Book Reviews

Christine Overall, Why Have Children?: The Ethical Debate, MIT Press, 2012        

Karen Stohr
Kennedy Institute of Ethics
Georgetown University
Washington, DC, USA

Christine Overall’s book, Why Have Children?: The Ethical Debate, begins with what would seem like an obvious point—that there are better and worse reasons to have a child. Given that that the well-being of a vulnerable and dependent creature hangs on the choice, it surely requires justification. And yet, as she illustrates, philosophers have been comparatively silent about what that justification could or should look like. In this lucid and comprehensive book, Overall sets out to remedy that situation and offer what in the end is a moral justification for having (no more than two) children.

The overarching aim of the book is to explore the moral landscape around the choice to have children. Quite reasonably, Overall takes for granted that the choice to procreate requires more justification than the choice not to procreate. But of course the reasons for and against procreating are inextricably linked to each other. Overall thus considers both arguments in favor of procreation and arguments against it, most of which she finds lacking in some respect. Her conclusion is that having a limited number of children is morally justified and indeed, morally valuable, but not morally required of anyone.

Chapter 1 introduces the project, while chapter 2 serves as a crucial framing chapter for the rest of the discussion. On Overall’s view, it is not enough to cite considerations about reproductive freedom, since the claim that there is a right to reproduce without interference does not suffice to justify the choice to reproduce. Overall does think that there is a fundamental negative (liberty) right not to reproduce against one’s wishes, as well as a positive (welfare) right to reproduce that grounds certain, limited claims on the help of others. Overall leaves it open how much help any given society is required to provide those who seek to reproduce, though she argues that any such help must be distributed in a non-discriminatory way. She also argues that the positive right to reproduce does not amount to an entitlement to the use of the gametes or uterus of another person (27). No one, she thinks, should be forced to reproduce against her or his wishes.

Chapter 3 takes up the contentious question of how to settle disagreements over whether to procreate. For the sake of simplicity, Overall limits the discussion in this chapter to a case where the prospective parents consist of one male and one female. Here the challenge is to think about the right to procreate and not to procreate in a context where the female partner’s right to bodily autonomy is also at stake. Because Overall thinks that the right not to reproduce is generally more fundamental than the right to reproduce, it would seem that either partner is in position to veto the beginning or continuation of a pregnancy. But Overall wants to reject the idea that the male partner has any right to demand that the female partner continue an unwanted pregnancy, on the grounds that it would violate her bodily autonomy. She notes that some “solutions” to this problem, such as the rather fanciful possibility of ectogenesis, still fail to take seriously the fact that the physical demands of procreation fall largely on women. In the end, Overall concludes that a woman is entitled to continue a pregnancy that she wants but that her male partner does not. (She also argues that the male partner is still obligated to provide financial support for the child, something to which I will return below.) When the male partner is the one who wants to procreate, the woman is not obligated to carry a pregnancy so as to provide him with a child. Should she decide to do so, it would be supererogatory on her part.

In chapters 4 and 5, Overall spells out a variety of different reasons that might be offered as moral justification for having children, all of which she thinks are inadequate. Chapter 4 focuses on what she describes as deontological reasons, while chapter 5 focuses on consequentialist reasons. This particular division between types of moral theory is not, I think a terribly helpful one. Still, these two chapters cover a lot of important ground, including the ground where many people—both philosophers and laypersons—are standing. Overall moves through a number of commonly offered reasons for having children—that children are a gift, that having children is intrinsically worthwhile, that it’s important to pass along one’s name or genetic heritage, that we might have duties to others to reproduce, particularly if we have promised to do so, that we might have religious duties or duties to society to have children, that children bring economic and psychological benefits to parents, and finally, that having children increases the overall amount of well-being in the world. Overall argues that each of these justifications is importantly misguided or incomplete in some way. None of them provide us with sufficient moral reason to reproduce, much less an obligation to do so. Moreover, as Overall points out, some of the justifications reveal a morally troubling indifference to the gendered burdens of reproduction. Chapter 5 includes a somewhat tangential, but insightful discussion of “savior siblings” that are conceived as a way of saving the life of another child.

