A small group of people dubbed the ‘Birth Strikers’ are refusing to have children to help prevent what they call an “ecological armageddon.”
This group of birth strikers consists of currently 330 people, 20% men and 80% women. These people believe choosing to not procreate will prevent the end of the earth as a result of climate change.
These strikers claim they do not want to bring children into a world that scientists predict will end in 11 years due to climate change and bring wildfires, droughts, and food shortages along with it.
The Birth Strikers claim to question the ethics of having a child in a world supposedly ending due to climate change. The Birth Strikers is not the first group to refuse to have kids due to climate change. Conceivable Future, a group founded in 2015 formed to bring awareness to “the threat climate change poses to reproductive justice.”
In March, U.S Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rhetorically asked her 3M Instagram followers, “there’s a scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult… is it still ok to have children?”
BirthStrike and Conceivable Future claim to not judge or pressure people to not have children but believe having children is morally wrong because of the pain that child will have to endure during the course of their life.
Co-Founder of BirthStrike, Blythe Pepino said in an interview with CNN:
“I am in a position to be an activist, it’s a stronger calling than motherhood, even though I still mourn the idea. Now is the time to create the disruption and bring the system to its knees because it is just ignoring it.”
