It is unfair to create people in an unfair world. And the world is definitely fundamentally unfair. In the context of reproduction, for example, it is clear that no one did anything good or bad before being created and therefore respectively has good or bad luck in life, yet this is what happens to everyone who is created. Everyone is born in a certain body, with a certain genetic load, with certain personality tendencies, in a certain uterine environment, with certain stimuli during pregnancy, to certain parents, to a certain extended family, in a certain environment, to a certain society, in a certain period etc., and these conditions are never equal among all the created. There are those who are lucky and those who will be born into a harsh and cruel reality. And it is like this for no reason. There is no justification or fairness. None of those who were born did anything to receive the opening conditions they received for better or for worse. This is really unfair.
Many times the response to this is that there is nothing to do, this is life. But there is something to be done and that is to prevent this injustice by avoiding the creation of people, and precisely because this is life.
How is it fair to create someone for whom so many things are already predetermined? How is it fair that people are born into certain conditions that they did not choose and did nothing to gain or to suffer from them? How can a lottery that has so many completely arbitrary components be fair? How does it make sense that every person starts life with a series of super critical components for their entire life without that person choosing any of them, that they can hardly affect any of them or completely neutralize their initial effect on their life, and that they received them for no prior reason related to them in some way?
Even before people had time to do anything in their lives, they are punished or rewarded with a variety of critical components that will affect their entire lives. No one deserves to be born with a serious illness, to abusive parents, to abject poverty and malnutrition, with intolerable personality tendencies, an appearance that is considered very socially undesirable, in a violent and repressive society, or alternatively; to be born completely healthy and without unhealthy tendencies, to attentive and aware caring parents, into significant financial well-being, with desirable character traits, a desirable appearance, in an open and tolerant society. There is no merit, no just distribution and no fairness.
The world is a place where bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. This statement may be a bit too simplistic so let’s say that there is no necessary connection (and in fact many times there is a completely coincidental connection) between cause and effect in the context of how people are leading their lives and their well-being. People can be very planned and responsible, lead a healthy lifestyle and try to be pleasant and tolerant and still be completely miserable and lonely. On the other hand, there is no guarantee that anyone whose behavior is irresponsibe, uncalculated, inconsiderate, unpleasant and intolerant will not live in high personal well-being.
Parents can make every effort for their children to have a good life, and their children can try to be good people, yet because the world is so unfair, their lives can be very bad.
It’s not fair to create people in a world where no matter what you do, bad things can happen to you and to your children.
It is unfair and unjust to create people in such an unfair and unjust world. And there is nothing unjust in not creating people. No one will be treated unfairly if they are not created since before someone is created there is no one at all. It’s not unfair not to create someone. But it is very unfair to create someone in such an unfair world.
People may find themselves discriminated against for all sorts of traits and characteristics none of which have been chosen by them. It is true that the problem in these cases is society, but the ones who are affected are the created people. And people who create people know it. Therefore, even if they are not discriminating, racist, exploitative or violent people themselves, they are creating more victims of all of the above.
And again it is important to note in this context, that since reproduction is never necessary, and never in the interest of the person who was created, claims like this is submission to society are not really relevant to the fact that the decision to create vulnerable people in an abusive world is a moral offense committed by parents who are aware of it. They know very well what kind of world they live in and what dangers there are out there, and still decide to take the risk on the lives of others. Therefore, they are at least complicit in the crime, if not simply responsible for the harm.
Just because it’s so obvious that life isn’t fair, parents can find themselves responding to their children, when they complain that something they’ve decided for them isn’t fair, with something like: “There’s nothing to do, life isn’t fair!”, without pausing for a moment to think, “Hey wait, if life is unfair, why did we decide to create more of it”?
The response to this is usually that an unjust world needs to be changed, not that we should avoid creating new people. But even if the world’s problems were solvable, first we need to fix the world and only then create more people in it. How does the fact that the world does need to be changed justify the decision to make it even worse by throwing more and more vulnerable and abusive creatures into it? This argument, even if it were relevant to the real world, meaning, even if the world could be made just, patient, tolerant, non-violent, egalitarian, inclusive, open, accessible to all etc., does not permit creating new people as long as the world is nothing like that.
And if the world requires corrections because it is unjust, how does the decision to create more people in an unfair world bring closer the day that it will be just? How is it decent or logical to decide to produce new people and invest most of our resources in them from now on, even though they did not exist before the decision and therefore did not need anything, in a world where there are so many who already exist and already need our resources?