The Rise of Antinatalism

There is a growing movement of people who believe that having children is unethical—which is known as antinatalism. A feature in Harper's magazine this week explores what may be a growing number of people looking at all the "polycrisis" in the world and deciding that the logical conclusion is to advocate for bringing no more children into the world. 

A South African philosopher named David Benatar first introduced the term of antinatalism in 2006:

"Existence contains both benefits and harm, whereas non-existence contains neither. The most ethical choice, given this asymmetry, is to avoid harm. In fact, he argues, each of us has a duty to keep from increasing the world’s net suffering, a responsibility that procreation necessarily violates."

The entire philosophy seems mainly driven by a single prevailing mindset: pessimism. When you believe things will turn out for the worse, you may also likely see children as something to avoid ... which may also explain why so many optimistic people find the beliefs of antinatalists so hard to understand.

You cannot turn a pessimist into an optimist by telling them they are wrong. And maybe they aren't wrong. It's hard to logically argue that everyone needs to have children.