This common claim probably stems from a misconception about people who are against reproduction, and that is that they prefer to invest in themselves, or that they feel immature or unfit to be parents, or are just busy with themselves and not ready to work hard for someone else. This assumption is wrong even regarding child-free people, since even if their motives are simply a lack of desire to be parents and therefore they do not reproduce, it is surely not selfishness but the opposite. It indicates serious consideration about a very, very serious decision. It would be selfish of them to create someone when this is not something that they want or feel ready for. To create new people without devoting deep and meaningful critical thought to such a critical decision for all parties involved, including you, is selfish.
And this assumption is certainly wrong with regard to anti-natalism since anti-natalism is a moral position which puts at the center the person who is created and not the reproducers. Anti-natalists oppose the creation of a new person precisely because they think about that person and about the harms caused to others by that person, not about themselves if they reproduce. This is the exact opposite of selfishness. Anti-natalists oppose reproduction not because of the harm to the parents, but because of the harm to the children. This is certainly not selfishness.
What’s more, anti-natalists oppose the creation of new people in general, not the creation of new people by themselves specifically. Since new people that other people produce are not in any way the children of anti-natalists as well, and since they have no parental obligation to other people’s children, on the face of it, anti-natalists have no selfish reason to oppose reproduction. If the motive were truly selfish, anti-natalists would simply be content with not reproducing themselves, not with a deep sense of moral obligation to also oppose the reproduction of others. The opposition is principled and global, not personal and self-interested.
And by the way, if not procreating is selfish, why don’t we have a moral obligation to create as many children as possible? Why aren’t people expected, or morally commanded, to create as many children as possible with the only limitation being their ability to finance them?
After we have explained why avoiding reproduction is not selfishness, it is important to explain that reproduction itself is a clear and unequivocal case of selfishness, if only for the simple reason that it is not done and cannot be done for the one who is created because s/he did not exist in any way before it was decided for that person that s/he will be created, so how can it be for that person’s sake? How can you do something for someone before there is even someone? It is impossible to do something for someone who does not exist, since by virtue of the fact that someone doesn’t exist, s/he also has no interest in existing, or desire to exist. Therefore, creating someone is necessarily not for the one who was created, but necessarily for others. Usually those others are the ones who decided to create that someone.
People create people for their own selfish reasons. Some may claim that they do this for social or national or religious reasons, but it is certainly not, and even theoretically it cannot be for the created person since s/he doesn’t exist until the fact of her/his existence is imposed on her/him.
No one is doing anyone a favor by creating them. And this is also true in the case that the life of the created is good or that it is possible to guarantee that someone’s life will be good and forever. Creating a person is simply an action that cannot be for the benefit of the created person because s/he did not exist before it was decided for her/him to exist and therefore technically it is an action that cannot be for her/him. It is necessarily for others. Therefore, contrary to what seems to be the popular perception regarding the creation of people, creating a person is not a selfless act that gives life to someone. Creating a person is not a case of giving something to someone because you cannot give something to someone before there is even a someone. Someone had to exist in some way before they existed in order for anything to be granted to them. Granting existence is an oxymoron.
Creating people also does not benefit them because it is impossible to improve the situation of those who do not exist. For those who do not exist, there is no situation whatsoever, and there is no option to improve a ‘non-situation’. Creating people is not an action that causes people to move from one state to another but an action that creates people from nothing. Before the action the created people didn’t exist and after it they do. When you create people, you don’t move them from a neutral or bad state to a good one, but literally create them.
It is not that people who were not created are disappointed and frustrated that they were not created, or are even in a state of neutral or zero well-being, and their creators are doing them a favor by creating them; rather, that they have no well-being at all because they do not exist.
No one is left sad, abandoned and disappointed if they are not produced for the simple reason that there is no someone at all who can be saddened, abandoned or disappointed. No one is waiting to be created. There is no waiting room out of existence. And there is no existence outside of existence. Therefore there is no reason, nor possibility, to create people for themselves. It is necessarily always done for others.
Therefore, no one is harmed by not being created, and those who are created are harmed by all kinds of things that people are harmed by in life, and to this it must be added that the one who was created will inevitably harm others during her/his life just by her/his very existence in a world where it is simply not possible to exist without harming others to one degree or another. And all this only reinforces the point that it is not selfish not to reproduce, but it is certainly selfish to reproduce.
In addition to this, since some of the more common reasons for creating new people involve providing all kinds of supposed insurance certificates, for example against loneliness, against the meaninglessness of life, to maintain and preserve the relationship, being taken care of at old age, etc., creating new people is selfish not only on in principle but also practically. The children are created to serve as a function for the parents. Beyond the fact that people are created not because they asked or wanted to, but always because someone else wanted, even in a more explicit and detailed way, the reasons for creating a person are often expressly and completely selfish.