Responsible Breeding - Socially authorised procreation

[Siz]

Further to Dobers similarly named topic in which she specifically wants to avoid discussion about 'restricting rights of procreation', I want to address this head-on.

I'd like you to answer the following:

Is it acceptable to restrict procreation where it is a fact that the parents aren't able to meet their own financial needs - except through social welfare donations - let alone those of their children?

Are we to value the freedom of choice to have children OVER social wellbeing?



In a failing, morally and economically bankrupt society the first question is accutely relevant. I am a believer in libertarianism, but I also believe in social responsibility. We - as a society - have a duty to ourselves and our neighbours to preserve as best we can our wellbeing. It cannot be denied that unlimited procreation has detrimental economic and social effects. The positives, in society as it exists - if any- elude me!

Personal freedom currently takes a priority over societal wellbeing. This has got to change or we're all going to be miserable and poor and lacking in many other freedoms.

Financially speaking there might be a simple cure - make parents financially accountable, BEFORE they decide to start a family. This is to say that EVERYONE should be financially accountable in any case. There are many other benefits to this too (disabling the lazy option, engendering a more healthy social conscience) but that's another issue. Any valid contrary arguments to financial accountability will be heard with interest.

What of rights then - the right to have a family. Fair enough. But surely the rights of society, where a person is reliant upon the services that social structures provide, should be prioritised. And this is a democratic decision. You can't have your cake and eat it!

While there are people willing to be emotionally blackmailed by 'rights' we will never have social justice.

'Poo' to your rights where the whole of society is in danger.

What do you think?

[DeterminedJuliet]

Eerrrrmmm - I'm really on the fence about this one.

What do you mean by being able to meet their own financial needs?

Do they have to be able to pay for their own food and clothes, or are there other "requirements"? What if both parents are working full-time, so they're obviously not trying to abuse the system,  but have a hard time making ends meet?  What happens if someone gets pregnant who doesn't meet the requirements?

I agree that it's a problem, but I can't quite wrap my head around the whole proposal.

[Siz]

Eerrrrmmm - I'm really on the fence about this one.

What do you mean by being able to meet their own financial needs?

Do they have to be able to pay for their own food and clothes, or are there other "requirements"? What if both parents are working full-time, so they're obviously not trying to abuse the system,  but have a hard time making ends meet?  What happens if someone gets pregnant who doesn't meet the requirements?

I agree that it's a problem, but I can't quite wrap my head around the whole proposal.

Meeting financial needs is simply being able to support oneself financially - pay for food, clothes and a bed as a minimum. If you can't even do that for yourself, then why is it acceptable to burden the rest of society with a child?

A persons 'right' to have children should be dependant on their ability to raise the child without being a burden on society. Otherwise society is unsustainable - et voila - we have failing healthcare, education, transport and security because we are overburdened with financially dependent families. Each of us getting a dwindling share of a depleted public purse. Who benefits here? Arguably the family who 'wants' a(nother) child. Well, woopdie-doo for them!

It is societies' DUTY to put a stop to this. This is OUR world for us to live in. Why let it strangle itself?

Food stamps and obligatory public service if that's what it takes. If you want my money, pay for it. And stop whingeing about human rights. I resent a persons right to buy luxuries of cigarettes, alcohol, TVs and chocolate while avoiding paying for the teachers, police and nurses that educate, protect and care for their children.

The situation of two working parents who cannot afford to pay for themselves is part of the problem, very much related to the welfare system. Give them tax breaks paid for out of savings from the welfare purse.

But I dont want to get into the politics of economics here, I'm debating the rights of a person to have children.
And if we're at all interested in a sustainable and stable society I don't see an alternative but to rescind those rights if a socially responsible attitude is not demonstrated.

[DeterminedJuliet]

So what happens when someone who can't support their children gets pregnant?

[Ali]

What are we talking about here?  Forced sterilization for the poor?  No thanks.  I do think that people should be financially sound before having kids, but I don't think that society or government has a right to enforce that.  I actually find the idea of a government that can choose who is worthy of "breeding" horrific.  And at least in my country, there would also be a bit of eugenics at play there, since minorities have a higher rate of poverty than caucasions in most areas.  No.  No no no.   

[Tom62]

Mmm.. tough question. I would rather make it depend on the actions that the future parents take, to improve their situation, than on the situation itself.
I'm not in favour of lazy bastards to breed the next generation of lazy bastards .

