The counterexample refuting your assertion is that of a person who has had an accident leaving them unconscious and requiring urgent surgery in order to stay alive, with the alternative of doing nothing almost certainly resulting in death, and the decision being in the hands of the person's next of kin. Now, according to your warped way of thinking, death would be the least risky option, because that would avoid all of the risks accompanied with continued living, whereas the surgery would be considerably more risky, because then, if successful, they'd run the risk of stubbing their toe, or breaking up with their girlfriend, or whatever. You know, all of the things that you think can make life not worth living. — S

Wow, you completely miss the point of separating STARTING a life and CONTINUING a life. Continuing the life already born, is different scenario. Someone can have interests of staying alive once born- that is reasonable and does not justify starting a life, because humans naturally gravitate to interests (like accomplishing goals, keep on living). This situation in no way refutes khaled's argument.

Wow, you completely miss the point of separating STARTING a life and CONTINUING a life. — schopenhauer1

I'm not missing it. It's a point which doesn't hold any water.

Continuing the life already born, is different scenario. Someone can have interests of staying alive once born- that is reasonable and does not justify having them, because humans naturally gravitate to interests (like accomplishing goals, keep on living). This situation in no way refutes khaled's argument. — schopenhauer1

The reasoning for not starting a life is based on a number of bad experiences you get in life. Continuing life is open to that same reasoning. You can't consistently close it off from that just because it's convenient for your stance. That's the fallacy of special pleading.

Either these bad experiences count against life or they don't. Make your mind up, because you can't have it both ways.

Anyway, if the person who had the accident would lose all their memory, then it would be starting a life. So there you have it. Objection overcome on your own terms.

The reasoning for not starting a life is based on a number of bad experiences you get in life. Continuing life is open to that same reasoning. You can't consistently close it off from that just because it's convenient for your stance. That's the fallacy of special pleading.

Either these bad experiences count against life or they don't. Make your mind up, because you can't have it both ways.

Anyway, if the person who had the accident would lose all their memory, then it would be starting a life. So there you have it. Objection overcome on your own terms. — S

So once born, humans naturally gravitate to goals and interests they don't want to lose. Prior to birth, no one has interests to lose in the first place. One can still have a life not worth starting (and have no interests), but still have a life worth continuing once born (and have some interests). It is a default position, once born. Suicide is not like making a regular ole decision- "gee, should I go to the bar today or kill myself?". Once born, we are almost defaulted into interests, so that would indeed be a category error to compare the case of not being born at all.

You're not dealing with my objection. Are there bad experiences which count against life to the extent that life isn't worth it, or aren't there?

Moreover, if you're suggesting that once conceived, life is worth living, then what's the problem? There's no such thing as a life prior to conception. There's just life, which is the defining quality of the living. If life is worth living, it's worth starting.

You're not dealing with my objection. Are there bad experiences which count against life to the extent that life isn't worth it, or aren't there? — S

If you mean, are there bad experiences which count against life to the extent of not starting a life, then yes.

And arguably, if you are justified in doing it then you have a right to do it. — Echarmion

That seems possibly tautological. Justification and entitlement. Are they separate? If so, does one depend on the other? And if one is prior to the other, does the one always entail the other? I am not sure.

If a person normally is considered to have a right to privacy, I suppose you could argue that violating someone's privacy is justified if that person is seriously violating the rights of others, as for example in the case of a child pornographer. But here it is the rights of the other party that justify the violation or reduction of this person's rights. But to say that others are justified in invading this person's privacy might just be another way of saying that they have a right in this case to invade.

I think this is a false equivalence. Creating something is not the same as owning something. — Echarmion

I agree that creating something is not the same as owning. But that doesn't quite capture what I was saying.

Rights exist where something is thought to be properly owned. I suggest that the reason people feel that they have a right to have children is that they have a sense that their children are theirs, that they belong to them and not to the larger community, and so it is theirs to decide the fate of these children. But, this is in conflict with the idea that the child is another agent with interests, one with rights, that the children in some sense belong to themselves. Children are not things. This isn't a matter of property rights.

I'd say that the old idea that children are property is in conflict with the new idea that children have full status as people. In the old way of thinking, there was no real concept of child abuse. This has changed. "Your" children are not yours to do with as you please. The community will intervene and we mostly all agree that this is sometimes justified.

only things that exist can have rights. — Echarmion

I see this argument made often and I find it questionable. The children you create do end up existing. And once they exist, they have rights and interests. Take a step back and look at it more objectively in spacetime. There is simply a relation here between two existing beings, regardless of the fact that they are temporally separated. What makes that temporal separation such that it eliminates responsibility and consideration of rights?

