A wide-ranging exploration of whether or not choosing to procreate can be morally justified—and if so, how.

In contemporary Western society, people are more often called upon to justify the choice not to have children than they are to supply reasons for having them. In this book, Christine Overall maintains that the burden of proof should be reversed: that the choice to have children calls for more careful justification and reasoning than the choice not to. Arguing that the choice to have children is not just a prudential or pragmatic decision but one with ethical repercussions, Overall offers a wide-ranging exploration of how we might think systematically and deeply about this fundamental aspect of human life. Writing from a feminist perspective, she also acknowledges the inevitably gendered nature of the decision; the choice has different meanings, implications, and risks for women than it has for men.

After considering a series of ethical approaches to procreation, and finding them inadequate or incomplete, Overall offers instead a novel argument. Exploring the nature of the biological parent-child relationship—which is not only genetic but also psychological, physical, intellectual, and moral—she argues that the formation of that relationship is the best possible reason for choosing to have a child.

Christine Overall is a professor emerita of philosophy and holds a University Research Chair at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. She is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and has received two research awards from the Royal Society. She held the Humphrey Professorship in Feminist Philosophy at the University of Waterloo (2003), the Nancy’s Chair in Women’s Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University (2006–2007), and the Visiting Professorship in Canadian Studies at Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan (2011–2012). Her research is in the areas of feminist philosophy, applied philosophy, and philosophy of religion. She has published over a hundred articles and book chapters, many of which have been republished. She is the author of six books, including Why Have Children: The Ethical Debate (MIT Press, 2012) and the editor of five books, including Pets and People: The Ethics of Our Relationships with Companion Animals (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Christine Overall's profile page

Cogently argued and exhaustively researched, Overall's newest will be of particular interest to thoughtful adults engaged in this debate, as well as students and professionals in philosophy and sociology.—Publishers Weekly—

…Overall is clearly invested in making her work accessible to a range of readers. Given the current national conversation about reproductive rights, I wish work like Overall's was not only accessible, but required reading.

—Tammy Oler, Bitch—