Why Have Children?: The Ethical Debate [Hardcover]

As a 28-year-old who recently entered a same-sex marriage, I'm struggling with what I think about my own potential for motherhood and the ways I could have children--do I want children? Do I not? In what ways could I feel ethically and emotionally *right* about parenting, if I do decide to parent? This is one of a number of books I've picked up to help me work through my thoughts--'and one I'm very happy with, because it examines a lot of the questions and feelings I've had.

The title sounds ominous, as though the book will be vastly critical of children or of people who have children. It isn't, though. Instead, Overall looks at what it means, morally, to have a child in present-day North America in clear, easy to read, and even warm language that shows a great deal of respect for children and for parents and that comes to no damning conclusions (except against deliberately-created extremely large families).

Mostly, Overall examines philosophical arguments that have been put forward both for and against having children and takes them down from the high-flown theoretical, in which no realistic human beings seem to be involved, to reality, where women must have or not have the children philosophers debate over. She looks at what these arguments, both pro- and anti-procreation, mean for women, their status, and their control over their own bodies. Many of the models fall apart when moved into the real world, where it's shown they imagine realities that could only exist if women were used as breeding machines or people were forced to be sterilized or use lifelong birth control. She also shows that many of the models seem to assume that people have a "prelife" existence that existing humans are either obligated to save them from (by procreating) or let them remain in (by not procreating)--and how strange and flimsy this assumption is, that children preexist their own existence.

She focuses on trying to find ways to judge the ethics involved in choosing to have children that abandon trying to value the (not comparable) states of existing and not existing, but instead look at what the choice to have children means for those who do exist and will exist--i.e., for everyone already alive and for the child who will exist if parents choose to procreate. I like that. It's easy, as a human being, to get caught up in "alternative universes"--what could be, what might be, what isn't but maybe should be, etc.--and hard to look at what is, right now, and what is right to do right now (even if what is right is hard).

In the end, she comes to no sweeping conclusions. The decision to have children can be either good or bad, depending on the individual circumstances. She concludes that it is much easier to ethically justify not having children than to justify having them, and that, given modern population, North American parents have a moral (though not legal or social) responsibility to have not more than one child per person. She also concludes that the decision to go ahead and have children is essentially *non*rational, not irrational--that is, considerations go into it that cannot be explained by reason but that are still sound.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who's driving themselves up a tree wondering about the big abstract questions about having children--will I fail my personhood by not having children? Will I fail my genetic lineage? Will I be helping overpopulate the planet if I have kids? Or will I be helping contribute to an aging population with no workers if I don't? Is it okay if I have children even if my genes are less than perfect? Am I too old to parent? Etc., etc., etc. It may help ground your thoughts a little.

In the spirit on full disclosure, I agree with the central premise of this book: There are more compelling reasons NOT to have a child than there are to have a child.

That said, it appears as though Overall selectively ignores or willfully misinterprets counter arguments to her claims, namely those of Benatar's "better to never have been" philosophy. What's more, the author then attempts to knock down these now incomplete arguments or misinterpretations ad nauseum. This 'dance' grows tiresome and frustrating. Added to this, she has a troubling habit of making claims and assumptions about other theories and thinkers that are flat-out unsubstantiated.

It pains me to only be able to give a book about a topic so important and under-discussed 2 stars but I expected its handling to be done so with a little more objectivity and care.

Hopelessly muddled is the best you can say about this book. The premise it is based on - namely that to procreate is an 'ethical question' - is false, hence all other conclusions wrong (at least not in alignment with reality).
Having children is simply a natural given that is beyond morality because it comes automatically to us like the need to eat; it is not an aberration or misuse of our human potential, only in cases where children are born into misery or potential mothers are unfit to bring up children. In any case, nature has never asked our permission, it simply implanted this drive.
All we can do is a decision against procreation - celibacy, abortion or child infanticide. This has always happened, either to an individual desire to flee life (hermits) or due to unfortunate personal circumstances (poverty, illness etc.) or in cases of emergency due to regional events (war, famine etc.). Before the advent of mechanical birth control pregnancy simply happened, and I would argue that our own inventions cannot possibly carry any ethical obligations beyond the application of said invention (when NOT to use them, but never in favour of them, at least not in a democratic society).
The fundamental fact is and remains that you cannot view an individual human life as a 'separate event': it is a chain - life begets life. This is a fact beyond any moralizing.
From a generational standpoint it is a contract: you have been given life, you hand on this very gift. It is deeply imbedded in our instincts to secure human existence; hence it has to be considered an unqualified good (unless you view our existence as 'problematic' or even 'bad' as some loony fringes do in their pathological self-hatred).
I do agree with the philosophers (and against religion) that existence (= existing persons) come before potential life: this is an ontological fact and should not invite legal sophistry. But when it comes down to an individual's life and her/his natural desire to procreate, the overall state of the world (= population and resources in distant countries) cannot possibly create legal or moral obligations - that would be outright madness. What a human being can shoulder is responsibility for his/her own life, for relatives and own children, and at most the immediate community. Everything else is irrational. Interestingly enough, this was a topic as long ago as ancient China some 24 centuries ago when Lao Tzu warned in his Tao Te Ching that overburdening fragile human hearts will lead to evil behaviour. So, demanding of us to care for the whole world (whether in giving money to every ailing person existing or forgoing my deepest desire and most natural right) is irrational.
Professor Overall then goes down to the psychological level and criticizes women for having children for what she considers selfish reasons: "procreate merely to adhere to tradition, to please others, to conform to gender conventions, or to benefit themselves out of the inappropriate expectation that children will fix their problems."
What kind of benefit? A life-long, difficult duty? Or income from the welfare state? If that is not right then clearly the welfare state is immoral and not its beneficiaries, dear lefties.
Overall writes in her introduction, "In contemporary Western culture, it ironically appears that one needs to have reasons not to have children, but no reasons are required to have them."
She says that she has been pondering the question of procreation for decades, and this is the outcome: ironically? As long as we do not have something like `spontaneous self-birth' it is obvious that giving life is a human's greatest potential that doesn't require any justification. If I had to justify my desire to have offspring my very own existence seems to be questionable (if there are already too many of us then I, as an existing person, am part of this undesirable state!). There is nothing ironic about that chilly philosophy.
If survival of humankind is an unquestionable good it is only logical to ask those that opt out of their duty (to keep the chain of life going) why they do this? To point to global `over-population' is not an answer since the invention of worldwide media confers no moral obligation in regard to my nature-given desires (you could equally ask me to go hungry -- which I would refuse, no matter the state of another continent!). That some 40 per cent of female academics opt out of procreation is nothing but a lifestyle choice, and certainly not an `ethical reaction' to women in Africa having too many babies in comparison to their available resources. If childless women want to be ethical they can easily send 50 percent of their available income to ailing countries instead of keeping the luxury industry going. No, not an option? Thought so. Hence this book.
Since most Western countries are overrun by immigration it does not matter population-wise when large numbers of women break the generational contract. Where this is not the case, e.g. in Russia, it does matter indeed because it potentially creates a dying society.
From a community's point of view it is only ever the opting out that requires justification. No lame excuses centring on the `state of the world' will ever change that since it is the first and foremost duty of any tribe/community to survive, not to sacrifice itself so that other communities elsewhere can thrive instead ...