Is Having Children Moral?

     My favorite philosopher of all time is Emil Cioran. Emil was a Romanian philosopher who was a staunch pessimist, nihilist, and anti-natalist (which means he is anti-procreation). It was through reading "The Trouble With Being Born" that I first seriously considered the idea that having kids could be morally wrong. This idea is usually hardly taken seriously. Personally, I have never been convinced that it is moral to have children. Not that it necessarily isn't moral, but rather I really don't know one way or the other. I've scoffed at others who claimed that they refused to have children because of climate change or some other half-baked ex-risk, but I have actually considered the pain and suffering that would be inflicted by bringing children into a world on the brink of nuclear war. Being born only to suffer a painful, radioactive death seem not very ideal. Would it be stupid to try for children during the Cuban missile crisis? There is probably some level where I agree with anti-natalism. If you live in abject poverty where every week a group of soldiers stops by your house beats you senseless for two hours, your kids are probably not going to have a good life. In that case, it is probably immoral to have children. Now, this is a much rarer case that you would think. It's easy to view abortion as permissible simply because "well foster care is pretty hard and kids that are born into poverty probably turn to a life of violence." Not only is this far-fetched, but if it is the case we should assume having children at all in poverty should be disallowed (if their life is really so bad that it is better to never have lived). I seriously doubt it. The morality of abortion is solely dependent on when a clump of cells becomes equivalent to that of a human life (or at which point some level of moral significance is bestowed that outweighs other factors). This is a philosophical question with no easy answer.

    I view life as good and death as bad, and existence as better than non-existence. A lot of people say things like "death is what makes life worth living" or "death is an important part of life," but remember that humans are very good at rationalizing their situation. We don't need to do this. We should admit that all of us would choose to live longer, potentially indefinitely, until we decide on our own terms not to exist. We do not choose to be born. This makes having kids a moral dilemma, because they have no say over the matter. Although I love pessimistic philosophy, I live my life as an optimist. Human life at the current moment in history is very positive. Having children is totally reasonable, and if you raise them to be happy caretakers of others you will have done an immense service. I am extremely grateful that I was created, and most people I know are as well. If this changes due to some horrifying global developments, maybe we reconsider.