Jessica Winter reviews two books on the “ethics of procreation in the age of man-made climate change” for the New Yorker. The books are The Quickening by Elizabeth Rush and The Parenthood Dilemma by Gina Rushton.
I addressed some of these arguments at greater length in my piece for The Spectator, “Baby doomers: why are couples putting the planet ahead of parenthood?”
According to Winter, both Rush and Rushton are riddled with anxiety over having children. Winter shares some of their concerns, writing, “Your happy childhood is no guarantee of the same for your kid, especially if they will grow up on a planet that will be warmer by nearly three degrees Fahrenheit.”
Whatever decision one makes with regard to having children, Winter says, one is liable to feel “that she has picked the wrong side, that the choice to have or not to have children is bound up with moral blame and guilt.” She concludes that “perhaps having a child under any circumstances, given the unimaginably high emotional, financial, ecological, and existential stakes, is an act of outrageous presumption.”
These women need to get over themselves. We can’t and don’t control everything. Even that which we can (sort of) control, we are still at the mercy of God and Nature. Whether it’s fertility or the well-being of the planet, there is no point in wasting our lives worrying. To the morally sane, children are a blessing, not a curse.