Something you do has a causal relationship to their condition and impacts on their interests. Sure, the child doesn't exist at the time of your conceiving them, but your action does ultimately have an impact on an existing being. Once the child exists, it can easily be said that you are responsible for their existence. When you release the string on a bow, aren't you responsible for the eventual arrival of the arrow at its target? You are responsible for the child's eventual existence even at the time of the conceiving act.

After all, aren't all consequences separated in time from their causes? If you deny that a cause is responsible for its effect because the effect doesn't yet exist, you end up denying all forms of responsibility.

We could get into all sorts of interesting territory here by arguing that I am not the same person now that I was in the past and that my responsibility to my future self involves a relation to a person with rights who does not yet exist. All future states of any sentient being could be said to involve consideration of someone not yet existing.

This idea that not-yet-existing beings have no rights would seem to prevent us from considering the state of the planet as we are leaving it for future generations. Are we wrong to give their interests some consideration by not ruining everything for them?

If you deny that a cause is responsible for its effect because the effect doesn't yet exist, you end up denying all forms of responsibility. — petrichor

I wish people kept this understanding you present here in mind when trying to argue some sort of non-identity objection to antinatalism. It is ridiculous to the point of absurdity when people argue, "the child doesn't exist yet, so nothing is done "to anyone" by procreating."

If you mean, are there bad experiences which count against life to the extent of not starting a life, then yes. — schopenhauer1

So you've decided not to address my objection.

If life is worth living, because of interests and committments and whatnot, then it is worth starting.

If life isn't worth living, then why does no one agree with you? (Rhetorical question). And the relatively tiny number who do agree have an opt-out, so they should just shut up. Or rather, seek professional help. The opt-out is a privilege, by the way. There's no opt-in. Once we're extinct, that's it.

That seems possibly tautological. Justification and entitlement. Are they separate? If so, does one depend on the other? And if one is prior to the other, does the one always entail the other? I am not sure.

If a person normally is considered to have a right to privacy, I suppose you could argue that violating someone's privacy is justified if that person is seriously violating the rights of others, as for example in the case of a child pornographer. But here it is the rights of the other party that justify the violation or reduction of this person's rights. But to say that others are justified in invading this person's privacy might just be another way of saying that they have a right in this case to invade. — petrichor

It's a question of how you conceptualize exceptions to a rule. You could treat them as extensions of the rule, in which case the rule ends up very long and complex. Or you could treat them as individual rules, which has the advantage of keeping the original rule clear. Logically, I don't think there is a difference.

I agree that creating something is not the same as owning. But that doesn't quite capture what I was saying.

Rights exist where something is thought to be properly owned. I suggest that the reason people feel that they have a right to have children is that they have a sense that their children are theirs, that they belong to them and not to the larger community, and so it is theirs to decide the fate of these children. But, this is in conflict with the idea that the child is another agent with interests, one with rights, that the children in some sense belong to themselves. Children are not things. This isn't a matter of property rights. — petrichor

This seems a bit too constructed to me. I think the simpler explanation is that people feel that their biological ability to have children is theirs to command, and that life with children is so fundamentally different from life without children that no-one should decide for them whether to do one or the other.

I'd say that the old idea that children are property is in conflict with the new idea that children have full status as people. In the old way of thinking, there was no real concept of child abuse. This has changed. "Your" children are not yours to do with as you please. The community will intervene and we mostly all agree that this is sometimes justified. — petrichor

Right, but notably the intervention is for the benefit of the child. Anti-natalism cannot go that route because it wants to eliminate children, not improve the lives of children.

I see this argument made often and I find it questionable. The children you create do end up existing. And once they exist, they have rights and interests. Take a step back and look at it more objectively in spacetime. There is simply a relation here between two existing beings, regardless of the fact that they are temporally separated. What makes that temporal separation such that it eliminates responsibility and consideration of rights? — petrichor

Temporal separation is special because when we engage in moral considerations, we have to treat the universe as non-deterministic with regard to our actions. There is no other way to make decisions. So, in moral terms, the future is not determined, but consists of an arbitrary number of parallel timelines. A single causal chain exists only for past events. That's also the reason that responsibility only travels backwards.