In the four subsequent chapters, Overall turns to the task of undermining arguments against procreation. She begins in chapter 6 by arguing against David Benatar’s claim that procreation is wrong because it violates the duty not to harm others by bringing them into existence. In chapter 7 she raises objections to a number of arguments against procreation that themselves have varying degrees of plausibility. She also takes up Julian Savulescu’s Principle of Procreative Beneficence, which instructs people planning to have children to take steps to have the best possible children they can. Overall assumes that Savulescu is committed to the view that anyone who is unable or unwilling to follow the PPB is obligated not to procreate, and she goes on to argue that this is a mistake. The conclusion of chapter 7 is that none of these considerations can ground an absolute obligation not to procreate. Importantly, she does not conclude that we are always morally justified in procreating—just that none of these arguments are sufficient to generate an obligation not to do so.

Chapter 8 focuses on two questions: whether the risk that a prospective child will be impaired is a reason not to procreate and whether an illness or impairment on the part of the parent is a reason not to procreate. Overall’s conclusion is that neither is a sufficient reason by itself, particularly in light of the fact that many impairments and disabilities are a problem only because of the social circumstances in which their possessors find themselves. Her argument is based on the idea that many impairments and disabilities are compatible with a flourishing life, given proper social support. (She does, however, grant that the toll of some conditions on the child or on the parents is heavy enough to warrant not going ahead with procreation.)

Chapter 9 takes up the large and important question of procreation in light of our global future. Overall points out that concerns about overpopulation might be thought to give us reason not to procreate while concerns about the possibility of human extinction might be thought to give us reason to procreate. She denies both of these positions, though she grants that the environmental costs of raising typical American children are so high as to warrant a strong reason to limit ourselves to one child per person (or two per couple.) In chapter 10, Overall offers what she takes to be the strongest reason in favor of having children—that it consists in creating a valuable, loving parent-child relationship.

One of the book’s many strengths is its accessibility to an audience beyond analytic philosophers. The book, which is part of the Basic Bioethics series, addresses complicated philosophical problems in a sophisticated way. But thanks to Overall’s unusually clear writing style and skill at elucidating the essential aspects of a problem or argument, Why Have Children? could easily be used in an undergraduate classroom, or read fruitfully by laypersons generally interested in learning more about bioethics. Moreover, Overall consistently blends abstract philosophical theory with practical considerations, based in the lived reality of childbirth and parenting. Unlike some writers on the topic, Overall never forgets that this lived reality is gendered in crucial ways, and that experiences of parenthood, both positive and negative, are shaped by contingent features of our socioeconomic circumstances.

The book does, however, have some weaknesses. First, I would have liked to have seen Overall attend more closely to the extent to which various arguments about procreation provide us with reasons that fall short of obligations, but that nevertheless count as moral reasons in favor or against having children. Overall recognizes that this is a possibility, but her general approach tends to portray arguments, particularly those in favor of having children, as implausibly attempting to ground obligations. It might be more constructive to think of them as offering weaker, but still operative reasons supporting procreation.

Second, Overall’s attempt to justify the intuitively appealing conclusion of chapter 2 runs into some difficulties. Given her views about the right not to reproduce, it is hard to see how a woman’s decision to continue a pregnancy against a man’s wishes can ground an obligation for him to provide financial support for the resulting child (49). Moreover, since she seems to think that gamete donation is permissible (27), she presumably thinks that it is at least possible to relinquish one’s moral obligations to one’s genetic offspring. It would be helpful to see how these various intuitions can be made consistent with each other.

Finally, Overall’s positive argument in support of her own view in chapter 10 is intriguing, but briefer than I had hoped. The parental-child relationship she defends as the best reason to have children is based on a kind of conditional love that she takes to be particularly valuable. (I remain puzzled about why she thinks unconditional love must be impersonal.) It would be especially helpful to see how Overall’s position here differs from a position she rejects in chapter 4, that having children is justified because it is intrinsically worthwhile.

These criticisms, however, constitute minor flaws in an eminently readable, interesting, and thoughtful book. Overall’s thorough and subtle treatment of this important terrain is an important contribution to the literature and the public understanding of it.

Karen Stohr
Kennedy Institute of Ethics
Georgetown University
Washington, DC, USA

                             Sun, 18 May 2014 16:11:43 +0000

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Book Review
Christine Overall
Karen Stohr
MIT Press