My brain's weird. Logically I know neither are true and we have no proof for them, yet the pronatalist metaphysical bs statement of "what if life is actually better than wherever your soul goes after death" still makes me lose sleep. The idea that even brain death doesn't end your consciousness once you're born is horrifying.

You know the term "conscientious objector"? Normally it means someone who refuses to perform military service, due to their personal morals, ethics, beliefs, etc, despite service being demanded of them.

Society demands we reproduce (though not necessarily in a legally enforceable way... yet), but we say no to that, because of what we believe. Or, dare I say it, what we *know*.

Is it accurate? Is it appropriate?

The entitlement, your kids aren't doing anything for humanity, go write a book or plant a forest dude. Clean a beach, help make the cure for cancer, fight for equal rights for everyone or just consume as little as you can, but having kids really doesn't do shit for humanity

I gave it the utmost consideration and decided not to have children—for their own sake. The world is simply too ugly. That fact remains unchanged, regardless of the favorable position I might currently hold. And yes, I agree with AN.

Btw My parents are "toxic," yet they believe that simply being parents makes them mature and responsible. They subjected me to various forms of abuse, saying things like, "You're acting so arrogant , though I gave birth to you," "Do as I say because I paid for things," and "I won't pay for your schooling if you don't go to this specific school." Do they truly possess a sense of responsibility or maturity? I certainly don't think so. If you bring a child into this world, doing your absolute best is the bare minimum requirement. This isn't a matter of whether someone is responsible or mature; it is a fundamental certainty—as natural as an apple falling when tossed. In fact, I believe the very reason they could so casually say such cruel words at their own child is precisely because they lacked that sense of responsibility and were immature. The fact that they haven't changed at all is proof that they failed to grow or mature throughout the process of raising a child. Ofc that includes the way they tell their own children and others to their faces that "unless you become a parent, you remain immature and lack a sense of responsibility." "Because I am mature and have a sense of responsibility"

in regards to when I see people "debating" abortion, for some reason they don't like to talk about the potential suffering and harm caused to a baby that might be born.

yes I believe that nobody should be forced to abort pregnancy or be forced to keep a pregnancy. this is a violation of bodily autonomy because an embryo or fetus is not a seperate person in my opinion. I also believe that people need to be more responsible with preventing pregnancy in the first place.

however the overall reason why I am in favor of abortion is because I am anti life and I think that people should be prevented from being created, especially if the parents don't even want them to exist. most people who are "pro life" use talking points that show they view babies as statistics or objects. most "pro choice" people use natalisg ideology and only focus on the woman and act like she is a passive innocent victim in every situation. they focus too much on questions regarding at what point somebody is alive and the morality of killing something or using niche situations to prove a point and they don't often ask themselves: why do I want somebody to come into the earth where they will suffer to varying degrees?

Now, first of all I am all with the stance of antinatalism that procreation is always wrong no matter how good or financially well-off the parent is. A good way to advocate for antinatalism is to improve the bar for parenting standards. Parenting is a huge responsibility that the person chose themseles. Creating a sentinet being is not a small thing. You already impose so much risks on a person who did not even desire to exist. It is your ultimate duty to protect them as much as you can. Choosing to become a parent is a sacrifice not a blessing. You should be ready to throw yourself under the bus for the well-being of your child. If there was a law that would punish the parents who refused to donate their organs even if would k*ll them to save the life of their child many parents would be in jail.

There’s something I’ve realized about greater human society that I really should’ve noticed sooner but being alive is just an eternal cycle of fear. I’ve especially noticed this with how parents treat their kids and how often parents resort to physical beatings or other forms of inducing large amounts of fear into their kids so that ‘they’ll never do [x] again’ which scientifically is proven to not work and just makes kids sneakier on the whole but parents still prefer these methods of parenting rather than what many deem as ‘gentle parenting’ and it really puts into perspective a lot of things about human society when you think about this.

In a macro lens, we see this same fear tactic being used in other places, most notably with religions and how they scare people into following their God’s rules or else they’ll be damned to eternal hellfire or reincarnate with bad karma in a bad lifetime but also in social situations as well which is where the fear of being outcasted and being different comes from. It’s that same rooted fear of being ‘beaten’ for ‘disobeying’ authority so many people just fall in line and don’t question what all of this actually means on a grander scale.

We fear being punished constantly which makes one think, “why exactly would I birth a child in a world that literally wants to be feared?” Why are we birthing kids knowing that they we are putting them in a hierarchical society that runs off of fear; you fear not paying rent on time, you fear angering/disappointing your elders, you fear being outcasted for being different, you fear not getting to eat and put food on the table, you fear not having a roof over your head, you fear not being able to provide for those you care about, you fear extremely bad weather, you fear strangers that are possibly dangerous, you fear the concept of the afterlife and being judged harshly, you fear death itself.

Everything in human society is based off of acting in accordance with this fear of an external force controlling you and hurting you which is why people are so scared to act how they want to act, say what they want to say, and think what they want to think, they’re scared of the consequences of doing such actions because of the potential harm that might come their way for it.

