BirthStrike is “Birthstrike is choosing to forgo having children to protect them from worsening social, economic and environmental conditions.” Here’s their answers to some questions..
a) What was the genesis (!) for the birth of Birth Strike? Was it a gradual realisation or a bolt from the blue?
The BirthStrike movement was founded in 2018 by Blythe Pepino, a British musician and activist, in response to the climate crisis and its goal was to raise awareness of the climate crisis and demand political action.
In 2020, BirthStrike for Climate disbanded and became a support group on Slack called “Grieving Parenthood in the Climate Crisis: Channeling Loss into Climate Justice.” They were not connected to antinatalism (we are), nor did they try to persuade people not to have children (we are).It was a brief movement that I have splintered off into a full-on Revolutionary strategy.
b) What sort of pushback have you had that you respect? (Life is too short for giving oxygen to idiots)
I don’t respect pronatalists, educated breeders and capitalists in general, though it was interesting to watch Blythe Pepino make Tucker Carleson sweat.
It’s not ethical to bring children into climate change, period. If there is a good argument for having children, especially under current conditions, I haven’t heard it.
c) What do you say to people who say “but my child might well be the one to come up with “The Solution?”
“Why didn’t you come up with a solution? What kind of loser forces children into existence to solve humanity’s problems instead of taking personal accountability for themself? You’re too narcissistic to adopt but too lazy to do anything with your own life, so you create another wage slave? Shame on you!”
d) What does “success” look like for BSM?
A mass movement where workers are intentionally withholding procreation to
a) protect their children from climate change,
c) refuse to feed the capitalist machine,
d) become ungovernable so we can eat the rich.
e) How can people who want to support it get involved/support it?
Join the website mailing list or the FB group. Confront and argue with educated breeders about their narcissistic decision and poor parenting in general.
f) Anything else you’d like to say.
Go vegan!
See also Guardian article from 2019 – BirthStrikers: meet the women who refuse to have children until climate change ends
And again, this is quite funny