Because “having one fewer child reduces one’s contribution to the harms of climate change,” Travis Rieder argues, “everyone on Earth ought to consider having fewer children.”
Rieder confesses that “this is an uncomfortable discussion.” He says he’s “not arguing that we should shame parents, or even that we’re obligated to have a certain number of children.”
But on his grounds, why shouldn’t we? If he thinks we’re morally obligated to limit our childbearing, shame would seem the least penalty appropriate. If having too many children is, as he implies, analogous to murder, why not criminalize it? Huh?
Does he really analogize childbearing with murder? Yes:
If I release a murderer from prison, knowing full well that he intends to kill innocent people, then I bear some responsibility for those deaths …. Something similar is true, I think, when it comes to having children ….
So we shouldn’t be surprised that he recommends an article justifying China’s one-child policy. There Sarah Conly says the world’s 7 billion people cause “soil depletion, lack of fresh water, overfishing, species extinction, and overcrowding in cities.” When we reach “9.7 billion by 2050,” the situation will be even worse. …
That’s standard rhetoric for population-control advocates, from early church father Tertullian to Paul Ehrlich to today's increasingly shrill climate alarmists. Don't listen to them, friends. Listen to the Lord instead.
"Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28).
****