Casey Gilfillan

Why is my fulfillment, my joy, tied to biological function? Some say procreation is the natural order, required by our innate biological processes as women. My ability, my capacity in womb possession and fetus incubation, is title-condemning for the mere fact of viability. I can physically have children so I must become a mother, unlocking every biological experience being my foretold destiny. I can physically have children so I must if I wish to be fulfilled by the fullness of my fertility. I can, therefore I must.

Perhaps it is menopause that each woman must experience to truly be fulfilled; perhaps it is the phenomenon of menstruation itself that unlocks that unbridled joy of such capacity and experience. Sounds odd I guess, tying the notion of individual fulfillment to generalized biological processes, regardless of which one you’re choosing.

And what do we tell those women who are physically incapable of procreation? That there is a greater happiness, far and yonder beyond a hill that they will never be able to climb. It is there and nothing else they can do will compare to the sense of validation that this experience brings. So they will be unhappy, squander their time with the toils of personal development, haunted by the stench of reeking infertility. If a woman’s most ultimate and full sense of contentment is tied to her biological capacity to create life, then how else might you downscale that philosophy to those who lack the capacity? 

Those who lack the desire but hold the capacity, however, you know how to deal with them. You will tell them, degrade and patronize you will, by your argument-enriching means (defensive exclusivity and gaslighting) that they could never understand it without experiencing it. You will tell them that they think they know what they want, but that they don’t. Only you understand because you’ve conceived and are now saddled with the responsibility of the life you’ve created. Only once you undertake those recklessly self-serving and ill-thought out actions can you understand the fulfillment of your person through the destiny of female biology. You think you know what you want, but you don’t understand yourself enough to know that you must want this – the subjugation of the next generation to suffering.

It just seems off, this propagated notion that individual happiness lies within this generalized biological process, only which some women can access. From where, or whom, did this notion originate? While I don’t have one specific villain to point to, women’s rights activist Evelyn Reed attributed much of these sentiments to “the rise of state and church power” within a capitalist society, and states that they “have brought about this reduction of women’s work to family servitude” (Reed 1971). Women are capable of doing many things, specific and non-specific to their biology, so I need a better argument as to why this specific biological process is the key to internal fulfillment. And please, don’t be offended when I can’t accept your testimony if it refers to the scribblings of ancient men who were so delusional they thought their hands were writing from the lips of God (or worse yet, intentionally fabricated God’s word in accordance with their social will). Please don’t be offended when I doubt the sincerity of this pro-natalist opposition, which is heartily and fully backed by the U.S. government. More so under Donald, who self-attested to be the “fertilization president” (NBC News). Contemporary questions about modern horrors deserve relevant and reputable answers.  As Reed claims,“It was with the rise of patriarchal class society that the biological makeup of women became the ideological pretext for justifying and continuing the dispossession of women from social and cultural life, keeping them in servile status” (Reed 1971).

Regardless of who has thrust this oppressive ideology upon us, any iota of analysis would derive the logical conclusion that procreation is selfish, and that you are admitting the selfish nature of this act when you preface it with the need for fulfillment. I can, therefore I must. I can create life, therefore I must if I wish to be happy? I reject this premise, I reject the correlation of procreation with female happiness, I reject the suggestion of biologically-condemned purpose. Acknowledging this, let us consider this, that only birthing and raising children will bring a woman, me, true joy. Is there no ethical qualm in the creation of another, separate life for the sake of one’s own happiness? Thinking about it so directly, to have a child for the purpose of fulfilling your biological prophecy and achieving your ultimate happiness is self-serving. Creating and condemning a creature to a life of pain and emotional torment as a vehicle for you, a means by which you can acquire something, even if emotional. Your child is the means to an end, your frothy depiction of familial fulfillment that you so keenly yearn to actualize. Selfish, is what it is. Fulfilling, I’m not so sure.

It is clear that I don’t believe in the morality of procreation, but all I’m really asking for, at the very least here, is to cut the pro-natalist propaganda, for the end of the legislative manipulation to force unwanted childbirth, and for the quieting of voices who would tell a woman how she might best find happiness (unless you’re a licensed therapist, her best friend, or God). I might not find procreation ethical, but to each their own. The other side does not seem to share in this equal opportunity philosophy, as they would prefer to condemn and trick and trap everyone into their professed “correct” and “biologically-appropriate” lifestyle.

 A woman who cannot produce life will not be unfulfilled on that account, nor by her nature. A woman who does not want to produce life is not rejecting her opportunity to be fulfilled. A woman’s purpose is not dictated, governed, guided, or even suggested by her capacity to bear children. A woman’s purpose is that which she makes it, the course and meaning she ascribes to her life bears that exalted honor.