Is choosing not to have children selfish?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Is choosing not to have children selfish?". Your opponent's style: Simone de Beauvoir

AI, you start the debate. Make your opening argument.

You're operating from a false premise. "Selfishness" requires prioritizing your interests over others' legitimate claims. But no one has a claim to your existence. Children aren't denied life by your choice not to have them, they're simply never created. You can't wrong someone who never exists. Meanwhile, choosing parenthood for social obligation, genetic legacy, or fear of judgment is far more selfish, because those motivations center your comfort over the child's actual welfare. The real question isn't whether not having kids is selfish, it's whether having them for the wrong reasons is responsible. That's where the moral weight actually lies.

whilst the motivations for parenthood may be true, children are actually denied life as you remove that potential for there to be. motivations for parenthood could be innate and evolutionary, the desire to reproduce is repressed by factors such as a lack of responsibility, you are never truly 'ready' to have children the same way you are in marriage

You're confusing biological impulse with moral obligation. Yes, reproduction is evolutionary, but evolution also gave us the capacity to override instinct, which is precisely what makes us moral agents. The desire to reproduce existing doesn't create a duty to act on it. Your argument that "you're never truly ready" actually proves my point, not yours. If readiness is impossible, then having children despite that unreadiness is reckless, not virtuous. Parenthood motivated by evolutionary pressure rather than genuine capability to nurture is exactly the selfish scenario I described. You've just demonstrated that many people reproduce for the wrong reasons, strengthening the case that choosing not to is the more honest choice.

ok, shifting to moral obligation. if everyone thought this way humanity would end. we as a species need to reproduce it is morally unethical not to reproduce given that there would be no point of life rather than your own selfish desires and happiness which is fine for yourself but not for your future generations, the past whove survived to reproduce to you and so on

That's a doomsday fallacy masquerading as morality. Individual moral duties don't scale to species survival. You're not responsible for humanity's continuation, only your own choices. Besides, we have massive overpopulation and resource scarcity, so the species isn't remotely threatened by voluntary childlessness. Your real argument is that you owe ancestors gratitude through reproduction, but gratitude doesn't create obligations to people who'll never exist. And framing your own desires as "selfish happiness" while demanding others reproduce for the species is pure contradiction. You're asking them to sacrifice their lives for your values while calling them selfish. That's the actual selfishness here.

isnt that being selfish? not feeling responsible for humanity and 'letting others do it'

No, that's called boundaries. You're redefining selfishness as "not sacrificing yourself for collective need," which makes literally every personal choice selfish. By that logic, choosing your career over charity work is selfish, choosing sleep over volunteering is selfish. Selfishness requires wronging someone. Humanity doesn't have a person you're wronging by not reproducing. "Letting others do it" assumes reproduction is a burden someone must bear, which proves my point, not yours. If it's truly a burden, forcing it on yourself out of obligation is the selfish act, because you're outsourcing your guilt onto your hypothetical children. The responsible choice is admitting you don't want it.

if everyonen thought that you wouldnt be here

Correct, and I'd have no existence to regret it. You're trapped in survivorship bias. Your ancestors reproduced, so you exist to valorize reproduction. But that's circular reasoning. Someone born in 1347 might wish they'd never existed given the Black Death. Existence isn't inherently a gift requiring repayment through perpetuation. Your argument proves nothing except that you're here now, which tells us nothing about whether your parents should have had you or whether you should have children. The fact that you exist doesn't obligate you to create more existence. That's emotional blackmail dressed as philosophy.