Morality needs to be consideredin whether ornot to have children.It is common to base this decisionupon the mere desire orlack of desire to procreate ratherthan on sound moral reasoning.Many of us have never consideredthat having too many childrencould be immoral. Thereare many moral arguments toconsider when starting a family.Common sense should tell usthat having more children thanwe can care for is wrong. I am not only speakingfi nancially, but of “emotional capital.”If I couldn’t support four children on mysalary, it would be immoral to have fi ve. It’simmoral to cause suffering, and having morechildren than can be adequately cared for causessuffering.There is now great evidence that global famineis not primarily caused by a lack of food, butby social policy and norms, namely that of thebirth rate.In Poverty and Famines, Amarta Sen documenteda study of four cases of famine: Bengal,thiopia, Sahel and Bangladesh.This empirical study concludedthat a drop in food productionwas not the main cause of suchfamines.India, for example, is not aresource-poor country, yet itsimply does not have enough resourcesto provide for 1.1 billionpeople. Overpopulation causesfamine.I think Americans fail to thinkof family planning as a moraldecision for two reasons. First,we do not have to worry about it-yet. TheUnited States is still a relatively young countryand is actually one of the most sparsely populated.There is plenty of room to grow.However, this does not mean it’s OK to crowda nation with so many people that it would beimpossible to feed them all.The other reason is religion. There is the religiousview that it is the duty of humankind toprocreate and replenish the Earth.Yet there is also a duty to make the world agood place for everyone, to prevent starvationand to give each child a minimum quality of life.Having too many children destroys all three.Population growth should not just be the concernof governments. It should be the concernfor everyone beginning to build a family.Proper parenting takes time and lack thereofcauses an erosion of values in society, resultsin wayward teens and an increase in crime anddrugs.Surely, no religion desires this.I am not saying morality sets a certain limiton how many children we can have. I am sayingthat moral reasoning should play a role in ourdecision of how many children we [email protected]