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Should society dissuade people from reproducing children they can't raise? How?

Should society dissuade incompetent people from producing children?

  • No, reproduction is sacrosanct, people have absolute freedom to reproduce and make others raise them

    Votes: 9 47.4%

  • Yes/no, mandatory reproductive control for only the most severely/permanently disabled

    Votes: 2 10.5%

  • Yes/no, offer money for sterilization and/or long-term birth control measures

    Votes: 5 26.3%

  • Yes/no, mandatory birth control and/or sterilization for active severe substance addicts

    Votes: 2 10.5%

  • Yes, require some sort of permit for having children

    Votes: 2 10.5%

  • Sort of, implement two-child policy

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Other (explain)

    Votes: 4 21.1%
  • Total voters
    19
  • Poll closed .
Neomalthusian said:
Try to suspend auto-outrage before answering and responding.

Every state has an administrative agency charged with temporarily suspending, and/or petitioning for extinguishment of, parental rights if those parents neglect their children's basic needs.

The act of producing a child generates a legal obligation to provide for its basic needs. Failure to do so can result in the extinguishment of parental rights. Therefore, a person who is fertile but otherwise has demonstrable inability to provide basic minimum care to the child is capable creating a financial and legal liability that it can transfer onto others without their consent.

Why do taxpayers have to stand by and watch as people produce liabilities that they can shovel off onto others? How is this justifiable, and what should be done about it?
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We do need to do more to discourage unwise pregnancies. However, I do not believe in making any sort of law or legal punishment. It's still an individual's right to be stupid. I also do not buy into the totally absurd concept of licenses or some other bureaucratic approval process. Aside from being completely unworkable and unenforceable, it's way beyond anything regarding a free society.

What we need to bring back, is shame. No, it's not warm and fuzzy. Instead of squealing with delight and congratulation when an announcement is made, we should be showing a disapproval and asking, "What the hell were you thinking?"

No holding a grudge, though, once the kid is born. It's done and it's not the kid's fault.
 
lizzie said:
Imo, society should dissuade anyone from having children, who is not willing, able, or capable of rearing them well. It's pretty simple to do by not incentivizing them financially.
Click to expand...

Financial incentives have little to do with people having children. Look at the population increases of India, Africa and China before the one child policy. People will have children, very poor people will as well. A far better method to prevent people from having children if they can not support them would be to incentivize it. Give women money (in certain economic groups) money not to have children until they reach a certain age or income level. India tried forced sterilization and it did not work, it does not provide incentives to have children, and now it has moved to encourage people not to have children, (by providing assistance and money for not having them.
 
Ya know... It's really pretty sad that China's two child policy actually comes off as being the most reasonable and non-totalitarian option on your list. That says quite a bit all by itself.

In any case, the major problem here is that the poll title has been deliberately phrased in the most blatantly dishonest and misleading way humanly possible. It doesn't include a single option which could be reasonably said to merely "dissuade" irresponsible reproduction. It actually puts forward a laundry list of active (and, quite frankly, fighteningly draconian) measures which could only conceivably be used to forcibly prevent the occurrence of non-sanctioned reproduction using the oppressive power of the legal and bureaucratic machinery of the state.

Given this fact, my response is an emphatic, "no, reproduction is sacrosanct."
 
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Hatuey said:
No, reproduction is sacrosanct, people have absolute freedom to reproduce and make others raise them

.... Given the choices, I proclaim this to be one of those threads where a 17 year old Libertarian thinks his understanding of Ayn Rand is some new accomplishment and he now seeks to show off to the pseudo-academic world of the interwebz.
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Sorry, I forgot to add an "Insult the OP author" option to the poll.

Fiddytree said:
Given the previous track-record of posts from you on this subject (cleverly coded into your poll options), I preemptively struck a stringent "no."
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So your answer might be different if someone else had posed it?
 
CanadaJohn said:
I appreciate the sentiment behind your position - problem is, it's always the child who suffers in the end.
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Children suffer when they're put into the foster care system too, but we do that (we have to) when staying in the home is significantly worse.

Again my question arises, when parental rights have been terminated and children removed from the home, they can keep having babies. Why do we stand by idly in those scenarios?
 
Fiddytree said:
So return to the policies that have created such a black mark on our society that states are still attempting to figure out a way to apologize for the human rights abuses the policy permitted?
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Allowing people who have proven beyond all doubt they are harmful to children are still left with their reproductive freedoms intact. Our policy of inaction is what permits human rights abuses... against the children they keep propagating.
 
