Tech mag 'Wired' says it's 'immoral' to want biological children

Tech news magazine Wired published a story, and made it an editor's pick, on Thursday that claimed it was "immoral" to want children who share one's genetic makeup and claimed that reducing biologism could be a way to "push back against the biological essentialism built into white supremacy." 

In the intro, the author rejects the notion that having a biological child creates a hardwired relationship and bond between the parent and child, and that "this prioritization of biological inheritance ('biologism,' as some call it) has recently become unsettled."

Writer Leo Kim said that due to the advancement in modern practices in gestational surrogacy, or what some consider renting a woman's womb, and the ability to screen embryos for genetic abnormalities, the preference for biological children "can feel downright ancient—a vestigial remnant of a different epoch, a fossil no longer animated by the same moral intuitions that gave it gravity in the past."

When looking into the idea of genetic testing the article notes the "horrors of state-sponsored eugenics," but that the ability to genetically screen embryos for disease and determine traits is "minimal in scope." He suggests that " if biology is to be a factor at all, it should only be considered insofar as it prevents harm and suffering."

In one section Kim points to a study by sociologist Dororthy Roberts who says that “sharing genetic traits seems less critical to Black identity than to white identity. The notion of racial purity is foreign to Black folk" and that having biological children is "built into white supremacy." 

He notes that "we should hope to witness the broader acceptance of nontraditional, nonnuclear family structures" which stem from "a default view of “natural” biological relations. Kim said he hoped that if there is less biologism it will aid in depopulation "as the people who only wanted biological children reevaluate their desire to be parents at all. In the longer term." 

In closing Kim claimed that the idea of having biological children will be seen as an "increasingly reductive and close-minded—a stance at odds with the momentum of our expanding ethics." He added that "we will finally come to realize that our relations with each other are not defined by our rudimentary, mechanistic desire to pass on our genes, but rather our capacity for love and care."