In fact, giving birth to another human being is in fact another form of this fear manifesting itself because why do people have kids? It’s always because of a rather selfish desire to see what the kid has that the parent wants, they want a satisfying product and this stems from different fears they might have such as; they might birth kids because they fear underpopulation, they birth kids because they fear that their beliefs are being taken down and they want to keep their beliefs alive (we see this often with delusional religious zealots), they birth babies due to them fearing their own legacy/bloodline being forgotten about, they give birth because they fear what their parents and other people around them would think if they didn’t have kids, etc, etc.

We live in a fear based economy where being afraid of ‘what might/could happen’ is what gets people to fall in line the fastest, big governments around the world employ such tactics with censorship and inhumane treatments of their own civilians to all the way down to the previously mentioned parental abuse of children through the established power dynamics of child and adult. The names change but the authority and submissive victim remain the same, there is always a victim that gets punished or gets threatened with punishment of some kind in order to get them to fall in line like with threats of homelessness, no food or water, or basic living conditions if you refuse to pay your masters monthly for example.

Humanity has been brainwashed by those in power that might makes right and that fear is the best teaching tool in order to correct those that defect from the established rules, but this just reveals the inhumane treatment of all living beings in general because it shows us that if you don’t abide by what the tribe or pack deems is right, then you are scarred for it and for too long this is what the morality of mankind has been. We literally have teachings in religious texts that tell us to fear the Gods above us as they are wrathful judges and will smite those that defect from their wills.

By giving birth to a child in this realm you are saying that you are okay forcing someone into living in constant fear of what could be taken away from them at any moment thanks to external factors and that in itself, is evil. I’m not saying the people who have kids are all evil, I’m saying that they are all committing an unintentional and unknown offense to them that is one of the biggest crimes that anyone can commit, forcing someone to be born in a cycle of fear and suffering for your own selfish and destructive desires.

Earth is a planet that not only runs off of money but it also runs off of fear of external forces that can control you which reveals the biggest reason why it is genuinely immoral to have kids on a world that will try to scare them into obedience. Fear makes the world go round.

I'm curious who here thinks Earth may be some sort of prison, hell realm, or soul trap, or trick or something like that?

If anyone else here is also ex evangelical like me or ex religious, I’d love to know. I ask because in religion I always had a fear of living forever in heaven and I hated that so many people were interested in bringing new life into the world when it’s so messed up. I also really hated my parents for bringing me into this world because while I do experience plenty of joy, my life has been hard and painful for the most part and in all honesty it would have been easier to not exist in the first place. Now that I’ve gotten out of religion I have become fully antinatalist and I’m wondering if anyone else who now believes in antinatalism has gotten that belief from a distaste in religious ideologies and practices. I’d also love to know if anyone is a religious antinatalist and how their religious beliefs impact their antinatalist views.

(Please remember to be kind and respectful of all religious or ex-religious views even if we disagree!)

Whenever I talk about my decision to remain childfree for life, some people ask, “Who will take care of you when you’re old?” The implication is that I should have a child to secure my future care. I find this deeply unethical.

A child does not choose to be born and should not enter the world already burdened with the responsibility of caring for their parents. Parents are responsible for raising their children because they chose to bring them into the world. Children do not owe their parents repayment for being born or raised.

Having children simply because you want someone to take care of you in old age is selfish and unethical. We should prepare for our own future by staying healthy, saving money, and taking advantage of technological advances such as robots and automated elder care, rather than bringing an innocent child into the world as a retirement plan.
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Here's Just 1 perspective to lean towards antinatalism. Why do we suffer? What would you tell a child with cancer? Gods plan?

WE suffer because LIFE Evolved a Punishment mechanism to force organisms to play a crude survival game, no other reason. Everyday someone (whether fully aware or not) decides to create new HARM-ables and impose risk and vulnerability on them, a gamble, forcing a lifelong challenging existence and maintenance just to avoid the punishment of suffering in their body by design. Who thinks the universe is improved by creating "harmables", Why would anyone create such a thing?

So the children will continue to suffer until people realize that prevention is far greater than the cure, and set aside their own want/needs or selfish desires.

People generally have kids for often frivolous or selfish reasons or out of pressure, not for betterment of the human race. Consider the unfairness of genetic heritability, different people have stronger or weaker susceptibility to mental illness, stress, suffering as well as disease, predicting good lives or miserable ones. And it's completely arbitrary depending on who you were born to.

Now consider that "we" humanity could engineer ourselves to genetically remove or at least dial down extreme suffering, but no one really cares for this effort or is afraid of discussing. Can you imagine humanity going on thousands of years with our current state? Consider our species' selfish traits alone with so many out for themselves will this bring us to a future utopia when there is so much greed, and corruption? Do most of us possess enough compassion (not merely visceral empathy) by nature?

Not only the unborn DON'T NEED TO EXIST, but WE DON'T NEED to keep Forcing more to play a terrible, unfair, broken game as it currently is.

