A lot of people have asked the crew here at Having Kids what we mean when we say that we can all further a child’s right to a #FairStart in life, ecologically and socially, by all means effective. What it simply means is that as a peremptory norm, a child’s right to a fair start, enabled through cooperative resource distribution and responsible family planning, overrides things like the property rights of the wealthy, or the right of intending parents to have limitless numbers of children with no cooperative planning to ensure their welfare and equity. #Fairstart comes first.

Why are the rights and responsibilities that surround having kids peremptory? If power derives from the people, then the norm that accounts for their creation and subsequent empowerment overrides other norms. It is the first necessary condition of legitimacy. It involves literally constituting the political entities that then develop subsequent norms. In other words, nations were not “constituted” at historical points in the past by god-like founders, but are either constituting legitimate systems of governance with every child we have, or they are not, depending on how they do it and the values (like welbeing, consent and nature) at play.

We say “all means effective” because we refuse to ignore the moral reality of the order of norms, and because the freedom and wellbeing of future generations and nonhumans – the most vulnerable and numerous classes of entities – depend on our using #fairstart to liberate them. Does that mean we promote things like violence? No – we explicitly reject violence and other forms of coercion because we believe they cannot further #fairstart, but by creating cycles of violence, in fact harm kids and their development.

Learn more about #fairstart, and why we are focused on concentrations of power in icons like Elon Musk.