I agree. My point is that having children or not is the wrong argument. Decreasing population growth is much more ethically achievable by decreasing child mortality in developing countries, providing women there with the education to be self-reliant on their own, and providing them with birth control so that they can plan their parenthood.
The argument itself is reductionist in nature. No man, no problem. I'm not sure if you are arguing because of love for formal proofs or because you want the full treatise why it sucks, but if the latter, just say so.
I'm not sure what "it" is any more, but I think having modest amount of children is a good idea, and people from rich countries don't get to recuse themselves - we have such big carbon footprints. And appeals on behalf of unborn people sounds suspiciously like some of the dramatic appeals to emotion favoured by christian fundamentalists in the context of birth control.
I definitely do not ask people to have children for any reason be it moral, ethical, religious, or any other. I'm not asking them to abstain either. Vice versa, my argument is that having children is not analogous to using plastics and should not be considered in one's carbon footprint.
reply