[Davin]

What are we talking about here?  Forced sterilization for the poor?  No thanks.  I do think that people should be financially sound before having kids, but I don't think that society or government has a right to enforce that.  I actually find the idea of a government that can choose who is worthy of "breeding" horrific.  And at least in my country, there would also be a bit of eugenics at play there, since minorities have a higher rate of poverty than caucasions in most areas.  No.  No no no.   

I agree. The possibility for abuse and the kind of horrible things that can be carried out under it, is too great to risk it.

[Whitney]

I think the government having a say in who can have children is a slippery slope....today based on some kind of financial line tomorrow perhaps based on intelligence...then what?  If financially stable kids are good for society why not also require both parents to meet a certain IQ level too as certainly intelligence is better for society...then wait till we can test for tendencies towards violence (or whatever) and those people aren't allowed to have kids even if they've never done anything wrong...falling toward eugentics every step of the way just because that first step took away a person's right to freedom if taking away that freedom could arguably be better for society.

I'd rather live in a free world where we have to worry about how to pay for the kids of people who shouldn't have had them then live in a world where the government gets to decide who is worthy.  Just think of how stigmatized a person would be if they were lumped in the reject group...it would completely change us as a society and probably not for the better and it certainly would create precedence for the end of personal freedom.

[Siz]

What are we talking about here?  Forced sterilization for the poor?  No thanks.  I do think that people should be financially sound before having kids, but I don't think that society or government has a right to enforce that.  I actually find the idea of a government that can choose who is worthy of "breeding" horrific.  And at least in my country, there would also be a bit of eugenics at play there, since minorities have a higher rate of poverty than caucasions in most areas.  No.  No no no.   

I agree. The possibility for abuse and the kind of horrible things that can be carried out under it, is too great to risk it.

Sterilisation? No. Just an incentivised encouragement to think twice about reproducing if it cannot be paid for. That's capitalism for ya! Dont forget that in democratic countries the 'government' IS the people. Society decides what the laws are. Noone but you and your fellow countrymen are taking these decisions. If the consensus is a mitigation of rights for the greater good then that's what will happen.

And the alternative, given that people cannot be trusted to be responsible with their breeding? An ever increasing population with an ever dwindling share of limited financial resources. I'm not happy to let this continue. Drastic times call for drastic action. Shall we sit back and let it continue because the cure might infringe an individuals' rights? Boo-f**king-hoo! Bleeding heart, blah, blah... rights, blah, blah... freedom, blah, blah.

Don't know about you guys, but my mission on this planet is NOT to fill it with people to the detriment of the lives of those of us that currently live on it. That's creating misery for all... and for what purpose? Take a look around, what's really gonna change without positive action on this issue and a bullet-biting concession to rights in one form or another?

We're between a rock and a hard place for sure. You let your bleeding hearts preserve individual freedoms if you wish, I'd rather opt for a compromise that works for society as a whole. Yes, with potential to create a society with limited freedoms (if one chooses to play a part in society at all - work, pay taxes, use public services etc...), but the alternative is certainly more bleak.

[Whitney]

Boo-f**king-hoo! Bleeding heart, blah, blah... rights, blah, blah... freedom, blah, blah.

If you can't express your views maturely why should any of us take your opinion seriously?

[philosoraptor]

Where to even start with this one...

I totally get where you're coming from in that yes, it would obviously benefit society if people procreated more responsibly.  But legislating who can have kids and when is potentially as icky as some guy who doesn't have a uterus trying to legislate access to BC and abortion for women.  There is a part of me that feels we might be better off if we required people to get a license to raise kids, just like we require a license to operate a car or own a gun or fly a plane, etc....  You can inflict a lot of damage with a car, gun, or plane, and those are inanimate objects.  Arguably, a bad and neglectful parent can cause even greater harm to a child.  But then what's considered "bad" parenting is subjective.  Maybe restricting who could have kids and when is a good idea in theory, but probably a very bad one in practice.

