Mandatory birth control for welfare?

Great Debates
81

Hey Captain. Not trying to pick a fight with you here - you’re just a convenient starting point, but the government sure will allow you to walk around nude in public, in designated nude ares with a whole bunch of other nude-enjoying people, and you can put your clothes on and walk right back out any time you want. Kind of inconvenient, I’ll admit. But we do have a strong cultural norm against nakididity in front of other folks.

The US government won’t let you put narcotics in your body at will, but hop on over to Mexico. Or Canada - they have these great pills with codeine in them that you can buy over the counter. So that one is certainly not universal. And I’m all for legalizing the drug market, taxing the crap out of it, and maybe having fewer people die over the whole thing. But that’s just me.

Forcing upon you the decision of whether or not to conceive (or self-abort, depending on the mechanism of this perfect birth control) doesn’t really fall in to this class of control. Or not unless you’re a drug addict, maybe. But then you are ill, and that’s all different. It is a violation of personhood. Of liberty. Of privacy. Of don’t you damn Redcoats come into my house and look through my stuff and insult my wife (or my sister) and scare my kids and take my food without paying for it just because you don’t like me and you can.

I don’t advocate women on income assistance having more children. But I’m sure as heck against taking that freedom away from them. As much as I’m against having it taken away from me. Maybe the gut reaction is a “do unto others” thing.

Generally I think that in our common culture, we have the idea that “your government stops at my skin.” And the two exceptions we have are military service (we will force your skin to do anything we damn well say!) and criminality (you made a crime and we are locking your skin up, and it will have to do pretty much anything we damn well say!).

However, we have not defined poverty as a crime. Other, historical cultures have done so. And looking back we find their practices to be appalling. And we instituted reforms.

One of the reasons for those reforms is we figured out that poverty is not, generally speaking, a result of “bad behavior”. People who are poor do not ‘deserve’ to be deprived of their rights because they have been ‘bad’. These reforms were carried out in the early 1900s (I think).

We are speaking here, I realize, of preventive action. But it is still choosing a population subgroup to deprived of their rights, and to be prevented upon.

And it may just be me, but we seem to have turned against large preventive policies in the US. The Iraq War was our last big preventive policy, and I don’t know anyone who could really say it’s been going just great.

We could possibly change our culture and decide that “the poor” have indeed given up their rights, to the extent that they may have contraception-preventing/self-aborting agents forced upon them. But I think that it would be a big cultural change.
This whole discussion reminds me so much of Bob Heinlein novels. And don’t get me wrong, I love those books. But the world view of one man, even that good man (friend of the family), just won’t work in our here-and-now.

A few other issues:
No, I didn’t notice that the OP said men and women. But 2-parent families don’t get income assistance, so we’re still going to have to track down those baby daddys and force this stuff on them, too.

For those who were confused about my list of programs (food stamps, WIC, etc.), none of them are counted as “welfare” in the traditional sense, and they are not part of the current income assistance program. Income assistance gives assistance with income, requires work, and must provide child care.

All of those other programs are separate, and always have been. There is no 5-year limit that I am aware of, particularly for the child health insurance programs. So my question was, and still is if we’re going to keep this up: if receipt of income assistance requires forced birth control, for receipt of which of these other programs will we force birth control?

And finally, Captain, I’m just as much against the draft and for prison reform (just ask me someday about prisons …) as I am against this idea of forced birth control. My ideas may not be popular, but at least they are consistent.

82

Hm, just to reiterate, because I see it’s already come up from other posters, I didn’t focus on mothers. I hold fathers just as responsible, and right from the start noted that men on welfare under this hypothetical system would be required to be on BC. I think the reason people have been talking fairly exclusively about women is because the government doesn’t provide assistance to men who have babies (or maybe they do; I don’t really know the statutes, perhaps herownself can comment on this), so the most visible people who can “benefit” from having a child are women. This does not mean I don’t hold men at least as, if not more responsible because women can at most have 1 child per 9 months (excluding twins, etc, of course) while men can have countless.

All that being said–

Again, I’m talking about a hypothetical system which is 100% effective. I’m not sure what to do if people don’t go on this system and have kids. Maybe the kids should be cared for by being removed? I mean, doesn’t the state already have a function in place to remove improperly-cared-for children? If the kids are removed and the parents don’t gain any further welfare benefits, it would remove the incentive. Of course, I think this is a terrible solution, but I don’t have answers to the current societal problems, let alone my hypothetical ones. People starve on the street every day.

I agree that you’re removing one of the basic instincts that people have, which is to reproduce. That’s why I suggested that the state agree to pay for up to 2 (or 3 or whatever) children before the birth control is instated.

I mean, call me crazy, but I think anyone, whether they can afford it or not, is acting irresponsibly by having enormous numbers of children. It was one thing when we had farming families that needed 16 kids to go till the land to survive, but now we’re rushing toward an overpopulation problem (and yes, I realize that this is a geographical problem more than a worldwide one). I think it’s acting selfishly against the entire human race to simply have as many kids as you want. However, like I said when I touched on this the first time, my views on how many kids anyone can have are somewhat outside the scope of this thread-- I just wanted to give some background as to where my thinking is coming from lest people just assume I’m coming from a “damn those welfare people’s huge families! Only the rich white folk get to have a Warren Worthington the 18th!” position.