Something you do has a causal relationship to their condition and impacts on their interests. Sure, the child doesn't exist at the time of your conceiving them, but your action does ultimately have an impact on an existing being. Once the child exists, it can easily be said that you are responsible for their existence. When you release the string on a bow, aren't you responsible for the eventual arrival of the arrow at its target? You are responsible for the child's eventual existence even at the time of the conceiving act. — petrichor

Obviously, I am responsible for the current existence of my children due to my past act of conceiving them. But, crucially, at the time when I was making the deicision, two possible timelines existed: One with children of mine and one without. I am only responsible for the existance of the child once it does actually exist, since before that there was no causal chain linking me and the child.

After all, aren't all consequences separated in time from their causes? If you deny that a cause is responsible for its effect because the effect doesn't yet exist, you end up denying all forms of responsibility. — petrichor

Responsibility is only ever ascertained after the fact though. There is no need to establish responsibility for effects that don't yet exist because they might ultimately not come to pass. If you attempt to kill someone, but your victim is still alive at the time of the trial, no matter how tenously, you will not be tried for murder, but attempted murder.

We could get into all sorts of interesting territory here by arguing that I am not the same person now that I was in the past and that my responsibility to my future self involves a relation to a person with rights who does not yet exist. All future states of any sentient being could be said to involve consideration of someone not yet existing. — petrichor

Arguably, but the difference is that for these beings, there is no future timeline where they never existed in the first place. So moral consideration do at least need to take note of their current existance and the fact that it will continue, however briefly, into the future.

This idea that not-yet-existing beings have no rights would seem to prevent us from considering the state of the planet as we are leaving it for future generations. Are we wrong to give their interests some consideration by not ruining everything for them? — petrichor

This is an interesting question, and one which makes me dislike the implications of my own position. But, for the record, I find it difficult to establish, without doubt, that we have a responsibility towards future generations living on this planet. I would like to have an ironclad argument to that extent, but I am not currently able to think of one.

Compared to the anti-natalist position, the advantage here is that we are not dealing with a personal decision to have children, but the likelihood that future generations will exist in some form, regardless of our own decisions. That at least eliminates the problem of having a timeline without moral subjects at all.

If life is worth living, because of interests and committments and whatnot, then it is worth starting. — S

No, then this is ignoring my argument, which was that interests and commitments are the default of being born- we cannot avoid them as they are what we naturally incline towards. That doesn't prove that it was then good to start a life, simply because someone will have interests and people have an option for suicide (which are hard to follow through on for mainly natural reasons as well). Preventing harm for another person, and preventing other people with "dealing with" life in the first place are the reasons not to start a life. Once born, sure people will have interests.

No, then this is ignoring my argument, which was that interests and commitments are the default of being born- we cannot avoid them as they are what we naturally incline towards. — schopenhauer1

That once again doesn't address the point. None of that tells me whether you think that life is worth living.

That once again doesn't address the point. None of that tells me whether you think that life is worth living. — S

So your question is, once born, is life worth living for some people? I would say yes. Then I would say, that this is different than whether someone should have been born at all in the first place, as these are different thresholds. One can prevent all harm with no collateral damage of deprivation to the individual. The other is a situation where someone is already born. There is no post-facto takebacks of this event and thus, interests, goals, and maximization of goods would be expected and encouraged for individuals, when possible.

So your question is, once born, is life worth living for some people? I would say yes. — schopenhauer1

Except that "some" really doesn't convey that we're talking about most people on the planet, several billions of people. But good. If that is so, then life is worth starting. It wouldn't be worth starting if it wasn't worth living. But it is. So there you have it.

Except that "some" really doesn't convey that we're talking about most people on the planet, several billions of people. But good. If that is so, then life is worth starting. It wouldn't be worth starting if it wasn't worth living. But it is. So there you have it. — S

So I had a post once about if a it was good to put a slave in slavery if they identified with the very slavery that was enslaving them. People can be self-deceived or enculturated to identify with the condition/game that is causing them harm in the first place. Providing someone a "dealing with" situation, harmful contingent circumstances (that can change any time from point A to Z which overrides a simple self report at point X), providing someone the conditions of surviving itself, and the burdens of the human condition (deprivation), I would say that it is not worth starting for someone else, self-report or not. Being that no one actually gets deprived of any goods either, this is again, a win/win. Post-facto creating people who more-or-less have no choice but to identify with the game and develop interests, doesn't provide any evidence to the contrary, though I can see how it may seem that way.

life with children is so fundamentally different from life without children that no-one should decide for them whether to do one or the other. — Echarmion

I don't see how deep differences in the life of the parent in one case versus the other justifies dismissing all concern about the interests of the child. Your life would be fundamentally different if you were to choose to do any number of things, say become a serial killer. That isn't what gives you a right.