I forget their name, but there's a society in England that pays for drug addicts who volunteer to be sterilized.  If I'm not mistaken, they give them a small stipend, too.  Because it's all voluntary and it's not a government organization behind it, I'm okay with this and kind of think it's a great idea.  A crackhead doesn't need to be a parent any more than a baby deserves to be born addicted to heroin, so if these people chose to voluntarily remove themselves from the gene pool, I see no problems with that.  I do hate that the way public assistance is set up, in that it often encourages abuse and rewards people for having kids they can't care for.  I'm absolutely glad it's there for the people who truly need it, but it sucks that some assholes have to ruin it for everyone.  I wish food stamps worked more like WIC, where you could only buy certain approved things and you couldn't withdrawal money from the cards.  As a cashier at a grocery store in college, I would watch people come in at the beginning of the month, use their EBT/food stamp benefits card to withdrawal money, and then turn around and buy cigarettes and scratch off lotto tickets and Red Bull.  Or worse, people would sell their food stamps to other people.  Why the hell do taxpayers need to fund that kind of behavior, when you know there's a very real and sad chance that at home they've got a kid who needs a new winter coat and now won't get one because their guardian is a selfish and irresponsible knob?  And on top of it, in some ways it just keeps some poor people stuck in the cycle of being poor because they have money for food and instead use it for stuff they don't need.  We need to revamp the system so that kind of abuse is harder to get away with.  And maybe require a class on household finances and budgeting along with receiving assistance to encourage wiser spending decisions in general.  Yeah, hypothetically we could always mandate that anyone who already is on assistance can't get additional assistance if they have another child, but then the kid is still the one who ends up suffering and that's not fair.  I can't see a way that something like that could really work.

So that being said, we should work harder to make birth control and abortion safer, cheaper and more accessible and to educate our youth about the realities of sex.  We can't and shouldn't tell people if they should have kids or not, but we could make it easier for them to not get pregnant in the first place, especially if they did want kids or shouldn't have them to begin with.

[Siz]

Boo-f**king-hoo! Bleeding heart, blah, blah... rights, blah, blah... freedom, blah, blah.

If you can't express your views maturely why should any of us take your opinion seriously?

Merely an expression of the blinkered observance to personal rights in the face of overwhelming need to fix a problem.

There is another simple solution to lifting a ban on your reproduction after welfare donations have been rescinded: get a job.

[Whitney]

Boo-f**king-hoo! Bleeding heart, blah, blah... rights, blah, blah... freedom, blah, blah.

If you can't express your views maturely why should any of us take your opinion seriously?

Merely an expression of the blinkered observation to personal rights in the face of overwhelming need to fix a problem.

Um...no..it was you being immature and uncivil.  Re-read the forum rules and follow them...since a nudge didn't work this is an official rules reminder.

[Whitney]

There is another simple solution to lifting a ban on your reproduction after welfare donations have been rescinded: get a job.

You do realize that a lot of people who are on welfare already have jobs...right? Thinking that simply getting a job will take away the need for welfare indicates that you are oversimplifying the problem.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_poor#Prevalence_and_trends

[Davin]

What are we talking about here?  Forced sterilization for the poor?  No thanks.  I do think that people should be financially sound before having kids, but I don't think that society or government has a right to enforce that.  I actually find the idea of a government that can choose who is worthy of "breeding" horrific.  And at least in my country, there would also be a bit of eugenics at play there, since minorities have a higher rate of poverty than caucasions in most areas.  No.  No no no.   

I agree. The possibility for abuse and the kind of horrible things that can be carried out under it, is too great to risk it.

Sterilisation? No. Just an incentivised encouragement to think twice about reproducing if it cannot be paid for. That's capitalism for ya! Dont forget that in democratic countries the 'government' IS the people. Society decides what the laws are. Noone but you and your fellow countrymen are taking these decisions. If the consensus is a mitigation of rights for the greater good then that's what will happen.

And the alternative, given that people cannot be trusted to be responsible with their breeding? An ever increasing population with an ever dwindling share of limited financial resources. I'm not happy to let this continue. Drastic times call for drastic action. Shall we sit back and let it continue because the cure might infringe an individuals' rights? Boo-f**king-hoo! Bleeding heart, blah, blah... rights, blah, blah... freedom, blah, blah.

Don't know about you guys, but my mission on this planet is NOT to fill it with people to the detriment of the lives of those of us that currently live on it. That's creating misery for all... and for what purpose? Take a look around, what's really gonna change without positive action on this issue and a bullet-biting concession to rights in one form or another?

We're between a rock and a hard place for sure. You let your bleeding hearts preserve individual freedoms if you wish, I'd rather opt for a compromise that works for society as a whole. Yes, with potential to create a society with limited freedoms (if one chooses to play a part in society at all - work, pay taxes, use public services etc...), but the alternative is certainly more bleak.

Haha, if you picture me as a bleeding heart, then you really need to re-examine your assumptions. Also, my position mentioned nothing of rights, but the abuse of such a thing is not only likely, but is not very many steps away from a horrible situation.

I do think there might be a time in the future when the dangers and problems of issuing that kind of legislation is a better option, but I don't think we've hit that yet. I'm confident that we can still avoid the problem through education instead of control.