Procreation

I read today that a woman over 60, who already has had 20 children and has 100 grandchildren, gave birth. Big news for the sixteenth century perhaps; another matter here in the 21st century. This news joins the list of stories about unwanted quintuplets, the products of the pregnancy-as-natural-mandate industry. The industry, which brings fortunes to fertility gurus, has its own natural advertisement agency: Public ignorance and fear of non-conformity, also known as the herding instinct. I am sure I risk public condemnation for these opinions. Yet any serious reader of science and/or Buddhism will understand that my sense of the wrong-headedness of these actions is based in a genuine hope for human evolution and happiness. Our species has already overpopulated its ecological range. This is the cause for poverty, epidemics, pollution of the planet and wars. Therefore, it is obvious to anyone with an education above the eighth grade that the decision to have more than one or perhaps two children is socially irresponsible, no matter what your socioeconomics are. From a purely Buddhist perspective, bringing any life into this world of need and suffering mindlessly is a sign of personal unhappiness and is an impediment to further spiritual development. And it is part of my practice to speak this truth.