November 16, 2017

NBC:  Having Children Is  ‘Immoral’ Because It Harms the Earth    N

NBC – which is still a national major media outlet, mind you – ran the following headline written by a guy named Travis Rieder, who, according to his byline, is the director of the Master of Bioethics degree program and a research scholar at the Berman Institute of Bioethics.

The headline reads:

“Science proves kids are bad for Earth. Morality suggests we stop having them.“

On a base level, the argument is the same old tired trope that environmental extremists have been peddling for some time now – that humans are subpar to the intrinsic value of a fichus, that that you should place the wellbeing of the common dung beetle over your own 5-year-old son, because #PlanetEarth.

But while equally as oblivious to its own inane, cultish drivel as most Hug-a-Grizzly propaganda, Rieder’s article is perhaps even less apologetic than most, charging straight past the “Maybe don’t have 17 children, please” line and heading pell-mell for “Have kids, and I swear by my organic hemp poncho we will hunt them down” territory.

Think that’s an exaggeration?   Take Reider’s own words, in which he lines up his argument by comparing his own daughter to a murderer.  “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 — even though the killer is also fully responsible…

 “Something similar is true, I think, when it comes to having children: Once my daughter is an autonomous agent, she will be responsible for her emissions. But that doesn’t negate my responsibility