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Should having children be regulated?

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00:21 / 24.10.02

The USA seems to have a problem with unplanned pregnancy. Some would say this is one of the reasons the kids are getting more stupid with every generation. You have mothers who are still children themselves, deadbeat fathers who could give a fuck, and a cycle of poverty and lack of education.

What if we put a form of birth control in the water supply? And then have would be parents go through a long and thorough series of tests showing they have the maturity to raise a child? Does any other country do anything like this? Do you Brits have a problem with unplanned pregnancy?

01:41 / 24.10.02

Yup, damn them iggerant proles. Breed like maggots so they do. Far better to leave the procreation to fine upright folks who meet (and set) the right criteria.

Seriously, how on earth can this end in anything other than the most appalling of constraints on personal liberty? Yes, it would be a good idea if sex education was more concerned with education and less with reinforcing the moral judgements of the conservative establishment, both here and in the US. Other than that, what, if anything, links the ills you bemoan together? Gymslip mums are solely responsible for poverty in the Western world? Early shagging leads to stupid kids? Is better living through eugenics really the answer?

I would respectfully suggest that you might want to think this through a little bit more before you write to your congressman.

02:12 / 24.10.02

OK the reality is I think the world would work better if in order to procreate 2 people had to sign an agreement with each other, or they physically wouldn't be able to reproduce. But seeing as the body doesn't work that way I was just trying to think of something that would have the same result, by means of a realistic program.

02:22 / 24.10.02

A realistic programme? You were serious? You haven't just been watching Dr.Strangelove again? There's enough controversy over putting fluoride in the water. You're living in a country that objects to any restriction on buying semi-automatic assault rifles and you want to suggest applying for a licence to have sex?

03:27 / 24.10.02

Well, ideally, anyone could have sex as much as they wanted, they'd only have to apply to have children.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:41 / 24.10.02

Okay (write an abstract, by the way) first I'd like to make my view clear that we (the human race as a whole) DOES need to stop having so many kids.

That said-

Regulation of childbirth? WRONG. Look at China. Strictly limited amounts of kids allowed leads to kids born the wrong sex being chucked out. Apart from being a fundamental violation of a human being's natural right.

We are biologically programmed to want to reproduce. It is in our nature. However, it is not an insurmountable instinct. And (I wish I could afford to conduct some kind of study on population growth over the whole of history) it *may* even be something we evolve out of. The biosphere as self-regulating mechanism *may* be reducing this as we speak. (But, as evolutionary things generally are, VERY slowly).

Personally, I don't want to have kids. Ever. If I'd been born a couple of thousand years ago, would I still feel that, as a hetero male?

Population control strikes me as one of those "well-meaning in theory, but incredibly dangerous in practice" kind of things.

09:41 / 24.10.02

10:53 / 24.10.02

Funnily enough, a report stated recently that the UK's indiginous population is actually declining - it's immigration that's making the numbers go up....which would suggest that the white, middle-class are actually taking more responsiblilty than the lower-rated scum.

Is reproduction automatically a fundamental right? I realise that this could be a whole new thread in itself, but some see the right to mutilate their children as a 'fundamental right' - which doesn't make it so.

Frightening as it may sound, the real issue here isn't class, gender or race - it's money. Money means that I can have a mansion, you can have a council flat. Money means I have a car and you take the bus. Money means that you can have IVF treatment and I will remain childless. None of these things are 'fair', but they are indicative of the state of play. If a system consisted of 'proving' youself 'worthy' of having kiddies, then money would be a primary factor (or a primary source of corruption, take your pick).

People don't seem to mind corruption as long as it doesn't involve or affect them. Brainless single teens (et all) pumping out babies at a rate of knots tends to annoy peeps more because the cost is then hoisted (via tax) onto the rest of us, and as a result lot of folks have developed a 'why am I paying for this?' attitude (hence in the UK the Tories got into power over and over again, on a 'we'll cost you less' ticket).

