Reproduction...is it a right?

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In response to the other thread about happiness and survival being a right, I wonder if reproduction is? And I am not talking about limiting certain groups of people from reproduction. I am talking about an overall population decline due to people either having less kids or voluntarily having none at all. Do we all have the right to keep reproducing infinitely until there isn't any resources to care for us all?

Some people think it's the purpose of life ...

It's one possible outcome but it doesn't seem to be always the reason why life exists or you would see everything living able to reproduce and that's not always the case.

It is objectively the only purpose of life as we are creatures that seek to reproduce and are not designed for happiness.



I believe that is a natural built in response to population without competition. It is a way for nature to assure that one species does not become too dominant over the environment.

Of course reproduction is a natural right. No "legitimate" authority can lay claim upon a person's biology without resorting to brutal and frightening totalitarian methods of control. What goes on within a woman's womb is solely her own affair.

Have all that you can afford.

Pardon me, but that is an incredibly vague statement. It is actually the earth that provides for us all and if everyone were allowed to have as many offspring as possible as their main reason to exist, you would quickly see there would simply not be enough sustenance for them all. The results would be a disaster in terms of poverty and famine.

You keep looking at money as the be all end all but you do realize monetary systems the world over are in a deep state of crises and are failing on a grand scale and have before throughout the history of human kind?

The real "value" is the resource. Why do you think there is such a credit disaster brewing? It's because resources are dwindling. No use sticking your head in the sand about it!

Oh, I get it. This is your "the sky is falling" topic of the week.
Whatev, but my motto is still If You Can't Feed Them Don't Breed Them.

It would be a lot easier for all of us if they ditched the monetary system entirely and we all worked for the resource instead of money. That would get rid of the credit crises, insolvency and everyone would have a realistic idea of just how many of us the planet can actually support in a lifestyle that isn't cruel and brutal.

As particular resources become more scarce, substitutes and technological means of getting more for less will gradually become relatively cheaper and more attractive. We're not going to wake up one day, find that all the oil is gone, and then immediately descend into barbarity. Free markets contain their own intrinsic controls.

We already see the results, just not as much in the developed world but as the population keeps increasing like it has, we will see more and more problems the developing world faces in the developed one as shortages become more widespread.

No it wouldn't!

In my job, a Russian venture capitalist buys books from publishers and authors, and pays me to arrange them in a room he rents from a shopping centre so that people who work in a wide variety of jobs will buy them.

If a window cleaner who charges £10 for a window wants a £7.99 book, he would have to clean a corner of one of my windows, a bit of the CEO's window, a corner of one of the shopping centre's windows, a bit of the electricity company's window, the publisher's window, and the author's window. Or he could give me a potato he got for cleaning someone else's window, and my boss could give me the skin and divide the rest between all the other stakeholders.

Your proposal is ridiculous.

It would be a lot harder. Money was invented because barter only works locally (really locally, as in just the people you personally know) and is very cumbersome.

Women do it for babysitting pretty often: you watch my kids today and I'll watch yours Tuesday. But going beyond such small transactions is so difficult that money had to be invented and needs to stay.

I do not think that it is an inalienable right and I think it should be regulated by the government. There should be criteria to make one eligible. Such as financial ability and health both mental and physical.

Since "Freedom of Choice" is (1) a legal right, and (2) it is implicit within this right that a woman is free to chose to give birth, then it only stands to reason that reproduction is indeed a legally recognized right.

Reproduction only becomes a privilege when a person who wants to have a child must have the willing and conscious consent of a reproductive partner, as in "I hereby grant you the privilege of using my reproductive capacity to produce one offspring".

When you look at it from a resource standpoint, reproductive rights should be limited simply because there is too great a danger of famine and lack of water to sustain such great numbers of one species. We see what happens when a species explodes in numbers and it's always harsh. There simply isn't enough for all of them and so many of them simply starve to death.

That's what I am talking about here. Do you think a piece of paper is going to feed you when you get hungry? Is it going to give you a drink when you are thirsty? Can you bathe in it when you are infested with bacteria that causes illnesses? Money is simply not sovereign and if we continue to treat it like a resource, which is simply isn't, we will find ourselves in trouble, over and over again.