I understand your point about how we haven’t defined being poor as a crime, and so they shouldn’t have to give up any rights. I’m still not clear on how you reconcile that against the cases of drugs and the military.

To look at the draft first, I would say that in many ways, the government forcing you to potentially give up your own life is more sinister than forcing you to give up the lives of potential children. You noted how mandatory BC would be forcing preventive action against a population subgroup. But isn’t the draft the same thing? As far as I know, the only people who can be drafted are men ages 18-X. This is arguably more unfair than taking action against the poor, because there are some people who are poor by choice. It’s not the majority by any stretch of the imagination, but the point is some people can take certain actions to cause themselves to no longer be poor. There are no actions that men ages 18-X can take to cause themselves to no longer be men (ok, barring sex-change operations) ages 18-X (bar none).

The drug thing I can see more clearly how it’s more of a fundamental right to have kids, and less of one to want to smoke weed (for example). So less to argue against this point and more to just provide food for thought, what if there are people who would rather have the right to toke than to have kids. What about Rasta, for example (and I’m not saying that Rastafarians would rather smoke up than have kids, I’m just citing it as an example of a case where people feel so strongly to the point of religion about a drug. This would work for whatever Native American (?) ceremonies involve peyote. I’m not clear on any of this stuff, which is why it’s just part of an example, not an in-depth laid-out argument), where there are probably some Rastafarians who don’t want children, but they definitely feel strongly about weed. They (again, the hypothetical subset of Rastafarians, not all of them) would certainly give up their rights to have children if it meant the right to smoke weed.

My point in all of this is that although I recognize that this program would never actually work because of the government corruption involved in removing fundamental human rights such as this one (hello, China? I’m looking in your direction), isn’t it irresponsible to want to bring children into a situation where you can’t properly care for yourself, let alone someone who needs even more care? And since we’re regulated on so many other things that we are irresponsible about/are bad for us (drugs, sex, trans fat-- NYC, I’m looking in your direction), why is it such a stretch to want to regulate this kind of irresponsibility as well?

Also:

Really?! Why the hell don’t they receive assistance? So if both parents lose jobs and need welfare, they have to divorce before they can get it??

Plus: I recognize the inherent difficulty on forcing men to take BC after they’ve had their 2 (or 3 or X) child limit, but like I said, I’m still on the hypothetical system without these obvious flaws.

83

This may vary by state, I can only speak from my own experience.

Some time ago I worked for a clinic with many impoverished people. We helped a male single-parent obtain WIC benefits for his children, one of them an infant. He did not receive as much benefit as a woman who was pregnant or nursing would, but he did receive benefits from the program. Although there are many myths, much ignorance, and misinformation, male parents can obtain assistance as well as female. The system is HEAVILY weighted towards women because they so dominate the ranks of single parents, but the men are not locked out.

Likewise married couples can also be eligible for assistance, at least in Illinois, particularly if they have children to support. At least they could back in the mid-90’s. Things might have changed since then.

84

Here in the state of Florida, the welfare mom must give the name of her baby’s father to get benefits. Sometimes they refuse to do so or simply say they’re not sure who the father is. Getting the father’s support (either directly, or paid to the state for redistribution) is extremely difficult. Each child often times has a different father who doesn’t live in the state any longer.

85

No, poverty is not a crime. But it’s not an identity either. It’s a predicament.

If you’re poor, you have problems, and you need to get your priorities straight in order to solve those problems before you can resume a normal life. If poverty is a group, it’s not like an ethnic or racial group where you’re proud to belong. You want to get yourself out of that group. And society would ultimately like to eliminate that group from existence.

Now if you go to the government for assistance, you may have to temporarily give up certain rights. It’s not uncommon to have to exchange rights for privileges. When you join the military you give up a lot of rights. You also give up certain rights in order to keep a drivers’ license. I this case you’re simply giving up the right not to have to take a certain pill, or have a little thingy stuck in your arm in exchange for free money. Once you’re back on your fee, you can stop. And if you wind up having kids anyway, fine.

And aren’t most pregnancies to poor women accidental anyway?

86

According to the AHRP, 49 percent of pregnancies in the US are unintended, and poor women are four times as likely to have an unintended pregnancy and three times as likely to have an abortion. But these numbers are linked to medical access and the cost of birth control. The OP assumes the existence of a free and harmless form of BC… which, if it existed, would surely affect birth rates in the first place, removing the ‘need’ for a program reducing unwanted pregnancies.

87

Birth control is better than free, it savesmoney. Which is why taxpayers should pay for it–taxes would go down.

88

Poor people got no reason to live.
We are setting the level too low. No one making under 75 thou should be allowed to have kids. If you make 150 you can have 2 kids.
That’ll fix it.

89

Or we could just have the taxpayers foot the bill.

