Readers might be interested in my most recent article for Truthdig, which begins as follows:
Last month, a young man named Guy Edward Bartkus drove to a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California, and detonated a homemade bomb that ripped apart the clinic and shattered the windows of buildings in the vicinity. The powerful blast killed Bartkus instantly; four others were injured but are expected to recover.
The FBI labeled the attack “an intentional act of terrorism” driven by “antinatalist beliefs” — apparently the very first use of the word “antinatalist” in an official FBI crime report. Antinatalism is the view that procreation is morally wrong given “the harms that await any newborn child — pain, disappointment, anxiety, grief and death,” to quote the most famous antinatalist, David Benatar.
Most antinatalists, including Benatar, explicitly reject the use of violence in opposing the generation of new human life. They believe that not having children must be a voluntary choice and aim to persuade people of their view through rational argumentation rather than force or aggression. Making sense of Bartkus’ attack thus requires understanding how some antinatalists embrace an additional idea called “pro-mortalism,” which holds that suicide and — on one interpretation — murder can be justified to obviate the suffering that people would otherwise experience if they continue existing. If this smaller movement wasn’t on the FBI’s radar before Bartkus, it is now.
Consider a conversation between two pro-mortalists recently posted on YouTube:
Person 1: In a sense, I don’t see murder … like, if you kill me, I’m happy.
Person 2: Likewise!
Person 1: I don’t see that much of a bad thing. … Murder is not bad to me.
Person 2: [Laughing] Especially if it’s an instantaneous one.
Person 1: Because, as for me, the end justifies the means in this whole dying thing. Because there are ways you can die painlessly, but the bottom line is we are all going to die.
Person 2: Yes, we should accept the fate. That’s our fate. [Edited for clarity.]
Read the rest of the article here: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-tale-of-two-extinctions/