existence entails neither pain nor pleasure. The absence of pain is good, the absence of pleasure is not bad. Therefore, the ethical choice is weighed in favor of non-procreation.

Suffering experienced by descendants

According to Benatar, by creating a child, we are responsible not only for this child's suffering, but we may also be co-responsible for the suffering of further offspring of this child.

Assuming that each couple has three children, an original pair's cumulative descendants over ten generations amount to 88,572 people. That constitutes a lot of pointless, avoidable suffering. To be sure, full responsibility for it all does not lie with the original couple because each new generation faces the choice of whether to continue that line of descendants. Nevertheless, they bear some responsibility for the generations that ensue. If one does not desist from having children, one can hardly expect one's descendants to do so.

Consequences of procreation

Benatar cites statistics showing where the creation of people leads. It is estimated that:

• more than fifteen million people are thought to have died from natural disasters in the last 1,000 years,
• approximately 20,000 people die every day from hunger,
• an estimated 840 million people suffer from hunger and malnutrition,
• between 541 and 1912, it is estimated that over 102 million people succumbed to plague,
• the 1918 influenza epidemic killed 50 million people,
• nearly 11 million people die every year from infectious diseases,
• malignant neoplasms take more than a further 7 million lives each year,
• approximately 3.5 million people die every year in accidents,
• approximately 56.5 million people died in 2001, that is more than 107 people per minute,
• before the twentieth century over 133 million people were killed in mass killings,
• in the first 88 years of the twentieth century 170 million (and possibly as many as 360 million) people were shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hanged, bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners,
• there were 1.6 million conflict-related deaths in the sixteenth century, 6.1 million in the seventeenth century, 7 million in the eighteenth, 19.4 million in the nineteenth, and 109.7 million in the twentieth,
• war-related injuries led to 310,000 deaths in 2000,
• about 40 million children are maltreated each year,
• more than 100 million currently living women and girls have been subjected to genital mutilation,
• over 80% of newborn American boys have also been subjected to genital mutilation,
• 815,000 people are thought to have committed suicide in 2000 in 2016, the International Association for Suicide Prevention estimated that someone commits suicide every 40 seconds, more than 800,000 people per year.

Misanthropy

In addition to the philanthropic arguments, which are based on a concern for the humans who will be brought into existence, Benatar also posits that another path to antinatalism is the misanthropic argument. Benatar states that:

According to this argument, humans are a deeply flawed and destructive species that is responsible for the suffering and deaths of billions of other humans and non-human animals. If that level of destruction were caused by another species we would rapidly recommend that new members of that species not be brought into existence.

Harm to nonhuman animals

David Benatar, Gunter Bleibohm, Gerald Harrison, Julia Tanner, and Patricia MacCormack are attentive to the harm caused to other sentient beings by humans. They would say that billions of nonhuman animals are abused and slaughtered each year by our species for the production of animal products, for experimentation and after the experiments (when they are no longer needed), as a result of the destruction of habitats or other environmental damage and for sadistic pleasure. They tend to agree with animal rights thinkers that the harm we do to them is immoral. They consider the human species the most destructive on the planet, arguing that without new humans, there will be no harm caused to other sentient beings by new humans.

Some antinatalists are also vegetarians or vegans for moral reasons, and postulate that such views should complement each other as having a common denominator: not causing harm to other sentient beings. This attitude was already present in Manichaeism and Catharism. The Cathars interpreted the commandment "thou shalt not kill" as relating also to other mammals and birds. It was recommended not to eat their meat, dairy and eggs.

Environmental impact

Volunteers of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement the Church of Euthanasia, Stop Having Kids, and Patricia MacCormack argue that human activity is the primary cause of environmental degradation, and therefore refraining from procreation and allowing for eventual human extinction is the best alternative for the planet and its nonhuman inhabitants to flourish. According to the group Stop Having Kids: "The end of humans is the end of the human world, not the end of the world at large."

Adoption, helping humans and other animals

Herman Vetter, Théophile de Giraud, Travis N. Rieder, Tina Rulli, Karim Akerma and Julio Cabrera argue that presently rather than engaging in the morally problematic act of procreation, one could do good by adopting already existing children. De Giraud emphasizes that, across the world, there are millions of existing children who need care. Stuart Rachels and David Benatar argue that presently, in a situation where a huge number of people live in poverty, we should cease procreation and divert these resources, that would have been used to raise our own children, to the poor. Patricia MacCormack points out that resignation from procreation and striving for human extinction can make it possible to care for humans and other animals: those who are already here.

