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A significant number of countries face a demographic crisis marked by declining birth rates and rapid population aging, creating long-term challenges for economic and social sustainability. States have pursued measures such as immigration and financial incentives for childbearing, but with limited effect. Against this backdrop, this paper introduces the concept of gestational conscription, a policy under which the state obligates individuals to bear children, and examines its ethical permissibility by analogy with military conscription. Military conscription imposes significant personal burdens to maintain sovereignty and security, and gestational conscription is analogous in serving the collective good. If military conscription is generally permissible, and if the analogy holds, gestational conscription may be ethically justifiable under certain conditions. At the same time, it raises ethical concerns unique to compulsory childbearing. This paper seeks to shed light on an underexamined and often repugnant proposal and to clarify its ethical implications.
