In what world is this NOT a controversial point?!? Genuinely, I ask: what is the cultural environment in which you exist, such that you can make this argument without at least knowing that other people would find it deeply offensive?

> If you cannot properly take care your children, don't have one.

OK, so poverty prevents a person from "properly" taking care of children? Would you say that poor people able to take care of their children, but only "improperly"?

What, might I ask, is the minimum acceptable level of income that a couple should have before having children? What do they do, those hard-working, upright and moral couples who don't make enough money to meet your standard? Should they live their whole lives childless, and die alone?

Poverty is a variable to properly taking care of a child, that does not mean that the parent means that being poor automatically makes one unfit to have a child, which is what you're conflating, if I understand correctly. If one is poor but can provide the proper nutrition and housing to a child, then great, have them, but if not, then no, I don't believe it is controversial or offensive to say that it would be better for them to not have a child. Child abuse is a big problem for a reason.

> Poverty is a variable to properly taking care of a child, that does not mean that the parent means that being poor automatically makes one unfit to have a child, which is what you're conflating, if I understand correctly.

In fact, the other commenters were conflating these two things, which I wanted to point out. I agree that they should not be conflated.

> If one is poor but can provide the proper nutrition and housing to a child, then great, have them, but if not, then no, I don't believe it is controversial or offensive to say that it would be better for them to not have a child. Child abuse is a big problem for a reason.

The right decision for an individual couple to make is not the same as the right policies and practices for society to implement.

There are people who are unsuitable for having children, but that number is vanishingly small (or at least it should be). Everybody else just needs support, resources, and instruction.

It might be better for a couple that does not have support, resources or knowledge to forgo having children. Whenever that happens, though, it is a tragedy for humanity. The rest of us should need to find ways to support families that are otherwise lacking, so that having children is the best option for them.

> In fact, the other commenters were conflating these two things, which I wanted to point out. I agree that they should not be conflated.

Yes, my bad. Being poor does not mean that you are automatically immoral for having children. But I clarified further that poverty is one of the variables in that judgment. Let's not pretend that being poor have no bearing on what the children will experience.

> What, might I ask, is the minimum acceptable level of income that a couple should have before having children? What do they do, those hard-working, upright and moral couples who don't make enough money to meet your standard? Should they live their whole lives childless, and die alone?

The whole tone of your message, talking about child as a passive thing that you conceive for the sake of making parents “not alone” already speaks a lot about how much you give a shit about whether A KID would be happy being born into this family.

In which family did you grow up? Pops and moms were happy campers with middle class income?

It's such a strange thing to argue that a child who is poor would be better off never to have been born at all—and then to characterize that argument as somehow being in favor of that child's interest.

My point is that a hard-working, upright and moral couple that wants a child should have one even if they are dirt poor, and shouldn't stop themselves because they don't have money. If the child ends up being unhappy in that environment purely as a result of the lack of money, then that is society's failing—our failing—not a failing of the parents'. We haven't done our duty to help this couple raise a happy family.

> In which family did you grow up? Pops and moms were happy campers with middle class income?

This is a strangely personal comment. Is this argument very personal for you? Is there something about your own life that makes you want to deny life to others?

Of course it is. You didn’t pick that up from the time of my comment?

I think we’re discussing this from different dimensions. You’re talking from some abstract concept of family and society relationship and I’m talking from a real word experience of growing up poor. It sucks, big time. So don’t start rationalizing suffering of millions growing up poor as “we’ve failed them, oh well, back to the drawing board!”

Not everyone growing poor has the same experience. I also grew up much poorer than my peers, plus that was in a war torn country where we didn't even have electricity for several years. And it did not suck at all.

Your mistake is thinking that the goal of life is to minimize suffering. But that is completely wrong, only result that this goal can lead to is complete elimination of life.

The goal of life is maximizing complexity, divercity, and capacity of life.

