CORRESPONDENCE

That only the elite should have children is a worrying argument

To the Editor: I recently came across the article 'Human reproduction: Right, duty or privilege? South African perspective' by Malcolm de Roubaix in your journal.^[1] It gave an insightful historical overview of the legal framing of reproductive rights in South Africa (SA). Despite the merits of some of its descriptive components, I note with concern the implications of the argument that it presents us with and the assumptions it holds in making its ethical case. The argument itself is at least as old as Plato's Republic in the Western canon, and concerns itself with the important issue of the ethics of procreation^[2] The more specific question that de Roubaix deals with is: when is it responsible (or not responsible) to procreate and have a child in SA?

Let me begin by expressing my general sympathy with the claim made by the author that 'we should consider the probable quality of life of the child we intend to produce'^[1] in a manner that brings these considerations to bear on our decisions about whether to procreate. This is a kind of personal accountability about reproductive choices that we should encourage. Prospective parents should consider such factors as their sociopsychological situation, their ability to make provisions for their children, the appropriateness of the available support systems that they would have for the child, and so on, with the myriad of other considerations relevant to the well-being of the child and the community they would be joining. De Roubaix's article, though, focuses on the financial or material means of parents as a criterion upon which to decide fitness to procreate. His case is summed up in this paragraph in which he says:

' We should consider the probable quality of life of the child we intend to produce, and evaluate our personal social and economic environment before contemplating pregnancy: is it conducive to rearing a child in a manner commensurate with section 28 of the Bill of Rights? If not, we are not responsible parents, and should reconsider. This does not imply anti-natalism or ultimate elitism -that only the rich should procreate (ironically, they tend to limit their reproduction) - or that affluence is essential for a fulfilling and happy childhood. However, I do argue that families should be limited to the extent that parents can care for their child/children and provide him/her/them with the best possible future. Radical social engineering as practised in China and India are incompatible with contemporary notions of democracy and human rights. The state nevertheless has a responsibility: to intervene by designing and initiating programmes to promote responsible parenthood within social development - something apparently totally absent in our current planning.'^[1]

The argument resolves in saying that poor people should not have children, but that we should not mandate them not to. It is suggested that we should create programmes to steer poor people away from child-rearing. In essence, de Roubaix is arguing that when the poor have children despite their social station, they are performing a morally blameworthy act that should be characterised as not being responsible.

Although de Roubaix would like to avoid the implication his argument is making that only the rich should procreate, and other forms of elitism, his argument does imply an elitism about procreation. He does not provide us with any reasons to believe his view avoids this implication, especially when we consider that most individuals in SA cannot provide a life for a child commensurate with section 28 of the Bill of Rights in the SA Constitution. This stipulation in the Constitution is aspirational, as is much of the content of the Constitution.

Among other stipulations of section 28, it says that every child has the right 'to basic nutrition, shelter, basic health care services and social services'.™ Although SA consistently secures food sufficiency well beyond what is needed to provide for everyone in the country, child malnutrition is rampant, with stunting recently reported to be at levels of about 25%^[4] - 'a reflection of widespread multidimensional poverty and [...] an indictment of the failure of economic and social policies over many decades', despite national interventions attempting to alleviate the issue.^[4] The provision of these and other Constitutionally protected socioeconomic rights remain unattained aspirations that rather stand as unresolved problems for children and a large proportion of the SA population, and particularly among Black people.^[5] These are part of a myriad of systemic problems children face in SA, especially when they are born into poverty.^[6] Many of these issues are structural failures, not the personal failures of parents to do right by their children.