Right, but notably the intervention is for the benefit of the child. Anti-natalism cannot go that route because it wants to eliminate children, not improve the lives of children. — Echarmion

I take your point. This highlights an important difference I think. Let's be careful though. To phrase it as "eliminate children" sounds as if we are destroying an already existing child, when we are simply talking about not having one. Let's instead call it "preventing human experience." So we'd be preventing human experience rather than improving it. And let's not forget that by not reproducing, we aren't concerned only with a child, but a human at all stages of life, cradle to grave, as well as all the impacts they'll have on others.

One might respond to your point though by saying that we might indeed be improving the overall experience of the universe as a whole, as we might be reducing its overall suffering. If we don't reproduce, there isn't a person whose experience can be said to be better by virtue of their non-existence. But I'd argue that a human experience is just part of the overall experiential condition of the world at large. One could say that there is less suffering in the world, so we are improving the experiential condition of the world by reducing the total suffering that happens in it.

Temporal separation is special because when we engage in moral considerations, we have to treat the universe as non-deterministic with regard to our actions. There is no other way to make decisions. So, in moral terms, the future is not determined, but consists of an arbitrary number of parallel timelines. A single causal chain exists only for past events. That's also the reason that responsibility only travels backwards. — Echarmion

Interesting. Do we really need to treat it as non-deterministic? Or do we just need to treat it as probabilistic from a merely epistemic standpoint, where we are simply dealing with our knowledge uncertainty? I am not sure this would make a difference though.

Responsibility is only ever ascertained after the fact though. There is no need to establish responsibility for effects that don't yet exist because they might ultimately not come to pass. If you attempt to kill someone, but your victim is still alive at the time of the trial, no matter how tenously, you will not be tried for murder, but attempted murder. — Echarmion

But you'll still be held responsible for trying to kill the person, for intending their death, even if the death doesn't come to pass. It isn't as if there is no responsibility. It isn't purely consequentialist. It is a bit of both. Consider the case of a person who pours what they think is sugar into someone's coffee, and that person ends up dead, the "sugar" having actually been poison. Do we hold them responsible? We don't because we know they didn't have any malicious intent. We treat it as a pure accident. If, on the other hand, we can prove that someone put something in someone's coffee that they expected to kill them, when it was just sugar after all, we'll charge them with attempted murder. If there is a case where there was some uncertainty as to contents, and someone poured it into the coffee anyway, risking poisoning them, we'd hold them accountable for that too.

Are you saying that pointing a gun at a person and pulling the trigger in itself is not wrong until harm has actually resulted? There is no responsibility in the very moment of deciding to kill someone? There is no wrong in the intent?

What if someone regularly just risks serious harm to everyone around by just going outside and shooting in random directions, without specifically intending to shooting particular people. Even if they haven't yet hurt anyone, wouldn't we agree that such a person should be locked up and prevented from accessing firearms, simply because of the risks they are taking of harm to others?

This is an interesting question, and one which makes me dislike the implications of my own position. But, for the record, I find it difficult to establish, without doubt, that we have a responsibility towards future generations living on this planet. I would like to have an ironclad argument to that extent, but I am not currently able to think of one. — Echarmion

I applaud you! It is so rare for anyone in discussions like these to make such acknowledgements! Refreshing! We should all take it as an example to emulate. I believe, as Socrates suggested, that we should see dialogue as a way for us to both move closer to truth, not as a contest with a winner and loser. If both parties grow in understanding, we both win. If you help me see a fault in my thinking, I should thank you. You haven't injured me. Quite the reverse!

So I had a post once about if it was good to put a slave in slavery if they identified with the very slavery that was enslaving them. — schopenhauer1

Yeah, that'd be a great analogy, if slavery and the average life were even remotely alike.

The rest of your post is just more of the usual deliberately one-sided spin which invalidates itself through the absence any semblance of impartiality.

Yeah, that'd be a great analogy, if slavery and the average life were even remotely alike. — S

It is the same type of relation, except the conditions are that of human existence instead of the slave owner. There are conditions which cannot be overcome for any life.

