Is it our right to reproduce a child and can/should it be taken from you?

Potential-Monke · 18-01-2011 09:20AM

I believe a licence system should be introduced. You apply for a licence to have a child, one per licence (unless it's twins, triplets, etc), and for every time you want another child you've to get another licence. The licence would be granted on means testing, the finer details of which i cannot personally decide, but people with sexual convictions, murders, child abuse, etc would never be granted one. I'm not excluding any specific sectors of society, but some may find it harder to get a licence than others, just like getting a mortgage!

If someone were to reproduce outside of licence, then that child should be taken off them until such a time as they were able to get one, of if unable to get one the child should be fostered or given to a couple who are unable to have children and have a licence.

After all, you need a licence for a dog, why shouldn't you need one for a child, something which is infinitely harder to look after and to raise.

Pherekydes · 18-01-2011 11:22AM

For the people in favour of state controlled breeding programs, answer me this:

Who controls the program? Is it down to the idiots who've just ****ed up our economy and our health service?

Coriolanus · 18-01-2011 11:53AM

Pherekydes wrote: »

For the people in favour of state controlled breeding programs, answer me this:

Who controls the program? Is it down to the idiots who've just ****ed up our economy and our health service?

Jesus no. I want the germans in charge. They have past experience after all.

mconigol · 18-01-2011 04:42PM

At the very least we should, as a society, be looking at population control in order to keep things sustainable going forward....although we're doing ok for the moment...Africa I'm looking at you...:mad:

Wildlife Actor · 31-01-2011 10:18PM

@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Threads like this are one of the great things about Boards.ie. Can you imagine a sensible conversation on this topic in the public domain? The reality is that this is a serious issue and well worth the discussion so well done to everybody for keeping it constructive.

My tuppenceworth:

1. The default position must be that you are legally entitled to have children. You can't have it any other way because:
(a) it's a fundamental component to the human condition and - all else being equal - a right
(b) a "licence to breed" scheme would be unenforceable (imagine the hordes of social workers looking in the bedroom windows)
(c) “criteria to allow” are much harder to define that “criteria to disallow” (if that makes sense): Department of Health officials/computers cannot be expected to weigh up competing reasons for and against allowing someone to breed
(d) withholding social welfare benefits (as punishment) would harm the children, which runs contrary to the best reasons for restricting breeding rights (although I agree with benefits being reduced after the first X children).

2. If it's to be done, the easier way is to sterilise in certain exceptional circumstances:
(a) it's enforceable - physically - although the european court of human rights would have to be convinced. (see comments to follow on the ability to promote a rational public debate).
(b) it could be "reversible" in some cases (maybe men would give a sample for storage and have a right to use it if a court is satisfied that change in circumstances etc etc)(maybe the method in women is long term contraceptive injection). This mitigates the charge that sterilisation means society giving up on drug addicts who might want to reform in the future.

3. So who's in for the snip? Some ideas:
(a) Anybody convicted of a serious crime against a child (murder, very serious assault, serious sexual assault)?
(b) Anyone convicted of serious crime against an adult where it's their 2nd/3rd such offence?
(c) Anybody convicted of any serious offence where they have screwed up their children's lives (e.g. where children taken into care) and they are deemed unfit (because a drug addict or whatever).
(d) Getting more controversial: people with recognised mental infirmities/handicaps that (through no fault of their own) mean that they have no capacity to raise children (2 doctors opinions etc etc)? This is where the reader must stop and think before getting hysterical. Remember, sterilisation does not equal loss of sexual function. It's just the reproduction component. And I have a brother who I love to bits but who would definitely fall into this category: I have to say that he does not have capacity to raise children - does that mean he should be sterilised? I don't know but I will debate it.
(e) Staying controversial: those who breed with abandon in circumstances where they have inadequate means to support the children. This one is harder to justify/police, though I do think that it is "wrong" (in a very broad sense) to have 5,6,7 children if you have no job and no means of supporting the children other than social welfare.

4. The biggest problem is the difficulty in getting politicians/churchmen/judges etc to engage in the debate: people who have strongly held positions and refuse to countenance fair or honest debate can simply kill any argument by associating anyone who even addresses the issue with nazism, euthanasia (an entirely different issue) etc etc thereby excluding rational discussion. At least we can discuss it on boards.ie....

Oh and by they way, if my knowledge of biology is hopeless (see point 2(b) above), that does not mean that all I have to say is wrong.

Lumen · 31-01-2011 10:21PM

mconigol wrote: »

At the very least we should, as a society, be looking at population control in order to keep things sustainable going forward....although we're doing ok for the moment...Africa I'm looking at you...:mad:

People make reproductive choices that stack up economically. Once a society gets off the breadline the birth rate drops right off.

I'm sure if you worked out the total resource consumption they'd still be more efficient.

lucozader · 31-01-2011 11:19PM

i know a family that has 12 kids and the parents don't work, out of laziness

they get a free house

free holidays

free books

free bikes

free videogames

i think that there should be some fairness in society, given how hard many people work

Odysseus · 01-02-2011 12:00AM

Love nor Money wrote: »

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3. So who's in for the snip? Some ideas:
(a) Anybody convicted of a serious crime against a child (murder, very serious assault, serious sexual assault)?
(b) Anyone convicted of serious crime against an adult where it's their 2nd/3rd such offence?
(c) Anybody convicted of any serious offence where they have screwed up their children's lives (e.g. where children taken into care) and they are deemed unfit (because a drug addict or whatever).
(d) Getting more controversial: people with recognised mental infirmities/handicaps that (through no fault of their own) mean that they have no capacity to raise children (2 doctors opinions etc etc)? This is where the reader must stop and think before getting hysterical. Remember, sterilisation does not equal loss of sexual function. It's just the reproduction component. And I have a brother who I love to bits but who would definitely fall into this category: I have to say that he does not have capacity to raise children - does that mean he should be sterilised? I don't know but I will debate it.
(e) Staying controversial: those who breed with abandon in circumstances where they have inadequate means to support the children. This one is harder to justify/police, though I do think that it is "wrong" (in a very broad sense) to have 5,6,7 children if you have no job and no means of supporting the children other than social welfare.

