#sorrynotsorry for going off.

I’ve grown really disgusted with the anti-natalist movement as being fundamentally misanthropic and rotten to the core with capitalist realism. Their arguments are seductive in a miserable kind of way. They speak to the pain of existence and getting by in our contemporary world, but they don’t move us to improve our circumstances. They say, “it can’t possibly get better, let’s just roll over and die.” Defeatist ass libs.

The anti-natalist I’m ideas I’m familiar with are not as simple as “harm reduction.” It defines existence (usually specifically humans themselves) as on the whole being harm itself, either to the planet or to the people ‘forced’ to exist. It is not a short term tactic, it is a philosophy that advocates for the self-directed extinction of the human species. Some examples of the prominent veins of thought. Of these sources, anti-natalism is specifically seen as an ethical ideology, or at the very least a moral imperative drawn from ethical reasoning. I will continue to treat it as such given these are the most prominent voices of the movement.

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-49298720

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-case-for-not-being-born

I suppose I shouldn’t be conflating the ‘hard’ pro-adoption crowd with the anti-natalist crowd, but i have seen anti-natalist of the variety I’m talking about use kids who need to be adopted as a cudgel for their other beliefs so often I almost do it subconsciously. The existence of children who need adoption is not some pawn in the chest game of debate, and it disgusts me to see them used that way.

I also disagree with the interchangeability of child raising. You’re assuming the reasons I (and perhaps people more broadly) have for wanting a child are selfish and chauvinistic ones at best, or paltry and infantile ones at worst. I think that there are likely better and worse reasons for wanting one’s own children, but there does indeed exist good ones whether a person is conscious of them or not. In a way that I explicitly disagree with anti-natalists on, I think sentient life is a good thing that should be celebrated. More humans means more brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, friends, teachers, cozy carers, spiritual pioneers, intellectual visionaries, artists adept at exploring the edges of emotional understanding, motivators who excel at telling stories to motivate us through challenging times, and all sorts of different types to enjoy and make this world with.

Furthermore, I think that having children is, certainly not a mandatory, but beautiful and unifying part of the human experience. That we can create new life, and sentient life at that, is a magnificent expression of the universe. We are the universe propagating an understanding of itself, and while one’s own contribution may be relatively minor if understood from the cold math of genetics, it can instead be understood as the “pleasure of being the cause of something.” Having children is an expression of our bodily capabilities, and taking a direct part in this huge project of humanity. While small in the grand scheme of things, it’s quite huge in the story of that family, both immediate and extended. Taking part in that tradition seems prima facia reasonable, and the burden to make it unreasonable would have to be high indeed. Your challenge about “why your genes” is so loaded with assumptions that it’s frankly insulting so I’m not going to respond directly, but hope that what I’ve written above inspires you to pause and consider some other reasons people might have for wanting children that you’ve plastered over with an uncharitable strawman.

The existence of children who do not have a loving and caring home to call their own is a problem and worthy of great consideration and effort to remedy it. But to tell people who want what kids that they’re somehow stupid or malicious for doing that is an abusive way to be. It’s a collective action problem. We live in a world where we artificially deprive people of the necessities they need to live stable lives, and then play the good guy when we swoop into these broken families and extract the children. How about we assign the blame a little further upstream than parents who have a prima facia reasonable desire to reproduce? How about we blame our ruling class overlords who create this needy child machine as part of preserving capitalism?

If all you’re advocating is harm reduction in the short term sure, whatever, but that’s not what the anti-natalist term generally denotes as a position.