Fair Start Movement

The Problem: Family planning in the world today is based upon a parent-centered and isolationist model that hurts children, families, communities, and our environment. That model prevents the realization of freedom and is the fundamental source of our social and ecological crises. That model is the product of governments and businesses that profit from population growth, want to avoid collective obligations that require investing in rather than exploiting future generations, and who helped eliminate the responsibilities inherent in having kids as a means of accelerating growth. The Solution: Having Kids acts as a “part replacer,” replacing the morally incoherent parent-centered model, which has been debunked by theorists, with the truly human rights-based and child-centered Fair Start model. That move will also create space for the development of even better models. Future children should be the focus of family planning laws and policies because they have the most at stake. That change is the key to freedom – the freedom to a say in the rules under which one lives, to equal opportunities in life, and the freedom from others that is nature. That is what a decolonized future looks like. This is not merely theoretical, but the basis for concrete action we can take today at multiple levels of social change – legal, institutional, cultural, discursive, etc. The Fair Start model is the best construction of the moral and legal right to have children. Here are examples of how Having Kids is replacing the old and isolationist model with the Fair Start model. Having Kids is more a praxis of truly human rights-based family planning than an entity. We invite you to join the transition to better family planning by taking actions to ensure kids a fair start in life, and speaking out about what you’ve done. The human brain is predisposed to focus on the immediate over the important. Working for social change without family planning reform is the worst case of this tendency, but together we can change direction. Having Kids is not just another voice in the crowd. Instead, we make sure all voices matter by changing the nature of the crowd.