Antinatalism and other philosophical topics

Realism

See also: Pollyanna principle

Some antinatalists believe that most people do not evaluate reality accurately, which affects the desire to have children.

Peter Wessel Zapffe identifies four repressive mechanisms we use, consciously or not, to restrict our consciousness of life and the world:

• isolation: an arbitrary dismissal from our consciousness and the consciousness of others about all negative thoughts and feelings associated with the unpleasant facts of our existence. In daily life, this manifests as a tacit agreement to remain silent on certain subjects – especially around children, to prevent instilling in them a fear of the world and what awaits them in life, before they will be able to learn other mechanisms.
• anchoring: the creation and use of personal values to ensure our attachment to reality, such as parents, home, the street, school, God, the church, the state, morality, fate, the law of life, the people, the future, accumulation of material goods or authority, etc. This can be characterized as creating a defensive structure, "a fixation of points within, or construction of walls around, the liquid fray of consciousness", and defending the structure against threats.
• distraction: shifting focus to new impressions to flee from circumstances and ideas we consider harmful or unpleasant.
• sublimation: refocusing the tragic parts of life into something creative or valuable, usually through an aesthetic confrontation for the purpose of catharsis. We focus on the imaginary, dramatic, heroic, lyric or comic aspects of life, to allow ourselves and others an escape from their true impact.

According to Zapffe, depressive disorders are often "messages from a deeper, more immediate sense of life, bitter fruits of a geniality of thought". Some studies seem to confirm this: it is said about the phenomenon of depressive realism, and both Colin Feltham and John Pollard write about antinatalism as one of its possible consequences.

David Benatar, citing numerous studies, lists three phenomena described by psychologists, which, according to him, are responsible for making our self-assessments about the quality of our lives unreliable:

• Tendency towards optimism (or Pollyanna principle) – we have a positively distorted picture of our lives in the past, present and future.
• Adaptation (or accommodation, or habituation) – we adapt to negative situations and adjust our expectations accordingly.
• Comparison – for our self-assessments about the quality of our lives, more important than how our lives go is how they go in comparison with the lives of others. One of the effects of this is that negative aspects of life that affect everyone are not taken into account when assessing our own well-being. We are also more likely to compare ourselves with those who are worse off than those who are better off.

Benatar concludes:

The above psychological phenomena are unsurprising from an evolutionary perspective. They militate against suicide and in favour of reproduction. If our lives are quite as bad as I shall still suggest they are, and if people were prone to see this true quality of their lives for what it is, they might be much more inclined to kill themselves, or at least not to produce more such lives. Pessimism, then, tends not to be naturally selected.

Thomas Ligotti draws attention to the similarity between Zapffe's philosophy and terror management theory. Terror management theory argues that humans are equipped with unique cognitive abilities beyond what is necessary for survival, which includes symbolic thinking, extensive self-consciousness and perception of themselves as temporal beings aware of the finitude of their existence. The desire to live alongside our awareness of the inevitability of death triggers terror in us. Opposition to this fear is among our primary motivations. To escape it, we build defensive structures around ourselves to ensure our symbolic or literal immortality, to feel like valuable members of a meaningful universe, and to focus on protecting ourselves from immediate external threats. 

 Abortion

Antinatalism can lead to a particular position on the morality of abortion.

According to David Benatar, one comes into existence in the morally relevant sense when consciousness arises, when a fetus becomes sentient, and up until that time an abortion is moral, whereas continued pregnancy would be immoral. Benatar refers to EEG brain studies and studies on the pain perception of the fetus, which states that fetal consciousness arises no earlier than between twenty-eight and thirty weeks of pregnancy, before which it is incapable of feeling pain. A 2010 report from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists also showed that a fetus could not gain consciousness prior to week twenty-four of the pregnancy, and apparently never does at any point in utero, stating that "there appeared to be no clear benefit in considering the need for fetal analgesia prior to termination of pregnancy, even after 24 weeks". Some assumptions of this report regarding sentience of the fetus after the second trimester were criticized. In a similar way argues Karim Akerma. He distinguishes between organisms that do not have mental properties and living beings that have mental properties. According to his view, which he calls the mentalistic view, a living being begins to exist when an organism (or another entity) produces a simple form of consciousness for the first time.

