Ethical Essay Four -- Who Should Reproduce?

Katie Meyers

Ethical Essay Four – Who Should Reproduce?

Who should reproduce? At first glance, why should not everybody who desires to? After all, as human beings, it is each person’s right to try and have one or more children if they would like. However, would-be-parents should be made aware of the impact their future children will have upon the globe.

The first reaction of some would-be-parents at this stage would be, “I know that the population is getting very large and possibly nearing being out of control in the near future. However, what if we just have two? After all, it should not affect the population much, as they will replace us (the parents) in the population when we are gone.” However, this is not so. After all, parents to not expect to die the minute after they have had their two children. Therefore, there will be a period where they will be double in number, thereby affecting the population’s numbers. Even when fertility rates are lowered, the population still rises significantly. For example, China has actively and successfully lowered their fertility rate to two children or less per couple. However, as a country, they still produce about 10 million new people every year. Even with lowered fertility rates, the future population is thought to rise significantly from now to the year 2050 (from about 6.5 billion people to over 9 billion people). The Zero Population Growth group, founded in 1968, was famous for its “stop at two” motto. However, due to these more recent events and realizations, their new motto has become, “Consider having one or none, and be sure to stop after two.”

All these facts are well and good, but what is the worry of raising the population? How much will a greater population really affect the Earth and its resources? Each person added to this world hugely impacts Nature, especially if the parents live in a more developed country. For instance, if a North American couple stops after having two kids, the energy those two children will consume is equivalent to an East Indian couple stopping after having sixty children or an Ethiopian couple stopping after having six hundred children! Also, each human being (averaged at 60 kilograms) represents 2500 calories or 120 watts used per day. That may sound like a significant amount (which it is), but the more advanced countries have produced even more astonishing numbers for our perusal. For instance, the more advanced the country, the more expensive the child (in terms of how much energy and fossil fuels each child will use). This fact explains why many more advanced countries have a lower fertility rate than less advanced countries: each child costs more there! To expand on this concept, let us look again at the uptake of energy and fossil fuels by each average American (living in the United States). After adding in energy and fossil fuel consumption rates to their daily consumption, each American is using the amount of energy equivalent to a 30,000 kilogram primate, or approximately 100 times the rate of the average human biological metabolism! No wonder advanced countries have so few children, when the parents themselves spend so much money and effort to use this much energy themselves.

In the end, I think that any couple that desires to become parents should be made aware of the current crisis concerning the world’s future population and lack of consumable energy. Despite the simplicity of having a child, this is a situation that proves that just one person can change the world. Before having one or more children, parents should be educated on the great effect their children will have on the globe’s resources and thereby be able to pass on such information to their children. In that way, parents can teach their children how to conserve the precious limited resources we have at our disposal, thereby raising future generations’ awareness of the importance of conservation. If this is done, then all couples should be given the chance to bear children if they so desire.