I think it is also interesting to consider arguments suggesting that procreation should not be viewed as a fundamental human good that individuals should be able to enjoy when they choose to become parents and find themselves in a position to live up to the responsibilities of parenthood.

Consider the thought that our uncreated potential descendants deserve our moral consideration. The act of being brought into existence surely is one of great ethical significance, and yet it is an ethically significant act that we "force" upon our children. Could this act of coercion itself be immoral? If so, procreation might be immoral.

Or consider this ecological argument: Might the many potential generations of future humans have a moral claim on us not to despoil the earth to such an extent that their lives are severely compromised? Suppose, further, that there exists a maximum population size that beyond which it becomes ecologically and technologically impossible for humans to meet that obligation. If our current population is close to or above that limit, it may be ethically required for many of the humans currently alive not to procreate until attrition causes the human population to decline to a "sustainable" level.

I agree with Peter, that the right to have children -- or, as I prefer to frame it, the right to procreate -- is not a positive claim right. No one has the correlative duty to supply you with children, or even (I'd argue) with the means to have children. But it's a fascinating question. My own thinking is that there is a tendency to think of the right to procreate as a right of property or acquisition, when in fact it is a right of expression. Procreation is an activity (and as Peter points out, it is an activity that does not guarantee a product), and it is this activity the chance for which is ordinarily considered to be so fundamental to living a good human life that it is protected by a right.

But does a person have a right to have children? I surely don't have a right that someone else should be so inclined to procreate with me that I end up with children produced the old fashioned way (I don't have a right that you or anyone else should find me sexually attractive enough, even when you've had a few drinks: no one owes that to me). Nor, surely, do I have a right that someone or or some agency should provide me the means to have a child in some new-fangled artificial way.

It might be permissible for me to have childen, other things being equal. And perhaps I normally have a right not to be prevented from having children (just I have a right not to be prevented from doing lots of other permissible things). And perhaps further, we even have some sort of right that social arrangements are not such as to make it very difficult for us to try to fulfil that basic human desire (at least in moderation – though what if disaster would ensue if everyone who wants to have children breeds? -- maybe we'd then have to introduce a lottery system for the chance to have children). But that suggests at most a right to be allowed to get on with it and to try to have children with someone who is willing. Which isn't a right to have children.

I'm with you. But for me, the concern is not so much men vs. women and their respective rights, but the nature of punishment and who really ought to become a parent. The crucial problem with this case is that the murderer in question is currently incarcerated. There are certain rights which prisoners maintain, despite their crimes. The right to medical care. The right to worship. The right to have access to legal counsel. The right to live in a place that is safe while incarcerated. Putting someone in a dank hole to rot isn't justice, no matter the crime committed. One of the many social purposes of incarceration is punishment.

Punishment ought to hurt, but not too much (see note on dark hole above). No doubt it is painful for prisoners not to be able to do things that free people otherwise enjoy. But this strikes us as the fair price paid for committing crimes. I think the human right to have a family is on shaky grounds, much more shaky than the right for prisoners to have health, spiritual, and legal care. One reason for this is our tradition of human rights long predates the required biotechnology. Locke and Hobbes just weren't worried about smuggling sperm out of jail. A better reason why we shouldn't think of prisoners as having a human right to have a family while incarcerated is the potential life at stake: the future child. Society should come to the point of admitting that ethically, not everyone ought to become a parent. Who would I ban from parenting? It would be a great list to debate. But people currently incarcerated sounds like a good place to start. It would be taking things too far to say that convicted murderers should never become parents. If someone earns parole, turns his life around, and becomes a model citizen then I think - as far as the law is concerned - a convicted murderer might have the same chance that anyone else has to parent. Of course, would I say the same thing if the person in question was a convicted child molester-murder? Probably not, but my concern again would be ethics and not the reach of the law.

If you haven't been reading David Benatar's book Better Never To Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, then you might want to read it, because his argument is very much like yours.

Perhaps we ought to say that there actually is some obligation to bring into existence lives that are good. This only seems counterintuitive if you make the mistake of thinking this obligation trumps all other considerations, when people are deciding whether to have children. If that were so, we'd all be under an obligation to run around making the maximum number of babies--which seems absurd. But there are lots and lots of other considerations. Perhaps having children will interfere with the enormous good I'm doing as a concert violinist. Perhaps having children in an overpopulated world has both good and bad effects. Still, we should acknowledge some obligation to bring into existence lives that are good.

Thus, there is an obligation to create lives that are good to put in the balance with the obligation not to create lives that are bad. So the latter obligation is not all that matters when people are deciding whether to have kids. We have to think through the real risks involved in having a child, case by case, taking into account both the possible good and possible bad. We are not always morally obliged not to have a child.

Yes, I think you're right.

Many will complain that this sort of thinking leads to eugenics or worse. Others will complain that all life is a gift, so there can be no bad life. Personally I think these objections can be overcome.

There are major kinks that need to be straightened out, however. These kinks come in the form of ambiguities: How much risk is significant? Who decides how to weigh such risks? What constitutes a bad life? Does it mean it is a life which the live-r would be better off without? Can this really be judged ahead of time, before the individual in question is born (and thus without his or her first-hand testimony)? Will this have implications for lives that are already here and are already 'bad'?

Despite these worries, I still think you're right. The abuser who cannot control his worst impulses around children, for example, ought not parent.

(By the way, much of our discussion here assumes a world where teens and adults are reproductively empowered - where birth control and/or abortion is readily available, safe, free of stigma, and inexpensive. Alas, this is not the actual world.)

