Two things came across my desk recently that gave me pause.
An article in the New Yorker exploring whether or not procreation has actually become immoral.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/04/09/120409crbo_books_kolbert
It's about 4 pages long and not surprisingly, it's very analytical/intellectual and to be honest I really only skimmed it because of two things:
1. I've become a lazy Internet reader and
2. The other thing came across my desk that in my humble opinion, more succinctly got to the point.
"Abortion is Green" according to Doug Stanhope
And, if you're even lazier than me and don't feel like reading the entirety of The New Yorker piece, the gist of that article is as follows:
Global population is expected to hit eight billion around 2025, which is to say about ninety-five years later than Knowlton predicted. No one in his right mind supposes that it could reach sixty-four billion without horrific consequences, except perhaps a few economists.
The decision to have a child, or one more child, or yet another child may seem to be a personal one—a choice about how many diapers you want to change in the short term versus how many Mother’s Day cards you hope to receive later on. But to see it in these terms alone is to be, as Caplan points out on the cover of his book, selfish. Whatever you may think of Overall’s and Benatar’s conclusions, it’s hard to argue with their insistence that the decision to have a child is an ethical one. When we set the size of our families, we are, each in our own small way, determining how the world of the future will look. And we’re doing this not just for ourselves and our own children; we’re doing it for everyone else’s children, too.
But again, if you're going to make a case against procreation, I think Doug Stanhope really says it best:
"Their combined uterii will wreak more havoc on the environment than 1,000 DOW chemical corporation accidents combined" and perhaps better still:
"If you want to help Mother Earth, try sodomy. Sodomy is eco-friendly and abortion is green."
As for myself, I'm less concerned with the size of the population (although I consider it a major issue) than I am with what that population is doing.
ReplyDeleteIf the world is jam-packed but it's jam-packed with people who are 'part of the solution' I'm fine with it. But we've evolved into a self-important culture that is producing masses of kids with an inflated sense of entitlement and, thus, we have hordes of people who are 'part of the problem.'
- John (the husband)