Deputy Labor leader Julia Gillard was recently blasted by Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan, who said her deliberate barrenness made her unfit for politics. Gillard has previously said that it would be impossible for a mother to be a top-ranking Australian politician.

But isn’t there a more sensible, or even political and humanitarian reason for Julia not to have children? Have we forgotten the primary reason for all of the world’s problems?

Obviously Julia Gillard would not be doing her political career any favours by suggesting that her barrenness is the selfless act of a global citizen. Humans are wired to have children, and the view that not having children is selfless would come across as an attack on parents by the public. But is it not a legitimate idea?

By no means do I think that all those who have children are acting selfishly. Generally speaking, those who have children do so with selfless intentions. Nevertheless, in terms of the strain on the Earth, they are still acting irresponsibly. Having a single child now could make you responsible for up to fifty carbon emitting, water guzzling, space-consuming humans within just a hundred years. Over a longer period, you could find yourself responsible for a thousand or more human creations. With global warming, poverty and water crises threatening the planet, you can be sure that not having children does a thousand times more for the global cause than limiting your showers to 4-minutes or catching public transport.

At best this view is going to fall on deaf ears. More likely it will fall on extremely angry ears. But sooner or later, we are going to have to think seriously about our planets over-population. We have already climbed from under a billion people in the 19th century to over 10 billion now, and we are faced with severe consequences as a result. How serious does the problem have to get before we change our attitudes towards child-birth?

Obviously having no children in the world at all wouldn’t help the human plight, but it’s about time we had some serious discussion about what can be done about this important problem. And having the Howard government tell us to have more children isn’t a good start.