“Birth is a political event”

Any reflection on birth must begin with a fact that it would be unreasonable to deny: those who are born are not the cause of their own existence. No one asked us if we wanted to exist, or when and where to be born; no one chose their own parents and family members or their genetic makeup, with all that this entails.

In a society that makes freedom of choice the fundamental criterion of right and wrong, this can be both troubling and unsettling. Contemporary humans seem increasingly driven by a sort of rebellion against their own human condition, against what appears to be ‘natural,’ given, and unchosen. The body is often treated as something to be modified at will through cosmetic surgery or hormonal treatments, something to be adapted to our desires or enhanced to improve its performance. We want to become products of ourselves, increasingly ‘repairable’ and perfectible, just like our technological devices.

With the development of genetics and molecular biology, we have now crossed the threshold of human reproduction. Artificial insemination allows us to assemble gametes and other genetic material with the promise of eliminating the ‘defects’ of the next generation and producing ‘products’ that meet the demand of an increasingly capricious and lucrative market for newborns.

But what is it about the next generation that frightens us so much? It is the unpredictable nature of every birth as such. The newborn is a unique and irreplaceable human being who brings radical novelty into the world. Birth cannot be anticipated; it is an event in the strongest sense of the word and is always singular. That is why the most immediate and natural reaction to a newborn – even for parents – is to see what the child looks like and whom the child resembles.

But there is more to it. Every new human being brings with them into the world the very principle of novelty, that is, the capacity to begin something. Every individual, in other words, carries with them throughout their life the capacity to act, whether they put it into practice or not. Human beings are surprising creatures, for better or for worse. History cannot be reduced to an infinite and complex series of causes and effects; human actions are, in fact, capable of influencing it and diverting its course.

But if the capacity for action enters the world with the birth of every human being, this means that it has an inescapable public dimension. Indeed, since action is the political act par excellence, it can be said that birth is a political event.

Furthermore, upon coming into the world, every newborn, as a child, becomes part of a network of relationships, a shared world. This means there are mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers, and so on. This network is destined to extend to the broader social sphere, comprising neighbors, colleagues, friends, and fellow citizens. The human world is made up of countless unique and irreplaceable individuals; it is a pluralistic world. Yet these individuals are similar to one another; they are all human beings who can recognize one another’s equal dignity precisely because of their common origin.

It is this equality in difference that gives meaning to action, which is always accompanied by self-expression and dialogue about what is good and just. 

And this is precisely how every person learns to know their own identity, that is, by existing in a world made up of the things and words of others.

The meaning of my life can, in fact, manifest itself with a certain – albeit unstable – unity and constancy only in what others say and tell about me. This strange dynamic, which extends until death and even beyond, is therefore not controllable or manipulable by the individual, who, by speaking and acting, provides others with the material to speak and tell. No one is the author of their own life, since they do not control its meaning.

Birth is therefore a strange event. For while every human being depends on this natural event, the moment it occurs, they enter an already existing world made up of things and networks of relationships, that is, into culture. Birth is like a ‘fault line’ that distinguishes and at the same time connects nature and culture. By introducing the capacity to begin something new, birth nevertheless accompanies human beings throughout their entire existence. 

This is particularly true of those acts that can heal and save wounded humanity. Hannah Arendt taught us to consider actions such as promises and forgiveness in these terms. Through the promise – which underlies marriages and alliances – people are able to establish new relationships with one another, thereby reducing conflict and giving the human world a stable, albeit fragile, form. Through forgiveness, we seek to heal wounded relationships by freeing the guilty party from their identification with guilt and putting an end to feuds that would transform human relationships into an endless series of actions and reactions. This is how actions save and renew the world. There are no forms of human life, however simple, that do not include rituals linked to promise and forgiveness. And we all realize how much our world – so fragmented and conflict-ridden – needs them.

For birth to realize its full potential in the construction of the human world, we must not cease to regard human beings as creatures. This is a decisive point for contemporary culture, a fundamental choice upon which everything else depends, regardless of differing philosophical convictions or various religious faiths. It is not merely a matter of exposing the illusion that human beings can create themselves and denouncing its pernicious moral and political consequences. It is about conceiving of existence as a gift that we are called to nurture and bring to fruition, even when we do not know where or from whom it comes.

But if existence is a gift, the appropriate fundamental attitude is one of gratitude. The sense of wonder inherent in this has always been recognized in our culture as the intellectual and emotional experience that gives rise to philosophical inquiry and scientific investigation. But it is also the attitude that predisposes us to an authentic relationship with ourselves and with others, within a plurality composed of identities and differences and made possible by our shared origin – that of a creator who, for some, has a face, while for others remains an enigma.

Ultimately, it is not a matter of escaping the human condition, as contemporary transhumanists would have it, but of living in accordance with the possibilities it opens up, acting in ways that safeguard and renew the world – a world that is ours, the only one we have, and the one we love. Birth rates, as a fundamental factor of the human condition, stand today as the issue around which the most decisive battle for humanity is being fought, a battle that must also guide cultural orientations and political choices. As paradoxical as it may seem, safeguarding the human condition and defending birth rates – far from being a reactionary move – appears today to be the most ‘progressive’ act, in that it safeguards the principle of every new beginning.