Child-Centric Family Planning | Sarah Bexell and Cat Graff-Hughey

Sep 30, 2019

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The decision to have a child should include consideration of the rights of the child to be born into a supportive community and a healthy environment. Sarah Bexell and Catharina Graff-Hughey join us to discuss their paper, A Human Rights Approach to Planning Families.

Today, family planning decisions tend to be all about the desires of parents, with little or no regard for the rights and living conditions of the prospective child and people who are already here. Do two adults have the right to bring a child into a world that’s a dystopian hell? Or do they at least have some responsibility NOT to? If the number of children you decide to conceive will have a direct impact on the quality of life those children experience, should that consequence be factored into your family size decision?

These questions are more relevant now than ever. Today, more and more young women and couples are questioning whether having children is the right thing to do in a world destined for tough times.

This episode is the first of several that will share content from – or suggested by – the April 2019 forum Tackling the Population Taboo: Creating a Sustainable Future. The forum was organized by Maureen Cohen Harrington, special projects manager at the nonprofit, Having Kids.

See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript: https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/sarah-bexell

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