Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) believes that having children is immoral. No, no, she's not arguing for a chinese-type ban on children. She's not talking about legislation. She just thinks that, given global climate change and millennial debt and how hard it is too live in this world and all that, reproducing humans is an evil, not a good.
It's not like she's alone. I'm not pointing to her as the leading edge of a movement. We recently saw a story about a guy who wants to sue his parents for him being born without his consent. He's a "anti-natalist" who believes that all reproduction is evil and the only way to solve the problems in life is to eliminate all life. But this guy isn't the leading edge, either. In fact, birth rates in developed countries are on the decline everywhere.
The fact that human beings no longer carry intrinsic worth is the leading edge. This is demonstrated in the 1973 decision that privacy outweighs personhood and children can be summarily executed on the whim of their mothers. This leads to the obvious conclusion that killing people if they want to be killed (referred to as "euthanasia") is a perfectly good thing. So confused are we that defending living babies is not the right thing for us to do. Australian ethicist Peter Singer logically argues that belief in the special value of human beings is merely "speciesism" and we should have no qualms about killing them all the way out to 2 or 3 years old. Makes sense in the current worldview.
So far reaching is this notion that Christians are buying into it (see, for instance, this article). "Have kids? No thank you. Not really interested. Certainly not sure it's a good idea." Biblically-minded Christians will tell me, "That whole 'Be fruitful and multiply' thing is old, Old Testament, no longer applicable to our world or times." It is no longer a defining or recommended or, possibly, even desired feature of "marriage." I'm not talking about the "If we had a child it would likely physically kill my wife" kind of thinking. I'm talking about the "I can't be bothered," "We can't afford it," "There's already too many people in the world" kind of thinking. I'm talking about the idea that child-bearing and child-rearing are purely optional if you're in the mood for it and very likely not a very good idea for us.
So where do we go with this? Do we side with the "anti-natalists"? No, of course not. But what about the AOC's of this world? Is is morally wrong to have children in this day and age? Maybe only if you don't want them or can't afford them? Is human reproduction, biblically a function of marriage, no longer a function of marriage? Now it's preference? Or is the goal of producing children a highly recommended, essentially normative activity ("normative", that which establishes what is normal) for the married Christian?
If that old-fashioned view is out, I have to ask what we're supposed to do with the texts. Do we discard "Be fruitful and multiply" as "Old Testament" and "No longer applicable"? When the psalmist says, "Children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them" (Psa 127:3-5), do we correct him and tell him, "Sure, that was in your day, but God no longer thinks so"? I am pretty sure that there are a sufficient number of folks that are happy to discard Paul's argument that women are "saved through childbearing" (1 Tim 2:11-15). (Note: That "saved" doesn't mean "saved from sin".) Can we safely do that? I suspect we're not asking these questions anymore because we've bought the current mindset that how we feel determines what we should do, that what we want is what is right. We can be quite certain that "what we want" is not a valid measure of what is right. Maybe we should be examining this idea more.
7 comments:
As someone who was adopted, this conversation might have a different feel than it does for others. But I always try to keep two things in mind.
1. I’m incredibly grateful that my mother chose not to abort me.
2. One of my greatest dissapointments is not having adopted a child.
Having said that. It’s amazing that these folx ignore the reality that lowering the birth rate will be disastrous on so many levels. Not the least of which is running out of money for their insane schemes.
#2, truly. How can you expect to spend other people's money if you run out of other people, let alone their money?
Good question, not one that’ll get you a good answer.
The group which wins, in a purely Darwinian sense, is the one which convinces its females to be baby factories.
Welcome to our Islamic future.
Anonymous, you could be right. Especially if the ideological neocolonialism that is trying to impose population control in Africa is successful.
Unfortunately for them, homosexuals are on the wrong side of this particular curve.
There is either a diety, or there isn't. I'm not sure there's a third way. We have clearly gone the "there isn't" route, which leaves only evolution, or the "Darwinian sense." What I can't figure out is, what, or who, are we saving the planet for? I'm searching for the "purpose" behind the "cause" of saving the planet, or the basis for the morality of not having children... or for the basis of any morality at all for that matter. It looks to me like, on the one hand, we are living this awesome life here, thank you impersonal and uncaring universe by way of evolution. And on the other, evolution doesn't have enough sense after bringing us this far to continue its "progress" toward whatever end an impersonal, unthinking, uncaring universe would have for the human race.
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