Many people decide from an early age that their future includes creating and raising children of their own. Raising children is seen as a long-term investment in both the community’s future and your own future. The moral choice to create children may be justified by the meaning it gives the parents through transformation of their identity onto the child, as well as by a right to create a lasting mark on the world.
Meanwhile, the state of the world would indicate that having children is not beneficial to the general population. Overpopulation is detrimental to environmental conditions and to human health, and millions of orphaned children suffer worldwide. Given these factors, deciding to have children would seem to be simply an addition to the preexisting problem. However, there are a lot of worldwide problems that do not substantially change how we live our lives; few people care enough about worldwide water shortages to ensure they do not waste a single drop of water, so why would they worry about the contribution of a few kids to worldwide overpopulation?
Is having children solely a personal decision? Do the benefits of having children outweigh the marginal increase in world population? Is there a moral obligation to or to not have children?