The implication of de Roubaix's argument is that bringing children into the world to face such challenges is not responsible on the part of parents. More specifically, the claim he makes is that parents who cannot provide a life for children commensurate with section 28 of the Bill of Rights are not responsible. If we were to accept this argument, we would have to say, according to de Roubaix's standards, that a large proportion of parents in SA are not responsible, given their inability to provide a life for their children commensurate with section 28 of the Bill of Rights. This is despite the fact that many of the reasons for which parents are not able to provide such a life for children are a direct consequence of a history of structural failures that parents are not themselves necessarily responsible for. The ability of parents to provide their children with adequate healthcare or an education, for instance, is undermined by government failure to provide what our taxes already provide funding for. A parent reliant on public services that are not provided at the level at which they are funded is not the irresponsible party in this scenario. This argument can be extended to problematise the assumption that the poor are automatically the irresponsible party when children's needs cannot be met by parents. Parents may not be morally blameworthy in the sense of not being responsible when procreating while poor, especially when we consider how it is that the majority of South Africans came to be poor (e.g. by the design of apartheid and colonialism), and why it is that they remain poor (e.g. the developmental failures of the present government) without reasonable social supports or accommodations for them and their children.

My point in raising these worries with regard to de Roubaix's argument is to show the impoverishment of an ethics of reproduction that is reliant on a person's socioeconomic station but that ignores how people have come to be in their particular socioeconomic position. Counter to the elitist argument de Roubaix mounts, I would argue that it is wrong to automatically characterise poor parents as not being responsible because they cannot provide a standard of life commensurate with section 28 of the Bill of Rights, especially when how they have come to be unable to provide such a life is as a result of oppression and subsequent government ineptitude and failure. Taken in context, the bulk of moral blame may lie at the feet of other social actors, despite the role that an individual's personal agency in respect to procreation will play in the development of their personal socioeconomic condition.

The problem with de Roubaix's account is that it focuses on a moralisation of reproductive choices, rather than couching these choices in the socioeconomic and political context in which these choices are made. When looked at solely at the level of individual choice, the argument that 'families should be limited to the extent that parents can care for their child/children and provide him/ her/them with the best possible future'^,[1] and the argument that parents who cannot care for their children in this way, may seem compelling. But when other contextual factors are included in our deliberation about the ethics of procreation, we find that it may not be the case that parents have acted irresponsibly in bringing life into the world that they are not necessarily equipped to provide with the requisite care. De Roubaix's argument leaves only the elite as parties that could be considered responsible in having children. Such an argument, where only the elite should have children, is worryingly problematic, and is an argument I hope that de Roubaix will reconsider.

P M Msimang

Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa, and Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia MsimangP@sun.ac.za

References

1. De Roubaix M. Human reproduction: Right, duty or privilege? South African perspective. S Afr J Bioethics Law 2021;14(2):55-61. https://doi.org/10.7196/SAJBL.2021.v14i2.697        [ Links ]

2. Samaras T. Reproductive freedom and the paradigmatic character of Plato's 'Republic'. Akropolis J Hellenic Stud 2021;4(1):36-49. https://doi.org/10.35296/jhs.v4i1.49        [ Links ]

3. Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. Section 2: Bill of Rights. http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng-02.pdf (accessed 16 November 2021).

4. Devereux S, Jonah C, May J. How many malnourished children are there in South Africa? What can be done? In: Roelen K, Morgan R, Tafere Y (editors). Putting Children First: New Frontiers in the Fight Against Child Poverty in Africa. Bergen: Comparative Research Programme on Poverty, 157, 2019. https://foodsecurity.ac.za/publications/how-many-malnourished-children-are-there-in-south-africa-what-can-be-done/ (accessed 16 November 2021).

5. Francis D, Webster E. Poverty and inequality in South Africa: Critical reflections. Development Southern Africa 2019;36(6):788-802. https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835X.2019.1666703        [ Links ]

6. Roelen K, Morgan R, Tafere Y. Putting Children First: New Frontiers in the Fight Against Child Poverty in Africa. Bergen: Comparative Research Programme on Poverty, 2019. https://bora.uib.no/bora-xmlui/bitstream/handle/1956/21651/9783838273174_ebook.pdf (accessed 16 November 2021).