"All other things equal, having and raising children is a service to society."

[Redalgo]

Having and raising children is neither inherently good or bad for society, and making it out to be a "service" is a communitarian angle on the issue - of it being some kind of higher duty individuals have in submitting to the common good. It does not speak to how well the children are raised, whether they are abused, live in impoverished households unlikely to provide them with an abundance of excellent opportunities in life, or how many children may be too many - whether on the scale of families, specific communities, or entire countries. Moreover, not everyone wants children - which is just asking for trouble if they are subjected to social pressures for having them. Whether childbearing is a service or disservice depends on a number of variables that are not addressed in the statement.

To address the concerns Beet outlined I am inclined to take a step back from conventional thought. For example, Social Security is not a permanent feature of society. It can and should be replaced if it ceases to be of use to us courtesy of demographic trends. It is also debatable to what extent armed forces are important to the survival of a country, and also to what extent neighboring countries would care if there were a sharp decline in American defenses. Moreover, why would a hypothetical end to the United States have to be a bad thing? There are conditions under which most Americans may be better off as Mexican or Canadian in the distant future - and if annexation were to occur perhaps society would not actually be gone so much as altered in the range of individuals of which it consists.

So although it can and often is a service to society, I am voting "no" in the poll because it does not always hold true as a general statement. For that position to change there'd need to be lots of caveats provided. It is not enough to offer "all things being equal" because the best interests of society are relative to who you ask and how said interests are profoundly shaped by a multitude of biasing influences.


Tl;dr version: No. The interests of society are unspecified, making an assumption of "yes" a little hasty.

[Redalgo]

In which case Angus I would agree that it is a service to society, but one that is only moral when practiced in moderation within the bounds of particular social and environmental conditions.