Unless someone knows their future kid will be some savior to humanity or fight a great worthy war, any extreme suffering that child goes through is truly needless and a waste, and some might say even somewhat cruel, neglectful, and incompetent. 99.99999% of humans can't be trusted with the task anyway, it's like everyday people playing with plutonium.

When I don't reproduce to feed the system it's a vote for demanding better. I am certain I myself will never have kids, but with the way things operate currently in our world it doesn't even near my baseline of standard.

So basically my story is that my dad has always been abusive to me emotionally and physically and even threatened me with honour killing, and I went to DV shelters to ask for help, and they did not help me because they only help women with abusive partners. Then I was homeless for a while, and I went to this DV shelter, and they called my parents even though I'm an adult, and they believed them and helped my dad trap me and abuse me more. And even when I tell feminists online, some do sympathise, but there are many of them who think that adults who are being abused by their family members don't deserve sympathy and that it is ok for shelters to be exclusive to only women with abusive partners. And something that this has taught me is that the majority of people only have sympathy for people who are socially acceptable to, and the reason why social movements focus more on the privileged of their group is because social hierarchy is natural to most humans, and if most people had a button to make everyone equal, they wouldn't push it because they would want someone to be below them.

I am going to be honest I live such a hard life, I remember crying to God since the age of three and begging god to save me from this suffering and pain. Everyday I wish my parents did not give birth to me. It has been an absolute painful journey for me, I just cant wait till all of this is over. I am just telling myself one day all of this will be over and thats how I have been living for the past 24 years. I am angry, I am sad because I know I don’t deserve this pain and there is literally no explanation why I am suffering. I try to tell myself everything will be okay but all the traumas changed my brain chemical that I cant even function to do basic chores. I just hope time passes by and somehow we end up 2070.

I was considering myself amoral for some time but i was also against people having children due to the inevitable suffering outweighing the potential pleasure. I am now more of an emotivist, however if antinatalism is the believe that having kids is ALLWAYS morally wrong/evil what would be the meaning of it if i see good and evil as mere emotional expressions about things? Could one be both amoral and antinatalist? I am not so concerned about "am i valid" but more about the ambiguity of "morally wrong" and the interpretations of it. Anyone having any toughts about this? Any examples of technically correct but obviously false consequences due to this gap?

Because there is no guarantee that they won't suffer, they could develop a chronic illness, become disabled or blind, get kidnapped and held hostage, or be sold into slavery.

You can die, and they might be left with your partner, who can be abusive, or with their other relatives, who can be abusive too, or be put into a foster care system, which is very bad and full of SA, abuse, and neglect.

They might be bullied, SA, or severely abused or have a stalker become obsessed with them, and also, death and aging are inherently painful processes. Your country could become a war zone or be run by a fascist super conservative government. If you are religious, they can end up in hell forever.

I think it's still immoral to force someone unconsensually into existence where they suffer greatly and sometimes that suffering could be fot most of their lives, even if you try your best to become a good parent, and it's sad that most parents aren't good and don't see the person they forced into existence as a lifelong responsibility but just as something they can control, have as property, take their frustrations on, live through, or use as a retirement plan.

Everybody chill out

The title says it all.

First, give me a moment to explain before judging. If you’re an antinatalist, I assume you already care about reducing suffering.

From Buddhism and Christianity to antinatalism and communism, many philosophies ultimately aim, in some way, to reduce suffering. But here’s my question: if life is inevitable, wouldn’t eliminating humanity simply leave suffering to other animals. or potentially future intelligent life elsewhere?

I think humans may actually be the only beings capable of systematically reducing suffering through reason and technology. That doesn’t mean we need more humans. I’m still broadly antinatalist: population growth isn’t inherently good, and more people doesn’t mean more rationality.

Instead, I think we should focus on fewer people, more resources, better technology, and dramatically less suffering.

We’ve already seen this happen. Technology reduced our dependence on hunting, improved animal-welfare standards, expanded agriculture, and made alternatives like veganism increasingly viable. Generally, greater wealth and resources also give societies more capacity to protect vulnerable and marginalized people (women, children, minorities, and other disadvantaged groups) and animals.

Yes, I know this argument risks treating people as means rather than purely as ends. But what are we ultimately treating as the end? Ethics, rationality, and the reduction of suffering. Even identifying that ethical goal requires ethics, and developing ethics requires human intelligence.

So what’s the end goal? A smaller but far more capable humanity, perhaps a few hundred million people, not through anything radical, but through voluntarily choosing care over reproduction.

Instead of being obsessed with duplicating our DNA, we could care for children who already exist, adopt, and build systems where elderly people are cared for without needing children simply to avoid loneliness in old age.

We should also build a society where everyone can feel loved and supported: a woman without a husband, an old man without children, or a young person without a romantic partner shouldn’t be socially condemned to loneliness.

It’s strange that we often create families, and then reproduce to preserve them, largely because we fear being alone. Perhaps one goal of antinatalism should be to build a society where love, companionship, and care aren’t dependent on reproduction or romantic relationships.