Reproductive Nonsense
Have kids, and don't feel guilty.
Let’s talk about the morality of human reproduction. Not whether or not it’s right for you at any given moment in time, just the act of reproduction itself.
When I was in high school, we were required to take a class called World Problems. [I did not make this up. I swear.] The class took a relatively simplistic approach to what was seen as dangerous situations developing on the horizon. Simplistic, because the teacher acted as though the causes and solutions to these problems had nothing to do with the individual situations in which people lived. Nor did it examine why anyone made any of the choices that they did.
[The real choices that people make is the study of economics]
The class was mostly brainstorming. The problem was presented, such as pollution or overpopulation, and we were as a class invited to call out what we saw as possible causes of these issues. Then we would consider the possible causes of the causes, and back into time and so on.
Sadly, not only were our suppositions largely inaccurate, [as I learned much later in life] they were entirely depressing. The second part of the exercise was considering possible outcomes for the problem in question. And then outcomes for the outcomes. This was also depressing.
What never came up, ever, was that there were possible good outcomes for the situations in question. Certainly, our teacher offered no such considerations, but with a class title like ‘World Problems’ it seems unlikely that something positive would have been presented.
[Said in a prim tone] If one is going to consider a situation and whether or not some action on the matter is required, it seems to me that one should be looking at both sides of a given issue.
Humans tend to be biased toward the negative. There are sound biological and evolutionary reasons for that. But unless we balance it, it affects our mental health and potentially our life choices in a very negative way.
And it’s unnecessary.
