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A license to have children [W:81]

A license to have children?

  • Yes

    Votes: 22 20.6%
  • No

    Votes: 79 73.8%
  • Undecided

    Votes: 6 5.6%

  • Total voters
    107

Alyssa

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Should people be required to qualify and obtain a license to have children? If so, what should be the standards to qualify and why?

People need a license to drive, hunt, fish, etc and society is inundated with government regulations as it is, and yet people can breed freely without regard for their ability to provide for their children and regardless of genetic health. Personally, I think it would be disastrous to give the government control over reproduction, especially considering the lousy job it does with everything else. And yet, it is illogical for unhealthy and/or poverty stricken people to breed.
 
Should people be required to qualify and obtain a license to have children? If so, what should be the standards to qualify and why?

People need a license to drive, hunt, fish, etc and society is inundated with government regulations as it is, and yet people can breed freely without regard for their ability to provide for their children and regardless of genetic health. Personally, I think it would be disastrous to give the government control over reproduction, especially considering the lousy job it does with everything else. And yet, it is illogical for unhealthy and/or poverty stricken people to breed.

Yup, I'd require it. Income and intelligence would be 2 immediate factors I'd use as criteria.
 
Should people be required to qualify and obtain a license to have children? If so, what should be the standards to qualify and why?

People need a license to drive, hunt, fish, etc and society is inundated with government regulations as it is, and yet people can breed freely without regard for their ability to provide for their children and regardless of genetic health. Personally, I think it would be disastrous to give the government control over reproduction, especially considering the lousy job it does with everything else. And yet, it is illogical for unhealthy and/or poverty stricken people to breed.

Our culture does not have the capacity to regulate the sexual activities of hundreds of millions of people. That sort of eugenics is also less effective than just promoting better parenting through educational programs.
 
Well, we we could stop encouraging people who cannot afford them by not giving additional benefits for additional children. And before all the autocrats say it never happens that way, it happens that way......
 
Should people be required to qualify and obtain a license to have children? If so, what should be the standards to qualify and why?

People need a license to drive, hunt, fish, etc and society is inundated with government regulations as it is, and yet people can breed freely without regard for their ability to provide for their children and regardless of genetic health. Personally, I think it would be disastrous to give the government control over reproduction, especially considering the lousy job it does with everything else. And yet, it is illogical for unhealthy and/or poverty stricken people to breed.

I voted yes.

I think that it should be required for parents to go through a course telling them what to expect when being a parent. This includes their legal obligations as a parent and government agencies and programs available to help them.

I also think it should be a two-year college level course for those willing to take it.

edit: I suppose what I would want to do is regulate who can parent and raise a child rather who can breed.
 
Should people be required to qualify and obtain a license to have children? If so, what should be the standards to qualify and why?

People need a license to drive, hunt, fish, etc and society is inundated with government regulations as it is, and yet people can breed freely without regard for their ability to provide for their children and regardless of genetic health. Personally, I think it would be disastrous to give the government control over reproduction, especially considering the lousy job it does with everything else. And yet, it is illogical for unhealthy and/or poverty stricken people to breed.

Good luck enforcing it.
 
Our culture does not have the capacity to regulate the sexual activities of hundreds of millions of people. That sort of eugenics is also less effective than just promoting better parenting through educational programs.

There's a difference between regulating sex and regulating parenting.

And eugenics has nothing to do with the latter.
 
Our culture does not have the capacity to regulate the sexual activities of hundreds of millions of people. That sort of eugenics is also less effective than just promoting better parenting through educational programs.

No way. Educational programs do almost nothing to reduce social programs like this, because the people who need it most are the people who don't care about it, take it seriously or pursue it. I love education, but that's because I want to learn things and so I pursue education and information.

The thing about child licenses is NOT that they would be ineffective, it's that they would be controversial/unethical/immoral/unconstitutional, or so many would feel.

Personally though, I think children's rights not to be raised in pathetically substandard environments should supersede people's reproductive rights. The primary challenges are to 1) defeat people's emotional objections to this idea, and 2) regulate it cost-effectively.