Fiddytree said:
What return? You think people were responsible in the past? Dear lord, how incredibly naive.

Second of all, what responsibility was it instilling to have some doctor or social worker order away your civil liberties, falsify or provide no medical information, and sterilize them?
Click to expand...

Who says that would be the procedure? Perhaps I'm talking about people our courts have deemed too incompetent to parent and had to take their abused, battered, molested and neglected children away from them already. For example.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Try to suspend auto-outrage before answering and responding.

Every state has an administrative agency charged with temporarily suspending, and/or petitioning for extinguishment of, parental rights if those parents neglect their children's basic needs.

The act of producing a child generates a legal obligation to provide for its basic needs. Failure to do so can result in the extinguishment of parental rights. Therefore, a person who is fertile but otherwise has demonstrable inability to provide basic minimum care to the child is capable creating a financial and legal liability that it can transfer onto others without their consent.

Why do taxpayers have to stand by and watch as people produce liabilities that they can shovel off onto others? How is this justifiable, and what should be done about it?
Click to expand...
If by "dissuade", you had meant increasing sex ed and informally encouraging people to make sure their ready before having children, then I would have said yes. I think it would be a great idea to tackle irresponsible parenting the same way our society has tacked STD awareness, safe sex education, drunk driving, et al. through information campaigns.

However, given that you are not actually asking if "society should dissuade people from having children", but really asking if government should regulate reproduction, I'm going to have to give a definite no to such a ridiculous proposal. As someone who is pro-choice already, I can't imagine supporting even stricter control over a woman's reproduction than abortion. The kind of things you are not only, in themselves, harmful, but they would certainly be abused. We live in a society that is still entrenched in racism, sexism, homophobia and prejudice against those with mental illnesses/disorders among other things. The results of requiring permits or encouraging sterilization would be disgusting.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Sorry, I forgot to add an "Insult the OP author" option to the poll.
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It's a shame you're so uptight about insulting the nature of your "choices" when from the get-go of this thread you insulted the intelligence of anyone with more than two working braincells. Did you think the "choices" you proposed would spark a discussion on this topic? Look at the replies this thread has gotten so far from both sides of the aisle. The best part is that your perspective is so ridiculously narrow that you fail to even recognize that in the overwhelming majority of the world people continue to have children even if they don't have welfare programs available.

But hey, as long as you get to complain about being "insulted".
 
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sawyerloggingon said:
Giving people a certain amount of welfare per child encourages having kids you can not afford, same with the WIC program.
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India and Bangladesh beg to differ.
 
You'd have to sterilize them or end child support (multiple fathers is the way to lazy life), along with other social programs like SSI for the kid, tax cuts and so on.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Try to suspend auto-outrage before answering and responding.

Every state has an administrative agency charged with temporarily suspending, and/or petitioning for extinguishment of, parental rights if those parents neglect their children's basic needs.

The act of producing a child generates a legal obligation to provide for its basic needs. Failure to do so can result in the extinguishment of parental rights. Therefore, a person who is fertile but otherwise has demonstrable inability to provide basic minimum care to the child is capable creating a financial and legal liability that it can transfer onto others without their consent.

Why do taxpayers have to stand by and watch as people produce liabilities that they can shovel off onto others? How is this justifiable, and what should be done about it?
Click to expand...
The 'government' has set up a system to ENCOURAGE having children one can not (without the help of the FedGov) raise on their own.

We would have a long row to hoe to get back to a place where that wasn't a normal practice for generations of people but, for the benefit of the human race..we must.

How? Re-evaluate every family on welfare and their benefits. Offer free sterilization or birth control. Make the biological
father's of these children pay their share. That's just a start.
 
DaveFagan, Fiddytree, Gathomas88, Henrin, Van Basten

WTH is wrong with y'all??
 
ThePlayDrive said:
If by "dissuade", you had meant increasing sex ed and informally encouraging people to make sure their ready before having children, then I would have said yes.
Click to expand...

I guess that would have been "Other (explain)."

However, given that you are not actually asking if "society should dissuade people from having children", but really asking if government should regulate reproduction, I'm going to have to give a definite no to such a ridiculous proposal.
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Government already regulates who can be parents, by enforcing laws against child abuse and neglect.
 
