I've heard many friends saying:
"I would love to have a child, but don't believe that the world will be a good place in the future. Climate change mixed with mass migration and political instability will make the world a horrible place to live in a few decades. I therefore don't want to bring children to life."
Talking about this subject, a friend of mine gave another perspective:
By not giving birth, you are robbing a human being of its choice to decide whether it wants to live.
The argument for not bringing a kid to life is that not being born is better than experiencing consciousness. If you believe this, and if you haven’t kill yourself, then you’re not in integrity with your life view, as you keep on choosing consciousness over its absence.
In other words: if the world would be such a terrible place to live, why do you still keep yourself alive? And if you do keep yourself alive and find meaning in this world, why wouldn't another person (your child), too?
Further, it could be that not being born is better than experiencing consciousness with a certain amount of suffering, such as starvation. Here, it’s a personal choice how much suffering is seemed worthy. What is clear is that, if I become a father, I will “optimize” to put my child through the least amount of suffering possible (which includes being able to overcome pain).
At this point of life, I don't have a desire to have children. One argument I personally also like to deconstruct is this:
"I want to have kids to have my genes survive, and hence make humanity survive."
But if the true desire is to make humanity survive, then I'm sure there are better ways to invest your time and energy than having kids. If one would optimize for that purpose, s/he would spend the time and resources into finding the best genes (or the smartest individuals) and help these thrive.
What's your view on having children?
PS: Ultimately, all these words are just stories we tell ourselves of "why we want or don't want children". Those who do have children usually say it simply: it gave them the most amount of love, responsibility and meaning they ever experienced. And that, is a good argument for having kids.