Some people are serious about it and trying to do something about it. Exhibit A: Sterilize for Cash: Paying Drug Addicts to Not Have Kids - TIME
 
l believe not everybody should be allowed to have children before being trained to raise a child .

this is my real opinion...
 
absolutely not

it would be great if all parents fully understood the consequences of having a child, and were financially and emotionally prepared before actually having the child

it would also be great if all people fully understood the consequences of their own personal financial decisions, like using credit cards, taking out mortgages/loans, etc

but in this country we are free to try and do almost anything we want, just as we are free to live with the consequences of those actions

taking away the freedom to start a family is shockingly un-american
 
I see no reason to, and I'd rather steer as far away from eugenic abuse as I possibly could.
 
but in this country we are free to try and do almost anything we want, just as we are free to live with the consequences of those actions

taking away the freedom to start a family is shockingly un-american

Regulating people's lives is the name of the game, nowadays. Welcome to 'Murica.

Poverty, trauma and myriad other intergenerational social problems present to us countless scenarios in which we have to also consider the rights and needs of children whose parents create them, neglect them and abuse them, simply because they are so profoundly incompetent to parent. You have to be able to acknowledge the ethical dilemma inherent in these scenarios.
 
absolutely not

it would be great if all parents fully understood the consequences of having a child, and were financially and emotionally prepared before actually having the child

it would also be great if all people fully understood the consequences of their own personal financial decisions, like using credit cards, taking out mortgages/loans, etc

but in this country we are free to try and do almost anything we want, just as we are free to live with the consequences of those actions

taking away the freedom to start a family is shockingly un-american

But we're not living with consequences of those actions. Lots of people who shouldn't have kids because of maturity and financial levels get floated along with entitlement programs paid for by working taxpayers like myself.

They can die in the street, for all I care. I'm sick of being robbed, and I'm tired of subsidizing stupidity.
 
One need not use that level of gov't control, yet many improvements in our gov't provided social services (safety net?) are possible. I will list a few suggestions in that area (welfare for those with children):

1) Require a completed HS education (GED is OK) for any such benefit to the non-disabled.

2) Require an improvement plan, and adherence to it, to continue getting those benefits.

3) Define, and rigorously enforce, a lifetime cap on said assistance.

4) I realize this is an imperfect analogy, in many ways, but bear with me here. Has anyone ever thought about the (correct?) gov't reaction to one that keeps a pet in substandard conditions? You do not get gov't "help", the pet is removed from you, given emergency care, placed in an accreditied facility and offered for adoption. You do not get a reward for that personal failure, in fact, often you are charged with a crime.
 
Should people be required to qualify and obtain a license to have children? If so, what should be the standards to qualify and why?

People need a license to drive, hunt, fish, etc and society is inundated with government regulations as it is, and yet people can breed freely without regard for their ability to provide for their children and regardless of genetic health. Personally, I think it would be disastrous to give the government control over reproduction, especially considering the lousy job it does with everything else. And yet, it is illogical for unhealthy and/or poverty stricken people to breed.

Believe me, I get where you're coming from in theory, but I have to vote no.

I just cannot accept the argument that people don't control their own bodily functions. I can't support a state that tells other people what is and isn't ok to do with their own bodies. It is unfortunate that sometimes bad decisions affect children who are now their own people, but there is no way around the genesis of the situation.

The other problem is that strict controls of fertility like this NEVER go well. It doesn't matter what you're trying to do -- lower population, increase it, selectively get people to breed -- it doesn't matter. The results are always horrifying and evil. The result is always oppression and molestation of women, suffering children, and massive black-market fertility operations (whether it's to encourage or deter fertility) that inevitably wind up being dangerous.

Look at China and Romania if you need a couple of examples. It is an absolute nightmare. I can't support inevitable human rights abuses.

There are better ways to accomplish the same goals. Strong education about sexual health and contraception are MORE effective than limiting people's ability to breed in the long run. And no one has to be violated in the process.
 
I balk at having government issuing licenses to have children. The implications, of how it could possibly be enforced and regulated, are quite chilling.

What are the criteria? Passing a course? Proof of income? How much is enough? Does a doctor have to check for license? Does the hospital? What if people have kids without a license? What is the penalty?

Then we have opened the door to other things like age? Is there a cutoff? Health? Testing for genetic diseases? See where I'm going?

I agree, there are way too many poorly prepared, negligent and abusive parents.

Maybe we'd be better of requiring full blown parenting classes in high school? Middle school? We have health and sex ed. Why not parenting? I know. That's probably a whole kettle of fish, but just throwing it out there.