Hatuey said:
It's a shame you're so uptight about insulting the nature of your "choices" when from the get-go of this thread you insulted the intelligence of anyone with more than two working braincells. Did you think the "choices" you proposed would spark a discussion on this topic?
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:shrug:

Look at the replies this thread has gotten so far from both sides of the aisle. The best part is that your perspective is so ridiculously narrow that you fail to even recognize that in the overwhelming majority of the world people continue to have children even if they don't have welfare programs available.
Click to expand...

I recognize what the majority does, and what the majority thinks. This happens to be a topic in which I challenge the majority opinion. Seems to get you a bit worked up...

But hey, as long as you get to complain about being "insulted".
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Just pointing out that you went straight after me, not the question being posed.
 
Fiddytree said:
Being able to produce without someone violating your body is liberty.
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Actions have consequences. If you breed without being able to care for the resulting child, why should anyone be surprised when there are serious negative consequences for their lack of responsibility?
 
Neomalthusian said:
Try to suspend auto-outrage before answering and responding.

Every state has an administrative agency charged with temporarily suspending, and/or petitioning for extinguishment of, parental rights if those parents neglect their children's basic needs.

The act of producing a child generates a legal obligation to provide for its basic needs. Failure to do so can result in the extinguishment of parental rights. Therefore, a person who is fertile but otherwise has demonstrable inability to provide basic minimum care to the child is capable creating a financial and legal liability that it can transfer onto others without their consent.

Why do taxpayers have to stand by and watch as people produce liabilities that they can shovel off onto others? How is this justifiable, and what should be done about it?
Click to expand...

because we live in a society that respects the rights of the individual.

there may be downsides to that at times - sometimes serious downsides .... but a society that determines who is/isn't allowed to breed would not be a society that many of us would want to live in.

BTW, my concerns over inadequate parenting do not relate to taxpayer dollars, but the welfare of children. I think that is a FAR MORE important consideration.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Try to suspend auto-outrage before answering and responding.

Every state has an administrative agency charged with temporarily suspending, and/or petitioning for extinguishment of, parental rights if those parents neglect their children's basic needs.

The act of producing a child generates a legal obligation to provide for its basic needs. Failure to do so can result in the extinguishment of parental rights. Therefore, a person who is fertile but otherwise has demonstrable inability to provide basic minimum care to the child is capable creating a financial and legal liability that it can transfer onto others without their consent.

Why do taxpayers have to stand by and watch as people produce liabilities that they can shovel off onto others? How is this justifiable, and what should be done about it?
Click to expand...

This is the wrong question. We need more kids, not fewer. Society needs to find a way to encourage people to be responsible parents, not discourage them from becoming parents.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Children suffer when they're put into the foster care system too, but we do that (we have to) when staying in the home is significantly worse.

Again my question arises, when parental rights have been terminated and children removed from the home, they can keep having babies. Why do we stand by idly in those scenarios?
Click to expand...

I don't think we stand by idly, but I don't think we're the Chinese either. Not to go off on a tangent, but if a woman's body is her's and she alone has sole authority over whether or not she has an abortion then it stands to reason that she alone has sole authority over whether or not she becomes pregnant. I suppose you could in some way coerce her into sterilization through financial incentives but....
 
CanadaJohn said:
I don't think we stand by idly, but I don't think we're the Chinese either. Not to go off on a tangent, but if a woman's body is her's and she alone has sole authority over whether or not she has an abortion then it stands to reason that she alone has sole authority over whether or not she becomes pregnant. I suppose you could in some way coerce her into sterilization through financial incentives but....
Click to expand...

I think financial incentives for sterilisation would still upset those whose focus is on taxpayer dollars being wasted ....
 
OhIsee.Then said:
And you claim to be "Libertarian - Right"?
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Ever hear of personal responsibility? Rights come with inherent responsibilities and actions have consequences.
 
marywollstonecraft said:
I think financial incentives for sterilisation would still upset those whose focus is on taxpayer dollars being wasted ....
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I'd personally prefer to fund sterilization with tax dollars, than a lifetime of rearing children.
 
marywollstonecraft said:
because we live in a society that respects the rights of the individual.
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For one thing, no right is sacrosanct (with the possible exception of this one). We take away people's lives, liberties and property if it is warranted, always respecting due process and going through a court of law, and with the idea that individual rights should be maximized at all times and restricted or suspended only when most necessary.

For another thing, this particular individual right creates another individual that inherently has rights. As a function of respecting individual rights, we usually recognize that one person's exercise of his/her rights cannot trample another person's rights. So what I think we are doing is overvaluing one right (to reproduce) even to the blatant detriment of the new individual's rights, in some cases.
 
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