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(A minor edit has taken place here - In essence concerning whether people fall pregnant deliberately or accidentally)
The ideas of "to have a gun" and "to have a child" are, I think, more different than our language expresses. The one is a state of possesion. The second is an action *or* a state of possession, the cognates being "to buy a gun" and "to have a child". It's a peculiarity that I think comes into the language in Middle English and sticks there, but I could be wrong.
Now, a child and a gun are both things that one can possess, insofar as one can be the legal guardian of a child and the legal owner of a gun. The difference being that a child has a selfhood of its own, be that selfhood nascent, undeveloped, or whatever you wish to call it. One of the principles of a civilised society is, IMHO, that the child will not be punished for the activities of its parents. I accept that this is a fairly novel view in the history of justice, but that should not concern us now as being outwith the remit of this discussion.
So, point - it has already been pointed out that this is not a thread titled "Wouldn't it be nice if there were no unwanted children?" It is a thread asking a particular question, about whether childbirth should be regulated. Now, assuming we do not pump comtraceptives into the water, for which see the previous four pages, we can see a difference in the processes that result in "having a gun" and "having a child". Since most people do not have the equipment to make a gun, but many have the equipment to make a baby (ask a grown-up), the comparison of the two is never going to be entirely apposite. Certainly there are similarities - a badly-handled child is dangerous, as is a badly-handled gun. Education minimises unwanted instances of parturition, and may well also limit unwanted instances of gun misuse. Whether it also limits unwanted instances of making your own gun is another matter. Because guns and babies are made in different ways.
So...how does one indulge in "baby control". By declaring baby amnesties, where unwanted babies can be handed in for destruction? Probably not, which is an area where the comparison is not quite right. Whereas Leap and others would no doubt argue that educated people should have access to a limitless number of guns, presumably the same cannot be said for a limitless number of babies, if we assume that those babies will have potential financial ramifications for others not involved in their making, either as welfare cases or as vagabonds and bandits in the case of those who survive to penurious adulthood. So, how do we limit instances of having babies, in both senses? I'm proposing sex education and the free availability of contraceptives, which seems to work reasonably well in Scandinavia and the Netherlands, but YMMV. As per. |
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