/QUOTE]

Being a drug addict does not automatically make a person a bad parent. Some can still fulfill the concept of a good enough mother/father. No parent is perfect

Wildlife Actor · 01-02-2011 12:12AM

Odysseus wrote: »

Being a drug addict does not automatically make a person a bad parent. Some can still fulfill the concept of a good enough mother/father. No parent is perfect

True, and I didn't say it did. And while I'm at it, I didn't say that not being a drug addict make one a good parent. But if you add being a drug addict to having your kids taken into care because they're malnourished and, say, beating up your kids' mother because she won't let you use the child benefit money to get your next hit, are you then approaching the bad parent zone?

bnt · 01-02-2011 12:12AM

Love nor Money wrote: »

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If you're going to write in Microsoft Word, then copy from there, can I suggest pasting in to Notepad first? That will strip out all the Microsoft stuff, leaving just the plain text to copy and paste here.

Back on topic: despite what I wrote earlier about tying child benefits to passing a "parenting skills" test, that doesn't mean I'm keen on having a government involved in the process at all. But, in the absence of people smart enough to do the right thing, what other choice do we have? If all people were smart, and could practice self-control in every aspect of their lives, most government functions could disappear. People need to be governed to compensate for their limitations; which is fine as long as governments are run by smart people. Um ...

Odysseus · 01-02-2011 12:33AM

Love nor Money wrote: »

True, and I didn't say it did. And while I'm at it, I didn't say that not being a drug addict make one a good parent. But if you add being a drug addict to having your kids taken into care because they're malnourished and, say, beating up your kids' mother because she won't let you use the child benefit money to get your next hit, are you then approaching the bad parent zone?

Well the list you put it did, even if you where just making a point. But the add on you posted above whilst correct it doesn't hapen that often in that way. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but I spend a lot of my time working with addicts and sometimes I have to contact social services, but I have never had to do it a situation like above.

Even time a client shows me their new baby, I congratulate them and then say they are harder to keep that to get. However a valid point is you need a license to keep a dog, what do you need to become a parent? Nothing.

I just wanted to make the point that just because a parent or both are addicts it does not make them a bad parent. Yes some are just abuseful, and I often look at some of our clients kids know I will be seen them as clients in a few years.

However, social services are so under staffed it is not uncommon to make the phone call and be told that unless the child is in immediate danger, their is nothing they can do.

Odysseus · 01-02-2011 12:37AM

lucozader wrote: »

free bikes

free videogames

i think that there should be some fairness in society, given how hard many people work

Exactly where do they get the above from? I don't buy it, they may get money that they then spend on then, but not directly. Unless it is SVP or a similar organisation. They don't get them from social services.

A question would be just because the parent don't contribute, should the children not get the above because of their parents?

Wildlife Actor · 01-02-2011 12:46AM

@bnt

Sorry about the Word junk. I'm new here...

@Odysseus

I think you need to be careful about the rules of fair argument here. I did not - either in my original post or afterwards - "automatically equate" being a drug addict with being a bad parent. I linked it - in both posts - with other components. So it is quite simply wrong to say that I did. A+B+C=D does not mean that A=D. (Sorry...I get obsessive when false logic creeps in).

I appreciate that you work with drug addicts and most of them are - of course - very good people. But in some cases - a minority - they are not capable of giving a child the minimum requirements all children are entitled to. And if that has manifested itself in crime and damage to children they already have, you must accept that a debate is appropriate. A much harder case, in my view, is the one which I am very familiar with - mentally handicapped adults. In their case, there isn't a bad bone in their body: they had no part whatsoever in their condition: but that does not change the fact that - in many cases, not all - if they have children, the consequences will be tragic.

Odysseus · 01-02-2011 01:12AM

Love nor Money wrote: »

@bnt

Sorry about the Word junk. I'm new here...

@Odysseus

I think you need to be careful about the rules of fair argument here. I did not - either in my original post or afterwards - "automatically equate" being a drug addict with being a bad parent. I linked it - in both posts - with other components. So it is quite simply wrong to say that I did. A+B+C=D does not mean that A=D. (Sorry...I get obsessive when false logic creeps in).

I appreciate that you work with drug addicts and most of them are - of course - very good people. But in some cases - a minority - they are not capable of giving a child the minimum requirements all children are entitled to. And if that has manifested itself in crime and damage to children they already have, you must accept that a debate is appropriate. A much harder case, in my view, is the one which I am very familiar with - mentally handicapped adults. In their case, there isn't a bad bone in their body: they had no part whatsoever in their condition: but that does not change the fact that - in many cases, not all - if they have children, the consequences will be tragic.

I'm not try to argue with you mate. I know the way things are picked up here and whilst you where not really saying that, others here would. So I was making a point about that point, if gey what I'm saying.

Yes your second example is far more complex, but correct me if I'm wrong, but I would think that in the latter example those people who have mpore supports structures around them in general. TBH I would not be familar with those type of cases.

Are my posts clearer now? Have a look a threads about addicts most posts describe them as low life zombies. I'm not saying every addict is a good parent, or citzen they are not. But I do try address incorrect assumptions about the various groups of clients I work with, and there are a lot of incorrect ones posted about addicts here. I accept you where not doing that. Does that clear thing up?

Is it our right to reproduce a child and can/should it be taken from you?

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