A women’s group in the United Kingdom called Birthstrike, apparently intimidated by reports from climate change activists that the world their children will inherit will be too terrible in which to exist, is championing women not having children at all.
Appearing on the BBC with host Victoria Derbyshire, Blythe Pepino, 33, the founder of Birthstrike and a former singer with the electronic band Vaults, stated, “There are people out there who are so scared about this that they feel they actually can’t have a family. … Our planet is in a kind of collapse; the natural world is collapsing around us and that’s actually happening right now. And I’m so disappointed by the response by authorities to this crisis and so freaked out by it, everything I’ve read, that basically last year I came to the decision that I couldn’t bring a child into that.”
Derbyshire asked Alice Brown, who recently told her father that she wouldn’t have children until the planet was safe, “And you have come to the same conclusion, Alice?”
Alice Brown responded, “Yeah, I have. I mean, each day for me is a struggle. I really do — I’m so depressed, and that has led to a fear that I’ve never felt before. And my decision for being on birth strike mostly has come from not wanting to pass that fear on to someone else. If we’re in this situation now, you know, even since my parents had me, we’ve destroyed 60% of life on this planet. What would that be like when my child’s my age, will there be 10% left? That’s not just to do with being a nature, wildlife enthusiast like I am; that’s dangerous as well.”
The women from the United Kingdom are not alone in their hysteria about climate change and having children; Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) pontificated last week, “Our planet is going to hit disaster if we don’t turn this ship around and so it’s basically like, there’s a scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult. And it does lead, I think, young people to have a legitimate question, you know, ‘Is it okay to still have children?’”
Pepino has stated, “I do have a partner and would like to have children with him. We’re really in love, and it feels like the right thing to do. But last year I read the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] and realized how wrong it would be to bring a child into a world on the brink of catastrophe. Now we are looking for [others] who feel the same way to join us.”
She continued, “It’s a hard emotional message to decide not to have kids, but I hope it might break through the fear and diffidence that surrounds this subject. I was concerned that no one outside my circle would probably care because I’m a white middle-class leftie female with those kinds of friends. But we wanted to put it out there and see who might get in touch. Are there lots of people who feel this way, or is it just my echo chamber?”
Another woman interviewed regarding the matter, Scarlet Brown, a nurse and trainee psychotherapist, confessed, “When I say it out loud, it sounds a bit mad. If I say to some people I’ve decided I don’t want to have children, I’m not sure that human beings are going to survive for much longer, I’m very fearful about what the future looks like, and I don’t want to bring a child into that, when I say that, it sounds a bit mad.”
She continued, “I’ve actively tried to have children for the last few years, and it hasn’t happened for me easily, so about 18 months ago, we decided to have fertility treatment. I did get pregnant; I miscarried, I was absolutely determined that I would see it through, that we’d have, we’d make as many attempts as we could afford. And that was my intention; we both agreed on that. And then through this process, I just … something profound happened. Now, the only way I can kind of — it feels like I dodged a bullet, because I think if it had’ve worked and I’d be pregnant right now, coming into this awareness or being in this awareness, how would I contain that? How would I feel about that?”
Brown boasted of the conversion of her father after her ultimatum: “He went away and found out more; now he’s become a proper eco-activist. He recently got arrested for spraying graffiti on government offices in Bristol. It was quite an achievement because he’s also completely blind.”
Video of Derbyshire interviewing Pepino and Brown below: