Question Is it morally wrong for a person with a serious illness and reduced lifespan to reproduce, knowing that in all likelihood the child will have to experience the loss of a parent in adolescence? Assume that the other parent is healthy and prepared for life as a single parent. Can the reproduction be morally justified on the basis of it being less of a wrong to bring into existence a child who will likely lose a parent early on than for one person to deny the other the opportunity of experiencing parenthood? Obviously we are talking about two different recipients of potential harm here but I am focusing on the idea of a general moral wrong. i.e. which is the greater wrong?

Accepted:
June 29, 2010

Comments

I don't think the reality of the parent's serious illness and reduced lifespan in itself would make it morally wrong to reproduce. After all, there are plenty of children who grow up without ever meeting one of their parents or who lose one or both parents early in life that have a very fulfilling life on the whole. That being said I could imagine circumstances where I would encourage the parent not to reproduce. For example, if that family's specific circumstances would guarantee that the child would end up in utter poverty long-term after the parent's death.

I don't think the 'potential harm of denying the other potential parent the chance to have a child' weighs too heavily in the decision. Clearly, you are either putting the future child in a circumstance that is likely to result in his/her overall flourishing or not. Your potential partner's harm of missing the chance to parent is a comparatively lesser matter since there are other ways that he/she might have the opportunity to flourish.

There is an interesting book on the potential wrongs involved with bringing children into the world called Better Never To Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence by David Benatar.

You ask whether it's "less wrong" to create the child than for one adult to deny the other the chance of parenthood. That makes it sound as if the only possible wrong on the adults' side is the willing adult being denied parenthood. Wouldn't it also be wrong for the unwilling adult to be forced into parenthood? In any event, if the two adults go ahead with procreation, on grounds that it's "less wrong" to make the child, that seems like the wrong way to start the parent-child relationship. A parent's gain, in becoming a parent, shouldn't be at the child's expense. To start off the relationship on the right foot, they have to believe that giving life to the child-to-be is right, not merely "less wrong."

Might it be right, under these circumstances? That's a very hard question. The crux of it is whether it's fair to the child to be given a life that will foreseeably include early loss of a parent. You might say it's fine, on grounds that in all probability the child will still have a life worth living. But by that the standard, it would be fine to create children who will foreseeably lose both parents, or suffer even worse setbacks. We ought to create only children with reasonably good prospects, but what does "reasonably good" mean, and why is that the standard? An excellent and very accessible book on these issues is Choosing Children, by Jonathan Glover.

A comment about the book Eric Silverman recommended: Benatar's view is that it's always harmful to children to be brought into the world, and not just harmful when the child's prospects are lower than normal. He'd say it was wrong for the parents in your example to have children, but also wrong for everyone else. Glover, by contrast, thinks most of the time childbearing is fine, and tries to sort out the hard cases like the one you describe.