The Duke of Sussex

Recently, after the birth of his second child, the Duke of Sussex announced that he and his wife don’t plan to have more children due to the huge ecological footprint that every human being creates. For their reasoning behind this decision, he and his wife were given an award from a charity organization.

Isn’t there a better way to care about the environment than to tell the next generation that they are not really welcome any more on planet earth? The set limit of two children in this case is totally arbitrary. There is no scientific reason for it, and, of course, the first child produces the same ecological footprint as the second or a third would do. At the end of the day this line of thought says it would be better for the world if a human being were not born at all. Focusing in such a way on the environmental output that every person brings reveals a worldview that, in its root, holds human beings in contempt.

How different this is to the perspective on life that King David wrote of (in Psalm 139): “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well… Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

Isn’t this a much better start in life, to give every child born into this world the assurance that he or she is ultimately wanted, appreciated, and planned by God?