I just can't cotton to having the government in our bedrooms.
 
I see no reason to, and I'd rather steer as far away from eugenic abuse as I possibly could.

What, of these two hypotheticals, do you see as a more horrendous notion:

A) Denying/suspending the right of an addict to reproduce, or

B) An addict reproducing a child with fetal substance-induced brain damage who then raises him/her in a neglectful and/or abusive environment until the state steps in and puts the child in an unfamiliar foster setting, or series of foster settings?

In other words, you find the act of preventing a horrible situation to be a horrible thing in and of itself.

Huge dilemma.

This is one of my LEAST libertarian stances, I admit. I do not value some people's reproductive freedoms above the rights of children not to be put through immense suffering.
 
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The easiest way to enforce licensure in this aspect would be to block parents applying for ANY form of government aid. This makes it very simple - if you're able to raise a child without taxpayer assistance, you're probably suited to be a parent anyway.

If you need food stamps and you're not licensed, tough luck for you. Move back in with your parents. Be a burden on them, not me.
 
I don't disagree with the overall premise, that people shouldn't have children before they're ready and that parenting really does require training. But such a rule would be impossible to enforce, and would constitute a completely unacceptable infringement of personal liberty. Government should not have that kind of control over people.

Well, we we could stop encouraging people who cannot afford them by not giving additional benefits for additional children. And before all the autocrats say it never happens that way, it happens that way......

The net result of that kind of policy ends up punishing the children, rather than discouraging the parents.
 
But we're not living with consequences of those actions. Lots of people who shouldn't have kids because of maturity and financial levels get floated along with entitlement programs paid for by working taxpayers like myself.

They can die in the street, for all I care. I'm sick of being robbed, and I'm tired of subsidizing stupidity.
That's repulsive.
 
absolutely not

it would be great if all parents fully understood the consequences of having a child, and were financially and emotionally prepared before actually having the child

it would also be great if all people fully understood the consequences of their own personal financial decisions, like using credit cards, taking out mortgages/loans, etc

but in this country we are free to try and do almost anything we want, just as we are free to live with the consequences of those actions

taking away the freedom to start a family is shockingly un-american

Unfortunately that (bolded) is far from true. If that other person's freedom includes "access" to a protion of my paycheck then that is tryanny not freedom, to me.

Growth of Welfare Entitlements: Principles of Reform and the Next Steps

Over $60,000 in Welfare Spent Per Household in Poverty | The Weekly Standard

http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/PA694.pdf
 
But we're not living with consequences of those actions. Lots of people who shouldn't have kids because of maturity and financial levels get floated along with entitlement programs paid for by working taxpayers like myself.

They can die in the street, for all I care. I'm sick of being robbed, and I'm tired of subsidizing stupidity.

speaking of maturity

how about we at least agree that the situation is complex, there are over 300 million of us

in a country where we have the level of freedom that we do, people are going to make a lot of mistakes

some times the effects of those mistakes ripple out to the rest of society

some of us accept this as a tradeoff, and are glad the founding fathers agreed

if we start taking away the freedom to do certain things, simply because some people abuse that freedom, we are moving away from the idea of America

but yea, who cares of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people die in the streets

real enlightened, mature perspective there pal
 
I don't disagree with the overall premise, that people shouldn't have children before they're ready and that parenting really does require training. But such a rule would be impossible to enforce, and would constitute a completely unacceptable infringement of personal liberty. Government should not have that kind of control over people.

The net result of that kind of policy ends up punishing the children, rather than discouraging the parents.

Nonsense. How do we treat pet abuse?
 
Undecided
With so many libertarians around, the NO votes are no surprise.
We already have some of this with good upbringing and church weddings; one would think this to be sufficient.
 
Should people be required to qualify and obtain a license to have children? If so, what should be the standards to qualify and why?

People need a license to drive, hunt, fish, etc and society is inundated with government regulations as it is, and yet people can breed freely without regard for their ability to provide for their children and regardless of genetic health. Personally, I think it would be disastrous to give the government control over reproduction, especially considering the lousy job it does with everything else. And yet, it is illogical for unhealthy and/or poverty stricken people to breed.

I find it a bit fighting that this question is even being posed. That is called eugenics, I never support such an intrusion
 
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