I'm not the least bit interested in what you have to say on the matter.

I appreciate all this scholarly discussion, but at some point wouldn't it be better for one's psychological health to limit the "navel gazing"?
Maybe go outside, observe the natural world and relax.
Things could be so much worse.

I don't see how deep differences in the life of the parent in one case versus the other justifies dismissing all concern about the interests of the child. Your life would be fundamentally different if you were to choose to do any number of things, say become a serial killer. That isn't what gives you a right. — petrichor

I am not saying that it justifies dismissing other concerns. Rights are rarely absolute. What I am saying is that having children is, initially, only about two people and what they do with their bodies. In order to justify limitation on that, you'd need to have good reasons. I don't think these reasons have been established yet.

I take your point. This highlights an important difference I think. Let's be careful though. To phrase it as "eliminate children" sounds as if we are destroying an already existing child, when we are simply talking about not having one. Let's instead call it "preventing human experience." So we'd be preventing human experience rather than improving it. And let's not forget that by not reproducing, we aren't concerned only with a child, but a human at all stages of life, cradle to grave, as well as all the impacts they'll have on others. — petrichor

I'll admit the choice of words was not entirely unbiased. ;)

One might respond to your point though by saying that we might indeed be improving the overall experience of the universe as a whole, as we might be reducing its overall suffering. If we don't reproduce, there isn't a person whose experience can be said to be better by virtue of their non-existence. But I'd argue that a human experience is just part of the overall experiential condition of the world at large. One could say that there is less suffering in the world, so we are improving the experiential condition of the world by reducing the total suffering that happens in it. — petrichor

This seems like a very weird argument to me. The world, or the universe, are not human beings. To talk about the "overall suffering of the world/universe" sounds like nonsense to me. We only know about human suffering. We can make guesses about other animals, but those are fraught with problems. Whether or not the world at large has any "experiential condition" is unknown to us and therefore so is whether or not we will "Improve" it by going away. Whatever "improve" might even mean in this context.

When I imagine a universe without humans, all I see is a dead universe. The only things that matter in the universe are the things that matter to humans (and human-like intelligences).

Interesting. Do we really need to treat it as non-deterministic? Or do we just need to treat it as probabilistic from a merely epistemic standpoint, where we are simply dealing with our knowledge uncertainty? I am not sure this would make a difference though. — petrichor

Uncertainity would only matter within one of the parallel timelines. When we make a decision, we treat this decision as actually altering the fate of the universe. There is no other way to evaluate options during decision making. Since morality is supposed to provide the rules for that decision making, it must therefore treat the different decisions as free, which means they'll start totally new and independent causal chains.

But you'll still be held responsible for trying to kill the person, for intending their death, even if the death doesn't come to pass. It isn't as if there is no responsibility. It isn't purely consequentialist. It is a bit of both. Consider the case of a person who pours what they think is sugar into someone's coffee, and that person ends up dead, the "sugar" having actually been poison. Do we hold them responsible? We don't because we know they didn't have any malicious intent. We treat it as a pure accident. If, on the other hand, we can prove that someone put something in someone's coffee that they expected to kill them, when it was just sugar after all, we'll charge them with attempted murder. If there is a case where there was some uncertainty as to contents, and someone poured it into the coffee anyway, risking poisoning them, we'd hold them accountable for that too. — petrichor

I think you're mixing two things here, responsibility and intent. What I mean by responsibility is responsibility for events, for states of affairs. Responsibility is the connection between a subject and an objective state. This requires the objective state to exist.

Intent is something that matters for judging an action, not an outcome. Often, for exmaple in criminal law, both of these elements are required to establish guilt - your responsibility for the outcome nd your intent to bring it about. Intent itself is not usually sufficient - praying for someone to die will not make you responsible for their plane crashing, and you won't be guilty for it.

How exactly moral considerations work depends on what system of moral philosophy you ascribe to. I personally think only action and intent matter, not the outcome. Utilitarianists would differ.

Are you saying that pointing a gun at a person and pulling the trigger in itself is not wrong until harm has actually resulted? There is no responsibility in the very moment of deciding to kill someone? There is no wrong in the intent? — petrichor

Attempted murder is still morally wrong, and also still a crime. So no, I am not saying that.

