To be or not to be

I heard a song last year that irritated me. It was a young man thanking his mother for not using birth control, because he was glad he was born. Such narcissism is normal in young people, but really irrational, even just considering this particular aspect. Women are born with 1 million (1,000,000) to 2 million eggs. At puberty, that number drops to 400,000. Obviously, even if a woman has the maximum number of children she is capable of, the vast majority of her potential children will never exist. And if you consider the number of unfertilized eggs of all women since humans first evolved, it would be mind-boggling. But it's not a tragedy. Someone who never exists doesn't miss not existing. People will say we might have missed having another Newton, but we also must have missed having even more Hitlers. And every person who is born means at least 9 other people were not born during the gestation of the baby. Every month a woman remains a virgin means a potential person is not born. A woman who is faithful to her husband who is on active duty overseas, or is himself infertile, means some eggs are never fertilized.

And of course, men have enourmously more sperm that are never used. That young man was probably old enough to be a father. Are we supposed to be unhappy if he doesn't spend his waking hours impregnating women, to minimize the number of his sperm that never become children? And some people are not good parents. I say from experience, that it can be better never to have been born than to have to endure decades of misery from abusive parents. And society suffers because, while most abused children do not become criminals or abuse their own children, they are more likely to do so. Almost all violent criminals were abused as children. A neurologist who studied men in prison for violent crimes found almost all of them had brain damage, usually from the abuse.

And of course, women are human beings. We have a right to lives of our own, and we have value and capabilities as something besides baby-making machines. Maybe that young man's mother might have discovered a cure for cancer, or written great music, if she hadn't had children. I love children, and very much wanted children of my own, but if a woman does not want children, she shouldn't have them. In addition to the fact that her own quality of life is of value, children deserve to be raised in an environment where they are cherished and valued.

It's not like the world is suffering from a shortage of humans. There are already too many. We are destroying the environment we depend on for life.

And I have to say, if this song is a reflection of this young man's permanent character and intelligence, not just the narcissism and arrogance of youth, the world would be a better place without him.

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