originally posted in:Spread the Word
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While I'm generally a fan of Life - not necessarily what people do with it - there's a really bad nagging feeling inside of me that bringing children into this world is cruel. My mother said to me a few years ago that she didn't know whether or not to have children, because it'd feel cruel to make them live in this world.
Of course, this no doubt sounds like Verbatim's ideas to a lot of you at this point. Disregarding his image and infamy, can't we all admit that, even if minimally, he is correct. There is a level of cruelty in the production of children. While I wouldn't go insofar as to advocate anti-natalism, the [i]personal[/i] level of choosing to have a child has been playing on my conscience a bit recently.
And while I can concede that there is a lot of beauty in the world, particularly in nature. . . The world is sick. Humans were never made to function optimally in civilisation and developed society. Rates of depression are on the rise, and suicide is the #2 leading cause of death worldwide.
So, what do you guys think? Is it cruel to have children?
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It really depends on your circumstances. If you can reasonably guarantee that you can give a child the attention and care they need then(to me) it's acceptable. I think about this a lot too, that is why I'm a proponent of procreative beneficence and bioethical abolitionism. Procreative beneficence proposes making advances in genetic engineering to the point where we can guarantee birth defects are a non issue. Bioethical abolitionism proposes use of neuroscience, neuropharmocology, cybernetics, and genetic engineering to remove the capacity suffering(for those that wish it) and the hedonic treadmill. When there are other ways to solve a problem why go with the one where we necessarily go extinct?