Also remember that in China, they've been killing babies for years not because the families don't want them, but because they still see girls as worthless next to boys, hence the 'dying rooms' (if you're only allowed one child, it has to be a boy, otherwise there will be no-one to care for you in old age). Same thing happens in India - in Whitechapel, for instance, there's an unspoken rule that you don't show benghali families an MRI scan of a fetus if it's sex can be seen. They tend to abort if it's a girl.

Sorry, meandered a bit.

14:32 / 24.10.02

Best to just cut the crap and sterilize the retards, don't you think?

And the niggers, too. How is Whitey gonna stay on top if he's being outbred?

And no, Denfeld, I'm not implying that that's what you're saying: but it's the classic "slippery slope." Once you've got regulated breeding, it's a short skip to selective breeding—eugenics. And that's where people's funny ideas about race and ethnicity and who deserves to breed come out.

Who deserves? Who decides? How are you gonna feel when you're not proclaimed to be one of the "right" people—when your application to breed comes back stamped REJECTED?

Anyone ever read an SF book called The Bladerunner (which is no relation to the film of similar name), by Alan Nourse? It posits a future in which free, high-quality universal health-care is offered to all—anyone, rich or poor—provided they submit to sterilization. And those who refuse to do so have no legal access to health-care at all.

There's your carrot and your stick, right there, taking care of the population problem from both ends—by decreasing birth rates overall and increasing mortality among those who will not be swayed to "progress," and rewarding with long life and good health those who are good citizens and sacrifice their fertility for the good of the nation.

Simple, workable, effective, and, in theory, non-coercive.

Sound like a future you'd like to live in?

11:31 / 25.10.02

Jack's on to something methinks. I was thinking along the lines of payments to people who had reached a certain age without having had children but the idea is flawwed. It's difficult to test men, other people attempting to qualify might die before the pre-requisite age and the whole thing had far too many holes in it.
I like the idea of optional sterility and superior health care but does this mean that those people who don't submit to sterilisation don't receive any kind of care at all or just reduced care?
It's a great ideal but there's a lot of issues that would have to be ironed out first. Morally, if we have the means to help people suffering, shouldn't it be employed regardless? Just a thought.

12:14 / 25.10.02

Sorry, who are the people who are suffering here? The children? The parents? Is it not the case that parents unable to conceive chidlren who desperately want them are also "suffering"?

Sorry, my bad, not what I was getting at all. I meant anybody suffering any kind of illness that medical science could help cure.

14:01 / 25.10.02

In the novel, all health care was strictly regulated by the government: there was no private for-profit healthcare--in fact roviding medical services to those who refused o be sterilized was a punishable offense.

What black-market healthcare did exist consisted of rogue doctors, refusing to allow their Hippocratic oaths to be sullied by an unjust System! defying The Man by secretly providing healthcare to the rebellious poor and downtrodden! Yeah! and employing shady couriers to obtain medical supplies illegally! w00t!

It was a pertty stupid book, really--but at least there was a reason behind the word "bladerunner."

We're The Great Old Ones Now

14:21 / 25.10.02

Am I the only one who detects a whiff of irony in Jack Fear's post? Just the faintest odour of his profound disapproval of the society he outlines?

Haus, regarding female infanticide:

China

India, 2, "The Social Context of Sex Selection and
the Politics of Abortion in India"

It seems unlikely that this magically stops at the UK border. If it doesn't, is it surprising that hospital staff would tacitly fight it, their actions based on basic guesses and ethnic profiling? Especially if any mention of the possibility is greeted with a response like yours.

I know you know this stuff. I know you can use Google. So why am I doing this?

14:29 / 25.10.02

Irony? Moi? Why, I don't lnow the meaning of the word.

Hey, you know who had the solution to this overpopulation thing figured out? Jonathan Swift.

