In our polarized era, there are fewer and fewer spaces where people who disagree can do so productively and in good faith. The Dispatch’s Debate Series aims to be an outlier: a regular feature where two writers with opposing views can hash out some of the thorniest political and cultural issues roiling the national debate. If you have an idea for a future topic, please let us know at debates@thedispatch.com.
Few subjects are more emotional than procreation. The need to have a child is not just a personal desire, it’s often a primal instinct—the desire to see something of yourself left on the planet, carrying on your work and your legacy long after you’re gone.
That is why baby-making—or the inability to make a baby—is such a fraught phenomenon, made, as many things are, more fraught by the cultural and political climate.
