"Having a child is not a choice."
Someone really said this to me. This is under an AskReddit post about people who were charged rent by their parents. I had commented that children should be protected from that and also from being kicked out at 18.
The foundation of this belief is that the parents chose to create the child and to take on all of the responsibilities that come with raising a child and providing for its needs. And because they chose to take that burden on, they shouldn't get to turn around and say, "Alright, I don't have to give you anything anymore, and that's that." Or even worse, "You owe me now because of all the sacrifices I made for you."
Well, this person seemed to have a very strong reaction to what I was saying. They called me "lucky", "gifted", and "privileged" a bunch (even though I told them that I had chosen to leave the home and be independent), and here's the best line: "You've never experienced any form of struggle in life and it oozes off every pretentious and self-servient sentence. It's repulsive." What an odd (and incorrect) response to what I thought was a fair point. But I digress.
They challenged my statement, saying that parents don't always choose to have a child. I'll agree that this may be true in the sense that not everyone plans to get pregnant and not everyone has the ability to get an abortion if they want one. But here's what I responded: if people know that they don't want a child or can't afford to take care of a child's needs, then they shouldn't choose to reproduce, and they shouldn't risk reproducing if they can't choose to get an abortion. Why would you risk your child growing up unwanted or in poverty just because you and your partner wanted an orgasm? That may sound crude to some, but we have to think about how our actions affect our potential children. As an antinatalist, I know that I would be committing a grave injustice if I had a child, so I need to do everything I can to make sure that doesn't happen. I'm sure that those of you who live in anti-abortion locations have to be extremely careful to not get pregnant. We choose to make these kinds of sacrifices because we have considered the potential harm to our potential child.
My point in all of this is that it is absolutely a choice to have children, and saying otherwise is like saying that humans are irrational beings with no ability to think about how others may be affected in the future (which might be true for some people). If we are rational, empathic creatures with the ability to consider the consequences of our actions, then we should utilize those capabilities when deciding to create new life, which is perhaps the most impactful thing that anyone can do. I don't understand how people can be so accustomed to "life" that they see nothing wrong with choosing to risk the creation of a human being that they know they can't/won't provide for. Are people really this thoughtless and careless and avoiding of personal accountability? It's really disheartening. If you don't have the means to provide for a child or you don't want to provide for a child, don't have a child. Don't put yourself or your potential child in that position. It's really that simple.
For additional discussion: this person gave an example of a 9-yr-old being put to work digging for cobalt in the African desert, and added, "They're probably complaining less than you." I responded, "If you grew up digging in the desert, would you think it's right to have a child and force them to do the same work?" Interestingly, they never addressed that point again.