14:34 / 25.10.02

This question has come up in the not too distant past, in the Switchboard. I don't want to repeat too much of what was discussed there, but basically the question is - who gets to decide who's fit to be a parent? We'd all have our own criteria. And certainly, in the UK, I'd rather see much more support for parents than deciding who can and can't breed.

14:36 / 25.10.02

And, being overwhelmed with the fact that I finally worked out how to do a link, I credited it to the wrong place. The discussion on this actually took place in the Head Shop.

Must be the sea air.

14:40 / 25.10.02

'salright, Haus--Torquemada seems to have deleted that post almost instantly. I think you and I were the only ones to see it.

Ah, castles made of sand... fall quickly... to the seeeea...

14:56 / 25.10.02

While the idea of testing potential parent/s could benefit the status of children, it does appear to have some major flaws. Namely, the system by which such standardized testing would be formulated upon.

One possible compromise could be training instead of testing. Requiring potential parent/s, (or in the case of unplanned pregnancy, post or pre-natal parent/s) to take some courses on child development, family dynamics and anger management. This would show both commiment to the child and the responsibility of parenting. It would also give the parent/s some of the necessary resources and skills to cope with the the stresses that come with such a life-altering "rite of passage".

*Note*: By "rite of passage" I am not implying that people who cannot or do not choose to have children do not go through this type of rite. It can take various forms and should not be confined by the common definition of parenting.

Again the issue of what system is to be used in training parents. Now the Maritime Provincial Governments funded this parenting program for similar reasons. The only difference being, it is not a mandatory program for all potenial parent/s. The program is there for whoever wants to take it, but there are rare cases where the courts may require a parent to take the training in the case of neglect or abuse.

The program is very adaptable to various lifestyles and cultures, making it a very easy to use as a foundation in any family regardless of belief/s or background/s. The only flaw would be, no one can be absolutely sure if the methods and information taught in the parenting course is actually being practised.

That's my two bits.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

15:19 / 25.10.02

Because you have expressed an opinion based on an untracable anecdote from a "fertility GP" (like a fertility god, I suppose), suppoting the idea that people should be treated differently by doctors based on the colour of their skin, because obviously India and Whitechapel are in all other respects socially and culturally identical.

Hey, fuckbake, back off. I haven't expressed an opinion at all. And no, obviously, people in Whitechapel and India are not identical, but it would be equally fatuous to say they were completely different.

What, pray tell, is a basic guess? A guess in a primitive command-line language? A less complex guess than a properly complex guess? Only, it occurs to me that "ethnic profiling", such a *very* impressive phrase for "deciding by the colour of somebody's skin or their name whether they are likely to abort their baby on the grounds of its gender", and that *must* mean that more than a basic guess is at work...

A basic guess is a dumb-ass, guts guess you make when you've got no data other than your eyes and ears and a lot of rumour. And yes, 'ethnic profiling' is a big word for guessing about people based on what they look like and what you know about where they come from. So you're a junior doctor working in a hospital, and you've been told (yeah, woo, anecdotal evidence, must be lies) there have been cases of culturally-motivated female abortion, and you've got no way of knowing one way or another. So you have a risk and trust game: show the MRI and risk being too trusting, or hide the MRI and be accused of ethnic profiling. Up to you. Unless, of course, we're allowed to talk about the issue, in which case maybe it can be shown to be a lie, or maybe it turns out to be real. But either way, yelling 'monster' when it comes up helps no one.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I was inaccurate in my ten-second Google Search of Asia looking for information on infanticide. Apologies. No doubt I'm a racist at heart.

Rigour's great, Haus. But sometimes, on knotty issues and unspeakable truths, rigour will deny things because there's only anecdotal evidence and little whispers. Rigour would be a study - but if you start flinging 'racist' at everyone who brings up the question, there won't be a study, will there?

15:29 / 25.10.02

Whoa, Nick--Haus was replying to a post by Torquemada, wherein he goes on about getting his information from the archetypal (and possibly anecdotal) friend-in-the-business. I saw it, and was incredulous: Haus, obviously, saw it, and fired off his rather scathing reply.