Julio Cabrera believes that the moral problem of abortion is totally different from the problem of abstention of procreation because in the case of abortion, there is no longer a non-being, but an already existing being – the most helpless and defenseless of the parties involved, that someday might have the autonomy to decide, and we cannot decide for them. From the point of view of Cabrera's negative ethics, abortion is immoral for similar reasons as procreation. For Cabrera, the exception in which abortion is morally justified is cases of irreversible illness of the fetus (or some serious "social illnesses" like American conquest or Nazism), according to him in such cases we are clearly thinking about the unborn, and not simply of our own interests. In addition, Cabrera believes that under certain circumstances, it is legitimate and comprehensible to commit unethical actions, for example, abortion is legitimate and comprehensible when the mother's life is at risk or when pregnancy is the result of rape – in such situations is necessary to be sensitive without assuming a rigid principialism.

Procreation of non-human animals

Some antinatalists view the breeding of animals as morally bad, and some view sterilization as morally good in their case. Karim Akerma defines antinatalism, that includes animals, as universal antinatalism  and he assumes such a position himself:

By sterilising animals, we can free them from being slaves to their instincts and from bringing more and more captive animals into the cycle of being born, contracting parasites, ageing, falling ill and dying; eating and being eaten.

David Benatar emphasizes that his argumentation applies to all sentient beings and mentions that humans play a role in deciding how many animals there will be: humans breed other species of animals and are able to sterilize other species of animals. He says it would be better if all species of sentient beings became extinct. In particular, he is explicit in judging the breeding of animals as morally bad:

Because my arguments apply not only to humans but also to other sentient animals, my arguments are also zoophilic (in the non-sexual sense of that term). Bringing a sentient life into existence is a harm to the being whose life it is. My arguments suggest that it is wrong to inflict this harm.

Magnus Vinding argues that the lives of wild animals in their natural environment are generally very bad. He draws attention to phenomena such as dying before adulthood, starvation, disease, parasitism, infanticide, predation and being eaten alive. He cites research on what animal life looks like in the wild. One of eight male lion cubs survives into adulthood. Others die as a result of starvation, disease and often fall victims to the teeth and claws of other lions. Attaining adulthood is much rarer for fish. Only one in a hundred male chinook salmon survives into adulthood. Vinding is of the opinion that if human lives and the survival of human children looked like this, current human values would disallow procreation; however, this is not possible when it comes to animals, who are guided by instinct. He takes the view that even if one does not agree that procreation is always morally bad, one should recognize procreation in wildlife as morally bad and something that ought to be prevented (at least in theory, not necessarily in practice). He maintains that non-intervention cannot be defended if we reject speciesism and that we should reject the unjustifiable dogma stating that what is happening in nature is what should be happening in nature.

We cannot allow ourselves to spuriously rationalize away the suffering that takes place in nature, and to forget the victims of the horrors of nature merely because that reality does not fit into our convenient moral theories, theories that ultimately just serve to make us feel consistent and good about ourselves in the face of an incomprehensibly bad reality.

Similar arguments to that of Vinding are made by Ludwig Raal, who is in favor of a more practical approach. He argues for introducing non-violent population control through immunocontraception. This would sustain the ecosystem and human population, and allow people to perform helpful interventions in nature.

Creation of artificial intelligence

Thomas Metzinger, Sander Beckers, and Bartłomiej Chomański argue against trying to create artificial intelligence as this could significantly increase the amount of suffering in the universe. David Benatar also says that his argumentation for not bringing others into existence is applicable to all sentient beings, including conscious machines.

Criticism

Criticism of antinatalism comes from those that see positive value in bringing humans into existence. David Wasserman has criticized David Benatar's asymmetry argument and the consent argument. Émile P. Torres argues that the consequence of all humanity adopting antinatalism would not necessarily be extinction: if safe and effective life-extension technologies become available, humans could stop procreating but still survive for as long as the universe remains habitable. Psychologist Geoffrey Miller has argued that "all the research on human well-being shows almost everyone across cultures is well above neutral on happiness. Benatar is just empirically wrong that life is dominated by suffering." Massimo Pigliucci argues that David Benatar's essential premise that pleasure is the only true inherent good and pain the only inherent evil is a flawed argument and refutable within the philosophy of Stoicism, which regards pleasure and pain as merely indifferents, and that moral virtues and vices should be the only guide of human action.

Brian Tomasik challenges the effectiveness of human antinatalism in reducing suffering by pointing out that humans appropriate the habitats of wild animals thereby sparing wild animals from being born into lives containing suffering.

Robbert Zandbergen has argued that the definition of antinatalism is too narrow. As a consequence of this, people are unduly focused on human reproduction (and the limiting or stopping thereof), which should only ever be the terminus of antinatalism. The starting point, rather, is the grim diagnosis that life emerges as the result of some cosmic mistake. In order to rectify this situation, humans are tasked with undoing the unnecessary pressures exerted by their existence. One avenue of this rectification is the limiting or concluding of human reproduction.