I applaud you! It is so rare for anyone in discussions like these to make such acknowledgements! Refreshing! We should all take it as an example to emulate. I believe, as Socrates suggested, that we should see dialogue as a way for us to both move closer to truth, not as a contest with a winner and loser. If both parties grow in understanding, we both win. If you help me see a fault in my thinking, I should thank you. You haven't injured me. Quite the reverse! — petrichor

Thanks. I think that, quite apart form anti-natalism, the question of what moral weight to give to future persons is an important topic that doesn't seem to have been given much thought in the past.

You are wrong. The fact consent is impossible in these sorts of case has no bearing on the matter as other examples amply demonstrate.

For example, it is impossible to agree to be coerced (for if you agree to be coerced, you are not being coerced). So, if I want to coerce someone, then it is impossible for me to get their prior consent. Now, does that mean it is morally permissible to coerce people?

No, obviously not. It is default seriously wrong to coerce another person. Lots of exceptions of course, but 'other things being equal' it is wrong.

And why is it wrong to coerce people? Well, because they don't agree to it.

So, contrary to what you've claimed it IS wrong, other things being equal, to impose something significant on someone else without their prior consent (and especially wrong when it involves risks of significant harms).

No, you're wrong. If it's impossible to get consent, then consent is completely irrelevant. I'm not suggesting that coercion isn't wrong, but it's wrong because you're deceiving someone for nefarious ends, not because you haven't gotten consent.

And no, just in case anyone is thinking it, that's not analogous to having a child, except the part about it being impossible to get consent from the child, and that consent in that sense is irrelevant.

So, contrary to what you've claimed it IS wrong, other things being equal, to impose something significant on someone else without their prior consent (and especially wrong when it involves risks of significant harms). — Bartricks

It's impossible to conceive a child without their consent, because there's nothing that's (normally) able to grant or withhold consent prior to conception.

That doesn't make it okay to conceive a child against its consent.

It makes it literally impossible to conceive a child against its consent.

you are not following the argument.

It was claimed that it cannot be wrong to impose life here on someone without their prior consent due to the impossibility of getting it.

I was pointing out that there are lots of acts of where the nature of the act in qustion is such as to make consent impossible. Such acts are still clearly default wrong and default wrong due to the fact the other person dor not consent.

Thus the idea that the impossibility of getting consent somehow makes it okay to go ahead is patently false.

It was claimed that it cannot be wrong to impose life here on someone without their prior consent due to the impossibility of getting it. — Bartricks

Right. But the point is actually that it cannot be wrong because it can't even be done. You can't impose life on someone without their consent. The very idea of that is a category error.

If you want to say that conception is morally problematic, the argument needs to be something other than "because it's doing something to someone against their consent."

I was pointing out that there are lots of acts of where the nature of the act in qustion is such as to make consent impossible. Such acts are still clearly default wrong and default wrong due to the fact the other person does not consent. — Bartricks

You weren't "pointing that out", because it isn't true. I explained why consent is irrelevant, including in the example you gave which you thought supported your assertion, but actually doesn't.

Thus the idea that the impossibility of getting consent somehow makes it okay to go ahead is patently false. — Bartricks

No, that wasn't the argument. That it's okay is based on other reasons. I was just refuting the argument about lack of consent on the basis that consent is irrelevant.

no, it is default wrong to coerce someone - and default wrong to deceive someone - because the nature of the act is such that it cannot be consented to (as Kanot pointed out ). Perhaps that's the wrong analysis but it'd be absurd to deny it's plausibility. And thats also the nature of procreation acts, so they are default wrong too, or at least it is extremely plausible that they are.

So you are basing your argument on the axiom that an act is wrong if it cannot be consented to? Is that right?

so, just to be clear, you are denying that the fact a person will be seriously affected by an act and cannot consent to it is NOT a moral negative most of the time? Because that is just absurd.

It clearly IS a moral negative most of the time. For instance whenever we have - for other moral reasons - to impose something on someone without their prior consent it is almost invariably regrettable. That is, it would have been better if somehow, per impossible, we could have got it.

Take procreation acts themselves - would it notake be better if they could be consented to?

no, I think procreation is wrong for numerous reasons, not one alone. But if an act does something very major to another person without their consent then that fact about the act will standard lyrics make the act wrong. There may be exceptions - I am not an absolutist about any moral principle - but it is the reasonable default assumption. And as this is a feature procreation acts have, it is reasonable to assume they are made wrong because of it, other things being equal. They are wrong for other reasons too tho.