But Torquemada subsequently deleted the post, probably after realizing that he hadn't a leg to stand on: the Haus's reply, however, remained--and by unfortunate coincidence seemed to reply to yours.

Okay? Let's not get all, ahem, torqued about this.

15:38 / 25.10.02

This, however, is interesting:

It seems unlikely that [selective abortion for gender] magically stops at the UK border. If it doesn't, is it surprising that hospital staff would tacitly fight it?

That hospital staff—who are supposed to serve the patient—would "fight" someone's exercise of their legal right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy—simply because they, the doctor, disapprove of the parent's reasons for doing so?

15:57 / 25.10.02

A more emotionally-neutral paraphrase of the above, to avoid you being distracted by that red mist: Find and, if you can, reconcile the logical and ethical inconsistencies in your stance.

23:49 / 25.10.02

Sorry to have caused so much upset, my post was mixed up with another thread reply, which I only realised once I'd posted, making it quite barmy.

I do apologise for my 'unsubstantiated' story - my info was based entirely on my experience at one hospital, which I haven't been at for 3 years. Yes I am very aware that Bhengalis are not the only type of Indian - I mentioned them specifically because they have the highest birth rate in Whitechapel (of any 'colour') - I helped design the database that stores such info (birth rates and whatnot). It was in doing this that I got told about the girl=abort thing. I did not 'see' it happen, and obviously have no proof. It had nothing to do with the colour of their skin - it was their apparent beliefs which made having a son important at any cost - even at the cost of a daughter. It's a strange parallel to the Dying Rooms of China...just a lot more immediate. The consultant could have been winding me up, of course....but she wasn't laughing.

It seemed not-so-surprising (to me at the time, at any rate) that the nurses would do this (hide the sex), because Docs/Nurses are there to preserve life - so to me it seemed that they were only acting in the same way as they would with a Jehovas W. refusing a blood transfusion - once unconcious, they would do it anyway, to save the persons life (and save them from themselves).

Anyway, take it (as 'evidence') with the bloke-in-pub pinch-of-salt that you require. I am *not* making a racist issue out of this, and Whitechapel doesn't (or didn't used to) have a huge racist contigent - the hospital signs are in beghali, fer chrissakes. The story illustrates (going back to the thread) that some already appear to practice a sort of 'enforced control'.

08:20 / 26.10.02

I find it interesting that nobody's brought up widely taught sex-education and easy access to contraception of any kind to both men and women as a means to bring the population down.

What I think would work, rather than giving people payments for not breeding, or vouchers for children or whatever, would be to get 'em while they're young.

First, I'd provide extensive education to boys and girls about how the body works, how their sex organs work and I know that most of us got some of this when we were young'ns (heck! they even taught us some sex ed in Catholic school!) - but I think rather than waiting 'til puberty to start teaching this stuff, I'd start when the kids are about oh, 4 or 5. Obviously you couldn' t explain EVERYTHING to kids that young, but you could start giving them an inkling of how their bodies work, which I personally think they'd love since kids that age are always playing doctor and taking their pants off to show their friends what they have anyway. Then you just keep teaching more and more as the children get older.

The reason I'd start this young is to help kids realize that their bodies and their sexualities are normal and natural parts of being a human being. Which is the other thing I'd do - teach kids about sex and sexuality - I'd love a class that taught kids how wonderful it is to have sex, and that the good feeling you get when your holding onto someone is not dirty or shameful, it's natural and a great perk of being a human! Because I think part of the problem is actually sexual shame. It's embarrassing to go and ask for condoms. It's embarrassing to talk to your doctor about birth control. (Well, not for me, but it can be for some). If you can remove the shame, people will be more free to ask for these things.

And yes, finally, contraception contraception contraception. Available all the time, almost anywhere, and for cheap. And without a moral judgement charge.

Anyway, that's my utopia.

But is this not an option? Have we tried this and found that it's failed?