90

I am not sure any society would function without a reasonable percentage of epsilons, so what is the fundamental motivation behind limiting the size of the dependent class?

Implicit in the OP is the notion that the welfare class is a net cost, but I’m not so sure. A mother who has more children than she can afford is certainly a short-term economic cost, but in purely practical terms, her offspring are odds-on to be low-paid workers. While she may be her own worst enemy in breaking the poverty cycle (along with those who vigorously defend her opportunity to reproduce) she is at some level a factory for inexpensive workers.

Economics has little use for evaluating the human tragedy of the plight of the poor. It may be compassionate to create mandatory birth control for the poor, but I do not think it makes economic sense. When everyone has a PhD, what will be the wage of a coffee-stand worker?

91

Why can’t coffee stand workers be high school and college students? Do we need a perpetual underclass to provide an endless labor force for Wal-Mart?

92

No. They are needed for inexpensive labor for WalMart. That was my point.

93

If I have to pay for something, I should have some say in it. Isn’t it my “basic human right” to be entitled to have say in how my hard-earned money is spent?
You don’t have to be rich, smart, handsome, white, or privileged to have kids. You can be as poor as you want. But the minute you put your hand out for MY money, you need to wrap it up and/or get on that Norplant!

94

Sure, they can go to the church for their support. Pope wants you to reproduce and you can’ afford it, they can pony up the money to support you.

How about each human gets .5 ticket to reproduce. Male or female, you find someone to exercise your half ticket to reproduce with, then the chop. If you can pay to have eggs and sperm frozen, then you can buy another .5 ticket and test tube it. A second .5 ticket if you can afford it would be seriously expensive, like in the $50 000 range or higher.

95

Aside from the intolerable human rights issue - there is no such medication possible that is both 100% effective for every human and 100% side-effect free. That alone puts this question squarely into the science fiction realm, at which point - sure, anything’s possible.

But really - in the US, we can’t even get birth control pills classified as a regular part of women’s healthcare without half the population flipping their lids. There’s no way this happens.

96

So… you’re in favor of anyone getting a tax deduction for their mortgage falling into that group, yes? Because that impacts everyone else’s tax revenue. You’re in favor of all government employees, bottom to top, being rendered unable to reproduce - your taxes are where their paycheck comes from, right?

What these proposals come down to is NOT “everyone getting government money should be sterile for the duration” but rather "people I don’t approve of who get government money should be rendered sterile for the duration".

So I guess poor atheists are just up shit creek, right? Wonderful - you’d essentially be forcing religion on people, way to destroy the first amendment.

What a completely stupid idea - force the second kid to be a test tube conception? Why the F would you want to drive up costs in that manner when nature has provided a much cheaper means of getting the job done. Not to mention that the risk of multiple births go up considerably with that sort of conception - are you now going to force selective abortions on people?

Yet another another idea spouted by people who are clueless about the actual facts and think we live with a Star Trek level of tech and reliability.

97

“Your money” goes to millions of other people in millions of ways that you have no say in. My money goes to things I’m not happy about. Everyone feels that way but as a government based on representation (rather than all citizens having a vote) we pay our taxes and vote for people we trust.

People who treat the poor as suspect because of their poverty make me sad.

98

You have a say in it; you get to vote. If you aren’t in the majority, we pretty much get to ignore you. That is as much say as you deserve in how your money is spent.

99

In additions to the problems others have pointed out, you suffer from a misunderstanding common among Ayn Randians, libertarians, and even many conservatives: the idea that there’s such a thing as “your money.”

Sure, that money is your property–but only at the sufferance of the government who printed those bills and insures those banks and prosecutes counterfeiters. Currency is a quintessential government service provided to you with tax dollars. Your non-monetary property is yours because the government has created laws around private property (a wholly artificial concept, however incredibly useful it may be) and enforces those laws.

The government enforces these laws in countless ways that benefit you; you’re unaware of these laws because they benefit you, and possibly because you buy into the misconception that your ownership of your stuff is just the natural, default state of the world. When you complain about people taking “your money,” as if that, and not your possession of your stuff in the first place, is a perversion of the natural order, you show a lack of understanding of modern economic and political systems.

It’s perfectly appropriate to complain that a specific redistribution of wealth (or protection of wealth status quo) is poor public policy. But objections to the idea of wealth redistribution are nonsensical.

100

My issue with the OP’s premise (and I am in favor of legal limits on the number of children some one has) is that it simply wouldn’t change our society effectively in the areas that need to be changed. In terms of resource and environmental consumption, poor children (unless they grow up to be incarcerated criminals) are kind of a bargain (though with the amount of industry shifting to the prison system this cost is even going down). Feeding and educating poor children does not cost a lot in comparison to the middle class and in return we get adult workers who will do the jobs no one else wants for low wages. The more ambitious among them give us a rather successful volunteer military and an educated working class to do the not quite white collar work. The middle class is where the big expenses occur (such as creating and maintaining a decent public school and higher education system). They also use and waste massively more resources. If you want to really change society for good, this is where the birth control needs to be stressed.