The amount of suffering i had to experience was completly justified because i had a chance to grow up and improve the lives of others. I happened to be lucky enough to realize that chance, but my parents had no way to know beforehand if i would be successful or not, that's why they were right to try.

> It's such a strange thing to argue that a child who is poor would be better off never to have been born

Someone who didn’t grow up poor will never understand this.

It's the same reason we catch and fix stray cats.

It's better that they not have kittens, than their kittens be born and starve to death.

With people, it takes even longer and more suffering to die of poverty than one first winter.

Sounds almost like some old slogan, "life unworthy of life" was it?

There is nothing dehumanizing about saying that any person in significant poverty, regardless of any membership in any demographic sector, should not have kids, because their kids are going to suffer.

I'll go a step further and share my personal belief that no one should have kids.

Children, while traditional, are nevertheless (and this fact seems to be inconvenient to many) optional. Every human has the choice available to them to not have children.

I grew up poor and I don't understand it either.

Children a century ago had a high likelihood of dying before they were 5. Now, that risk is greatly diminished.

At the same time, the standard of living has greatly increased across the board for rich and poor.

I am sorry that you had a bad childhood. Future generations of children, even the poor will have it better.

> I grew up poor and I don't understand it either.

> Children a century ago had a high likelihood of dying before they were 5. Now, that risk is greatly diminished.

I think our misunderstanding of each other comes from having different standards of what's considered good for child and what not.

> I am sorry that you had a bad childhood. Future generations of children, even the poor will have it better.

I never said that I had a bad childhood.

> It's such a strange thing to argue that a child who is poor would be better off never to have been born at all—and then to characterize that argument as somehow being in favor of that child's interest.

> My point is that a hard-working, upright and moral couple that wants a child should have one even if they are dirt poor, and shouldn't stop themselves because they don't have money. If the child ends up being unhappy in that environment purely as a result of the lack of money, then that is society's failing—our failing—not a failing of the parents'. We haven't done our duty to help this couple raise a happy family.

This is such a ridiculous point. Hypothetical children do exists because they will be when its enacted upon. For example, if a couple keep giving birth KNOWING that their children will suffer, are they not responsible for their children suffering?

Sure, it is not their fault that the children suffers. Perhaps because they have bad genes, stuck in a warzone, lives in an awful country, have mental health issues, cannot provide for their children, or whatever. The fact is still that they KNOW this hypothetical children will suffer.

Imagine if we are able to write an executable that will startup a simulation where it will simulate a universe with maximum suffering. I have compiled the program, its right there to be executed. Is it immoral to execute this binary? Yes of course it is. Similarly, if I KNOW that having a child right now, given all the circumstances that I am in, whether its my fault or not, will cause this potential child to suffer, then I am immoral.

The logical reasoning here, is that a poor person needs to become 'not-poor' to be able to have children responsibly.

This greatly trivialises the reality of poverty.

People aren't poor by choice; they're often poor through situations that are beyond their control.

To also suggest they're not allowed to have children because of these factors beyond their control is tantamount to an injustice.

This is like saying people with life threatening congenital defects not being allowed to have children because of factors beyond their control is an injustice.

Nobody's stopping them, but it's still and irresponsible and terrible idea.

If you believe that poverty is truly outside of individual control, the situations are analogous.

Absolute nonsense.

Extra chromosomes don't come about due to unjust political choices being made on behalf of parts of the electorate.

Poverty is generally outside of the control of _those who suffer it_ largely because money brings power.

Those without money naturally have less.

Consider your views carefully, because at present they're definitely not worth reproducing.

We're not talking about the electorate, we're talking about individual people's decisions to have children.

If you are impoverished (and thus unable to meaningfully effect change in the system that impoverished you) it is irresponsible and bad to have children because the outcomes for those children will be bad.

You may decide that this state of affairs is bad, but that doesn't change the fact that it is still bad today to make an individual choice to have children in poverty.

Only if you believe the only worthwhile thing in life is money.

As someone who grew up in a poor family as an unplanned child I have to agree.