11:50 / 26.10.02

Cherry - an excellent idea, but one that only works in certain countries. More than a few third-world countries now teach their people about contraception, but the poorer ones have a seperate but connected problem - poverty.

In these areas, the rule is 'have as many kids as possible'. More kids=more help working, more help at home and more support in old age (these places, needless to say, have no social services). It's all very well being told 'don't have more kids, this is how you do it', but when their livelyhood/ future/ surivial is at stake, they're not going to take much notice. In these areas, more success has been had promoting contraception as a way of stopping HIV rather than family planning.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

12:40 / 26.10.02

Haus, I'm tired of this shit. You either know you throw out implied insults, in which case I don't want to talk to you, or you just can't get your head around the fact that the way you argue comes across that way to people. You want to know why I'm rude to you? Because it appears that you're rude to me.

So screw it.

22:02 / 26.10.02

You know what I don't like?
The next door neighbor that takes a sackfull of unwanted kittens or puppies to be gassed at the stray animal clinic or tosses the lot into the river with a rock tied around the sack.

You know what I really don't like?
That fact that the same neighbor has unwanted kids that are malnourished, neglected, and terrorize the neighborhood? I wonder if my neighbor and his spouse/galfriend/lover had planned or given thought to the care and resources to bringing another human being into the world?

Unloved puppies don't commit violent felonies or prpogate domestic
violence.
Unloved puppies don't add to prison overcrowding.
Unloved puppies become a major burden on society, when thay can't or won't learn skills or live by taking from the welfare of their fellow citizen.

Shark's plan with this first million dollars: Give free vasectomies to any and every male who wants one, with a one-time reverse surgery.

Knocking a girl up unexpectedly is like dropping a nuclear bomb; it was a minor, excusable oversight that could permamnetly screw-up the lives of others, namely the child's.

VR
The Shark

Nietzsch E. Coyote

22:03 / 26.10.02

the metadebate on how birth control is being discussed: Haus, I don't think Nick is the only one who has issues with how you choose to respond to people. The tone of your posts are frequently interpreted as antagonistic and well, condescending. The debacle that went down in the sniper thread should at least provide evidence that people are interpreting you this way. If you do not wish this, be more careful about how you say things. You seem to imply things you don't want to admit to meaning.end metadebate

Now to actually join the debate on birth control, I think that it would be best to consider reproduction a right and not a privilege. Reproduction is a matter of control over an individual's body. A large amount of feminist debate has centered around establishing the right of a person to control their own body as part of the abortion issue. Lets face it this is a reversal, instead of not allowing women to terminate a pregnancy we would now be disallowing them to initiate one. Surely this issue should be considered with some dialogue with existing feminist debate.

As for actual plans for reproductive control I would have to second Cherry Bomb's ideas. As the terms of debate were originally established as primarily applying to western "developed" nations, Torquemada's difficulty of third-world poverty doesn't entirely apply. As a solution or at least step for reproductive control, education is a very good fit for western nations that are part of the english legal tradition like England, Australia, Canada and United States. Outside that range such as developed nations of an Islamic or Napoleonic legal tradition might require diferent solutions. For nations even farther out of that range poverty is probably a bigger issue.

12:01 / 27.10.02

Torquemada said:

. More than a few third-world countries now teach their people about contraception, but the poorer ones have a seperate but connected problem - poverty.

Yes, I know, and I'm well aware that we need money to do this. Hey, believe me, I don't think widespread and easy access to contraception for everyone all over the world is easily achievable, but a girl can dream (I believe say "that's my utopia" in my first post.) Anyway, actually I think perhaps even a bigger problem than financial resources in implanting my utopia is the fact that one would have to work through an various cultural attitudes towards sex all over the world.

. It's all very well being told 'don't have more kids, this is how you do it', but when their livelyhood/ future/ surivial is at stake, they're not going to take much notice. In these areas, more success has been had promoting contraception as a way of stopping HIV rather than family planning.

