NBC – which is still a national major media outlet, mind you – ran the following headline written by a guy named Travis Rieder, who, according to his byline, is the director of the Master of Bioethics degree program and a research scholar at the Berman Institute of Bioethics. The headline reads:
"Science proves kids are bad for Earth. Morality suggests we stop having them."
On a base level, the argument is the same old tired trope that environmental extremists have been peddling for some time now – that humans are subpar to the intrinsic value of a fichus, that that you should place the wellbeing of the common dung beetle over your own 5-year-old son, because #PlanetEarth.
But while equally as oblivious to its own inane, cultish drivel as most Hug-a-Grizzly propaganda, Rieder’s article is perhaps even less apologetic than most, charging straight past the “Maybe don’t have 17 children, please” line and heading pell-mell for “Have kids, and I swear by my organic hemp poncho we will hunt them down” territory.
Think that’s an exaggeration? Take Reider’s own words, in which he lines up his argument by comparing his own daughter to a murderer.
If I release a murderer from prison, knowing full well that he intends to kill innocent people, then I bear some responsibility for those deaths — even though the killer is also fully responsible. My having released him doesn’t make him less responsible (he did it!). But his doing it doesn’t eliminate my responsibility either.
Something similar is true, I think, when it comes to having children: Once my daughter is an autonomous agent, she will be responsible for her emissions. But that doesn’t negate my responsibility.
Never mind that having children is potentially the most natural thing a human being can do, if we’re taking the “environmental” tack, here. Never mind the point of absolute mental deficiency you have to crawl to buy that having a child is the same thing as letting a violent serial murderer out of prison.
It’s nauseating, to say the least.
Thank God at least most people on Twitter saw the absurdity:
Clearly the robots have taken over this account
— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) November 15, 2017
— Andrew Giesman (@GeeseDawg) November 15, 2017
Literally unbelievable that you would publish this
— Esther Fleece (@EstherFleece) November 15, 2017
All the humans who think humans are bad for the the Earth, take a step off the nearest cliff. Please, for the sake of the Earth and the rest of humanity (who happen to like it here). Thanks.
— Rick Donaldson (@RDaleDonaldson) November 15, 2017
Liberal media sources are bad for Earth. To save it, we must start listening to fewer of them. https://t.co/Fi5mfeP0gV
— SilverPatriot (@SilverPatriot1) November 15, 2017
— RockyTopRev (@PastorJustinR) November 15, 2017
The Committee to reelect Donald J. Trump thanks you for your inadvertent in-kind contribution for the 2020 campaign.
— Chuck Vipperman (@ChuckVipperman) November 15, 2017
But perhaps we shouldn’t be so shocked at Reider’s mindlessly absurd suggestion. After all, this is the same death cult that thinks it “humane” to butcher living children in the womb under the guise of “health care.” In fact, the radical Left’s disdain for children couldn’t be more palpable if they started dragging toddlers into the streets and gassing them to death in full public view.
Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time in history that such a thing was considered perfectly acceptable. You know, for the greater good.
And you know what they say about history.