Perpetuation of the species is more important than individual reproduction.
It wouldn't be particularly difficult to come up with a rational list of ways in which an individual's reproduction might be detrimental to the species, or even just to the culture from which that person comes.
The species cannot be accounted for in one's actions. "The species" is not the source of natural selection, but the individual.
The idea of immortality through parenthood seems a little sentimental, and I can't really get on-board with it.
Well it is, in the esnse that one's genes continue to persist after one has died. In that sense, the immortal element in mortality is expressed. Perhaps you find it somewhat poetic, but I think it is an accurate reflection.
Take, for instanec, the Y-Chromosome. There is a direct paternal ancestry that preserves the Y-Chromosome. My Y-Chromosome (which belongs to haplogroup I) could be traced back tens of thousands of years, and hundreds of generations, to an early paternal ancestor. This directly links me to his identity and his actions in his life. In a sense, I am an outgrowth of his deeds, as my sons will be of mine. Autosomal DNA is less resistant to this sort of change, due to greater recombination, but is likewise reflective of ancestry and the continuation of someone's line.
Humanity, specifically, studies which relate to choices in life which make for legitimate happiness.
Again, this idea seems overly sentimental. If parenthood offered everyone some inherent meaningful pleasure, there would probably be fewer people (both parents and not) rejecting it.
People can reject something based on an improper view of it. I might think that something is painful, or bad, or hard to achieve, and yet be wrong.
As it is, there are people who abandon their children, people who abuse them, kill them, torture them.
And those people are murderous monsters and should be dealt with.
Not everyone produced by a society is suited to the pressures of parenting. Maybe those people would have turned out less fucked up if they had chosen to abstain from dipping their toes in the gene pool, when they were clearly unprepared for the responsibilities attached to doing so.
I am not suggesting that responsibility to one's children doesn't imply a host of duties.
This depends on your definition of freedom.
Being a parent is confining and restricting, compared to the alternative, so unless your definition of freedom includes confinement and restriction, I'm not sure how rational it is to assert that motherhood is not a limitation on freedom.
If something makes one more fulfilled and happy, is it a true restriction on freedom? Any choice we make in life commits one to a course of action.
Women have a point in which they cannot choose otherwise, restricting their freedom to be mothers just as much as someone else (I mean biologically, as I am speaking purely of biological parenthood).
Genetic flaws are not the only exception. Economic, psychological and social considerations should be taken into account when discussing the rational decision to reproduce with the intent of actually rearing your offspring.
Very few economic considerations should be taken into account to permanently defer parenthood. It may require us to occasionally abstain, or only reproduce a number of times, but it rarely is so pressing as to make it ridiculous to choose parenthood. Moreover, those who tend to disfavour parenthood are those who have the economic resources to do so - meaning they are choosing this option out of mere nihilism.
Psychological and social considerations are almost always nonsense. Society has been built around the institution of marriage and parenting in order to accomodate the future of said society. Unless one is truly warped, one is generally a healthy enough person to rais ea child.
And there is reason to suspect that some might be justified in claiming the opposite.
Perhaps. I leave that open, although I'd leave it open.
No, every creature on this planet has a duty to the survival of its species, which is not the same thing.
Ants, for example. It is not every ant's duty to reproduce. It is their duty to sustain the colony; to support reproduction, not necessarily engage in it.
Ants are colony organsisms that could be considered as almost cells in a body, rather than as autonomous beings. But yes, okay, I grant you: Were we eusocial colony organisms, we'd not have a duty, individually, to reproduce.
There is, however, properly no "species" on the level of reproduction. Only individuals preserving themselves.
If a scientist working on terraforming, for example, chooses not to have children because doing so would negatively impact his chances of success, he is still doing more to support both reproduction and the survival of the species than is the single mother, struggling to make ends meet and adding another mouth for the world to feed.
There is a mistaken view that reproduction is about species. It isn't: It's about the individual's contribution to the next generation.
Dooming himself to oblivion is not a wise choice, in spite of the fact that his social legacy will be great. In fact, he'll almost certainly hurt the "good of the species", which you speak of, by not passing on his good, scientist genes (intelligence and such) to the next generaiton. That's vaslty dysgenic, and why it is so troubling that high-IQ nations (Europe and East Asia) feature below-replacement population growth, whereas low-IQ nations (Africa and Central America, much of Asia) feature hugely high reproductive rates. The net result of this behaviour is a world-wide lowering of IQ, that will become most pronounced when the worst areas in the world, IQ wise, will dwarf the population of high IQ areas.
