No matter what all these anti-child news articles say, I strongly disagree with people who claim that having children is inherently bad for the earth or bad for the economy. Sure, they have a right to say whatever is on their mind, but I will fight them if they ever try to restrict the rights of other people to have children.

Back when I was interviewing for medical school, my views on people having a lot of children were influenced by a story that I read. It was a science-fiction short story that later got made into the 1973 movie  — SOYLENT GREEN, starring Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson. The story was set in a future where overpopulation was so out of control that there were massive food shortages. Rather than eating meats and vegetables, people were forced to eat nasty processed wafers made from plankton. With great desperation to reduce the population, people were given incentives to kill themselves by offering them a final deathbed view of wonderful nature scenery of the way earth WAS before overpopulation destroyed it. Once you got to watch the final nature show, you were given a poisonous drink and allowed to pass away in peace. Spoiler Alert: In case you want to rent this movie, skip to the next paragraph. Otherwise, I’ll share the kicker of the movie which was that Soylent Green was NOT made from plankton but rather from the recycled people after they were put to death! Yechh.

The movie made me a strong advocate of population control. When it came time for me to interview for med school at UCLA, I found myself talking to a doctor from their OB department and somehow the conversation wandered to the topic of contraception and sterilization and I let forth with a passionate unedited outpouring of my views on population control. I immediately sensed a strong negative reaction from my interviewer. In the end, I would up wait-listed at UCLA and eventually accepted. However, by that time I was accepted, it was so late that I had already decided to accept a spot at UC-Irvine. On the day I received my acceptance from UCLA, I had already moved and gotten settled in with a place to live in Irvine. It turned out to be one of the most fortunate turns of events in my life because UC-Irvine had the very best OB/Gyn program in the country, allowing me to meet a great mentor who would inspire me to enter the field of OB and eventually to specialize in Reproductive Endocrinology.

Later in my career, when I was an infertility Fellow at UCLA, I ran into that same doctor who interviewed me and found out that he was a fertility specialist who strongly advocated people having more kids.

So today, when I stumbled on yet another anti-child article, I took the time to reconsider what my stand is on this issue. My opinion has definitely evolved over the years.

Here goes: I believe that all potential parents have every right to have as many children as they want to, provided that they can raise them happy and healthy without reliance on the government or on other handouts. I believe that part of being a good parent, besides just caring for children is the ability to guide your kids into becoming adults who contribute to the world rather than just take from the world. Simple?