NY Times asks about the decision to have children

Peter Singer of the New York Times asked for comments on "whether to have a child? . . . what factors entered into your decision?. . . the desirability of adding to the strain that .. .nearly seven billion people already are putting on our planet’s environment. But very few ask whether coming into existence is a good thing for the child itself. . . . consideration of family history and possibility of a devastating illness, physical or mental? ..."

Androcles commented: "I think it's unwise and edging into a kind of egoist insanity to bring into the world children who will have great suffering. Yet there is the question of, for example, Stephen Hawkins. If genetic testing would have revealed his inevitable condition, should that potential being have been aborted? Is the gene pool so assorted and rich that someone else would have arrived at his conclusions? I think a tentative yes, but obviously the answer is not known.

The American idea of individualism has a lot to answer for -- isn't it the case that most humans are more similar to each other than not? Mathematical/probability question: How many times do we have to toss the genetic dice in order to get a genius or a gifted athlete?

The arrival of Birth Control was a watershed in human history, yet powerful forces throughout the world fight against it. Religions, governments and some cultural forces fight birth control as if it were an evil -- what do they gain from that viewpoint? Could it be thought of as a global version of the suppression of women expressed in the colloquial saw: "Keep them barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen." The concept of a woman's being "caught" by pregnancy and therefore revealed as a sexual (not to say sinful) being is still valid in most of the world. Americans in particular are still juvenile about sex, regarding it as something separate from life, fighting sex education and so on.

Remember "Zero Population Growth?" This valid movement was buttressed with wise thought. Yet, among the questions that arise: If so-called sophisticated societies eschew large families or any families and so-called emerging societies are denied the same birth control and knowledge that brought about this decision in the former societies -- what are we to do with this conundrum?