I really like this question because I have often wondered the same thing! What follows is merely an answer-in-progress.

There are several related concerns touching this question. One is to consider resources at the macro level. According to Prof. Singer's book One World, the average American burns more than 5 tons of carbon a year while the average Japanese burns about 1.6 tons. The average Indian burns .3 tons a year. Assuming that burning carbon hurts our atmosphere, the planet, and thus all living creatures, the last thing the world needs is more Americans - be they adopted or biological children! Therefore, American movie stars who adopt African children are not doing the planet any favors, given the resources those Americanized children will likely consume as they grow up. But this resources analysis seems rather heartless, no? I think it is heartless because it prioritizes something abstract - important, but abstract - over the needs of particularly helpless children.

Another, related controversy is the reproductive technology versus adoption debate. A couple might spend thousands of dollars using technology for the woman to become impregnated with an embryo that will be the biological child of its parents. Meanwhile, there are thousands of children languishing in orphanages and foster homes, waiting to be adopted. Therefore, reproductive technology should be banned because the parents who use it are satisfying vain preferences at the expense of other children's welfare. But this analysis also seem off, no? It seems off because it unfairly puts the burden on infertile couples to save the world.

Finally, we get to the heart of the matter: is sexual reproduction wrong, for anyone in anyplace, as long as there are children in need of homes? I guess I don't want to go that far for a very practical reason: the urge to have biological children is terribly strong for many. If the evolutionary biologists are to be believed (a big ‘if,’ mind you) the urge to have children is something that morality can’t drum out of us, even if we wanted it to. However, I offer you some social conditions that would greatly ameliorate things by both making adoption a more popular option and reducing the number of displaced children:

· Eliminate adoption stigma

· Eliminate the pro-natalist messages that are so harmful to so many

· Make adoption affordable

· Give everyone of reproductive age sexual education and access to affordable and reliable birth control

· Give parents or soon-to-be parents social and material support

I think the two compromises you propose bring up very different issues. Letting parents choose between two types of sex education classes is problematic. Although you have personally chosen abstinence--which is entirely fine, of course--studies show that abstinence education generally (on average) changes the age of first intercourse minimally or not at all. If regular sex education generally does a better job of preventing unwanted pregnancies and STDs, the school would essentially be offering a choice between better sex education and worse sex education. I don't think offering that choice fits within the mission of health education--which is to use the best methods available to steer children and young adults toward better health.

The other compromise seems more sensible. Religion plays such a major role in world affairs, it is odd that a person can graduate from high school knowing next to nothing about it (as I did). It seem reasonable to at least offer comparative religion as an elective. However, if the idea is to offer such a class as an antidote to the teaching of evolution in science classes, that's another matter.

There are conservative Christian organizations that are all too eager to get into schools and manage the curriculum of religion classes. They are eager to push religion education toward a focus on their own literal, exclusivist, evanglical version of Christianity. There would be many other "agendas" that would inevitably shape the teaching of religion in the public schools. Conservative religious leaders would want to stop teachers from approaching religious scriptures as historical texts, for example. In the end, I don't think students would be likely to get a factual introduction to comparative religion as opposed to an air-brushed introduction to each religion as its leaders want it to be seen.

Still, maybe a distorted introduction to comparative religion is better than none at all. For many students, high school is the final stage of education. The important thing would be for curriculum designers to see knowledge and mutual understanding as their goal, not "correcting" the lessons taught in science classes. A true "comparative religion" class would not violate the first amendment to the constitution, but a class molded by Christian evangelicals most certainly would.

It depends what is meant by "impose". Parents are entitled to provide what they think is appropriate guidance for their children, and of course if these views are regarded as dangerous or deplorable by the state then there will be some official way of intervening despite the wishes of the parents, and that is appropriate. Children may come to feel that their parents' views are not ones they wish to assume, and I dare say that they owe their parents a duty of respect, so they should take seriously the option of adopting those views, but they are not bound to do so. Surely no-one has the right to impose views on us; in most religions even God invites us to share his worldview, he does not oblige us to agree with him.

I don't think it's wrong to lie to children, if there's a good reason for the lie. I recall my daughter hearing the word "rape" and asking what it is at a very early age. I said I didn't know with a "that's not important" tone of voice. Sure, I could have made an honest statement about her being too young for the subject, but it seemed pointless to make her feel disrespected, or to let her go on wondering about the matter.

But does it make sense to lie about where babies come from? I frankly don't understand why parents feel so giggly and embarrassed about the subject. I told my twins the facts of life gradually, probably starting around the age of 3 or 4. When they asked how sperm gets into the mother's uterus, at about age 5, I told them the truth. (They thought it was the funniest thing they'd ever heard.)

If a parent lies about where babies come from, are they immoral? Some lies can cause children anxiety, and then there's reason to disapprove. For example, a friend of mine was asked by her 4-year-old how babies come out of their mothers. My friend couldn't bring herself to discuss the basics of female anatomy. So she said mothers push, without explaining the route of egress, or what pushing might mean in this context. I imagine the child may have found this image disturbing. Without knowing about the...er, vagina...the child would have had strange images in her head. Maybe the baby crashes through the mother's side when she's done with all that pushing?

The "make a wish" lie you mention sounds sweet and innocent, but I'd worry about misunderstandings. "If Mommy and Daddy love each other very much, can they close their eyes and wish for just anything? And if so, why don't they get me everything that I want? Maybe they don't love me!"

I think there are necessary lies, but lying about where babies come from isn't necessary, and can be harmful.