OK, then, so in an area where having more children is a good thing because people need the help, why would you stop them? Also, I'd never dream of telling people, "don't have more kids." What I'm suggesting could potentially help people conceive if they wanted to conceive, and prevent pregnancies if they wanted to prevent pregnancy.

12:09 / 27.10.02

Can I ask everyone to keep on the topic and avoid the infighting please? I'm going to leave this message up for about 12 hours and then recommend it get deleted because it's also off-topic....

12:26 / 27.10.02

Going back to the original post, it would appear about one-quarter of births in the US are unintended. This is apparently a high figure for the industrialised world. And about to get higher if Bush has anything to do with it.

The unintended pregnancy rate was highest among women who were aged 18-24, unmarried, low-income, black or Hispanic.

Well, if you want to control population fertility how about free and direct access to contraception and abortion? And how about frank and supportive sex education?

But that might *gasp* lead to people having sex. Which as we all know is DIRTY and WRONG.

12:44 / 27.10.02

The Ethics of Reproductive Control.

The only country I know of that currently legislates its population growth through overt coercion is China. And the only reason it can do that is due to its exetremely authoritarian government - which has control over much of the economic and social life of its subjects.

Reproduction is both a right and a privilege. We don't allow everyone to have kids - e.g. the criminally insane are generally discouraged, as are the mentally handicapped. But in most liberal democracies reproductive freedom (in all its manifestations) is right that many have fought for. And these rights are not going to be given up lightly.

At the same time, Education and support for those thinking of becoming parents is a very good idea.

CB> What I'm suggesting could potentially help people conceive if they wanted to conceive, and prevent pregnancies if they wanted to prevent pregnancy.

Absolutely.

18:48 / 27.10.02

Cherry - oh I was agreeing with you fully - in a Utopia (which surely is where we want to end up), free 'chops' for men would be ace (I personally think tampons should be free on the NHS - what's a girl gonna do, not use one?).

The reason it would seem a good thing to stop some poorer countries from having so many kids as a lot of the time they're also the countriles that produce more people that are going to starve to death. That's why simply sending food (for instance) isn't enough.

Haus - can you really not see what you're missing? Every time someone says something that you *think* is an insulting 'assumption', you reply with five that *are* insulting about the poster (but hey, it's eveyone *else* that's ignorant, right?). Then the poster has to spend more time defending his/ herself that arguing the thread, to which you feign ignorance. which is why we're all here. I for instance am not going to let you make posts that insinuate that I hate gays, Jews, or anybody without posting a refute. If there's someone I don't like, I will say as much - I don't need you to badly second-guess my opinions. I (surprisingly enough) find it offensive that someone can make such assumptions, and I think that others probably do too. You are not arguing. You are *baiting*, dear boy, and until this site is called 'baitelith', I don't think it's on. You argue bloody well enough at other times, that's what makes it annoying. Who, I wonder, moderates the moderators? (addendum - oh look, he moderated himself).

Because most people didn't see it - my post about 'my friend the fertility GP' went on to discuss sikh's and their religious law, and a few other things slating circumcision - ooops, thought I. The stuff relevant to this thread, I re-posted later.

Shall we continue?

19:09 / 27.10.02

off-topic

I for instance am not going to let you make posts that insinuate that I hate gays, Jews, or anybody without posting a refute.

Well, no, but your posts have left you open to such accusations. I imagine, for example, that your comment earlier about 'brainless single teens pumping out babies at a rate of knots' wasn't meant to be entirely serious, but, um, it was hard to tell. Sweeping generalisations made without any qualifying comments are apt to make one sound a little, er, confrontational, and perhaps you shouldn't be surprised that you get picked up on it...

Nietzsch E. Coyote

20:37 / 27.10.02

Haus, can you explain what you are doing and why? I don't get it. If you want to leave the thread just leave what you have left up. I hope that I haven't hurt your feelings or pissed you off. I am sorry if I have.

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