Right to breed?

Great Debates
41

I was, of course, being intentionally violent. Forcing sterilization on an unwilling person is a violent thing, whether it’s done with Norplant or a scalpel. Also, there is currently, I believe, no male equivalent, so the only alternative for the men is vasectomy, which is not reliably reversible. I certainly hope you don’t advocate forced sterilization only for women under your plan.

This, unfortunately, is the foundation of holding biological parents to the standards of adoptive parents. By the way, I think that the hoops adoptive parents are put through is a good example of how discriminatory the “good” parenting criteria would inevitably be: Too poor, too controversial (not the right race, sexual orientation, age, marital status, etc.), not the right religion? No kid for you.

42

Felice wrote:

Ah, but, Felice, as I only half-jokingly stated before, suppose we elect a government that does not include you?

“I don’t just want you to feel envy. I want you to suffer, I want you to bleed, I want you to die a little bit each day. And I want you to thank me for it.” – What “Let’s just be friends” really means

43

Norplant has some questionable side effects. It also isn’t 100% effective and can cause birth defects when it doesn’t work.

44

No, but the truth is that human beings were not designed to give birth to litters. Any time you have that many fetuses crammed in there, you’re going to have troubles. Hell, it’s bad enough with twins–Cecil had a good column about that a while back. Certain fertility treatments cause multiple eggs to be fertilized. Most doctors recommend terminating all but one of the fetuses, but if the mama chooses not to, we get the McCaughey’s, and the woman in England who tried to have septs for pay.

And as a prime example: Nkem Chukwu and Ikye Udobi. After miscarrying triplets they had eight kids at once, then found out they couldn’t afford them. So they hired the agent who had worked for the McCaughey’s and went on national television begging for money. They lost one, and looks like the rest are going to suffer physical and mental disabilities for the rest of their lives.

According to Dr. Brian Kirshon, the OB who delivered them,

'Course the whole thing turned into a total freakshow, and the doctors involved had their 15 minutes and milked it.

So, no, it’s not like the doctors are dishing out thalidomide. It’s the parents who are so desperate to have babies that they willingly risk their own health and that of their future children.

-andros-

45

Cher3, may I add that we also had to prove we were healthy. My husband had to lose 40 pounds before we started our adoption. This is a Korea thing, but all adoptions in our state require two physicals, one at the time of application, one at the time of finalization.

46

Well, she’s a woman. It can be argued that we already have elected a government that doesn’t include her.

That was also a joke.

All, I’m going to be spending most of the weekend in the Real World. Please don’t think I’m running for my life or anything. I’ll check in when I can, but don’t count on me until tuesday.

Hope everyone had a good long weekend.

-andros-

47

That’s another reason why it wouldn’t work. For those people who want children, a lot of them want children very, very strongly. If they were denied that, what would they do? I suppose they could pry out the Norplant with an exacto knife. Then what? Throw them in jail? Take away their kids before they have shown themselves to be bad parents? Strap 'em to a surgical table and yank out their reproductive organs, since they can defeat reversable methods? Would we create criminals out of people who think they can raise their children well just because we think they won’t?

48

Felice;

You are continuin to mix up the yet-to-be-concieved with the already-here kids in your arguments. You just said:

With potential adoptive parents, you are talking about kids who are already born and what to do with them. If your argument really is about parents who are raising their birth children, then I have to say we already do have standards and systems in place for dealing with abuses by parents.
But this is not the same thing as screening people so that you can decide if they are allowed to have children.
You mentioned that you are only concened about parents provding the basics–education, food, etc. What are you going to do in your screening? Ask them? I’m sure people will say, “Oh, damn, you mean I gotta feed 'em?”

“I should not take bribes and Minister Bal Bahadur KC should not do so either. But if clerks take a bribe of Rs 50-60 after a hard day’s work, it is not an issue.” ----Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Current Prime Minister of Nepal

49

I once met a well-spoken retired gentlemen with two college degrees who had consistantly tested out as mentally retarded throughout junior high and high school. Made excellant grades, won math contests and competitions, just couldn’t break a 70 on the IQ test.

IQ tests can be unreliable, aptitude tests can be unreliable, Cosmo compatibility quizzes can be unreliable- even if the parenting tests could screen out any racial/cultural/economic biases, what one checks off on a sheet of paper will not match up with what one will do when actually faced with a whining three year old. This is proved by all the pre-parents in the world who say things like, “I’m never going to have that problem. My kid is never going to do what that kid is doing.” They have kids; they learn. Parenthood is learned in the field.

The best that society can do is to improve on what we do now- pick up the pieces after the parent fails. There is no system of prediction.

Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right

50

A huge difference between adoption and birth is the existence of the birth mother. She has decided that she is not capable of parenting the child (or someone has decided for her). So there is a responsiblity to make sure that the parents of the child are better suited. What birthmom would want to place her child into an adoptive home because she can’t handle it only to discover the babies parents couldn’t handle it either?

(Still laughing over the “you mean I have to feed them” crack)

51

If someonw were to walk into my house right now, to do a homestudy, oh boy, would I ever fail. Unless they based it on how happy my kids happen to be right now. My son is sleeping peacefully, and my daughter is naked. She’s three. I can’t keep clothes on her.

But my house is not only small, it’s a mess. I don’t have much money at the moment–it’s not payday. There’s food, though, and lots of toys, and the kids are happy.

Parenting classes are a good idea, sort of. Parenting is soooooooo much more than feeding & clothing. Take the people in the class, put them in a room, and make them watch Elmo’s Adventure’s in Grouchland 400 times. Because that’s what they’ll have to do once they buy the tape for Junior. Make them learn all the words to “Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts.” Make them change diapers on real babies, not dolls. real poopy babies. Make them figure out how to divide three cookies equally between five kids–and make all the kids happy with what they got.

That’s parenting. :slight_smile:

(

Changing my sig, because Wally said to, and I really like Wally, and I’ll do anything he says, anytime he says to.

52

Cristi said:

Give each kid half a cookie, then eat the last half yourself. Did I pass?

As for the OP, I can understand the frustration- listen to Loveline a few nights in a row and you’ll start to wonder why the government hasn’t started sterlizing certain people (memorable scene from last night- the caller was screaming at Adam Corolla, “My child is the most important thing in this world! I spend every minute I possibly can with my daughter!” Adam: “Of course. I just figured that since you had fallen in love with someone who’s currently in jail for doing drugs and can’t get out because he keeps getting into fights that maybe your priorities weren’t in the best order.”)

JMCJ

Winner of the Mr. & Mrs. Polycarp Award for Literalizing Cliches for knowing an actual atheist in a foxhole.

53

Felice, are you familiar with the “Tyranny of the Majority”? Do you understand why we have a constitution? The reason is because democracy is not a panacea. If you think democracy is some universal solution to oppression, you’re nuts. That’s why we have a constitution. To prevent 51% of the people from voting to enslave the other 49% (extreme example, but there are plenty of example of democratic choices that involved stomping all over the rights of individuals).

If someone comes to my door tomorrow with his handy-dandy sterilization kit, my rights are no less violated if 100 million people told him to do it or one dictator did. I’m not a big fan of mob rule.

I wonder - if we had such a program, how long would it take for the people to decide that people convicted of drug offenses should be sterilized? If we had had it in the 1970’s, how many campus radicals would have been sterilized? After all, they were long-haired and greasy-looking, and had all these dangerous ideas, and lived lifestyles that the vast majority of the populace didn’t agree with…

If the country ever becomes overwhelmingly Republican or Democratic, how long will it take the people to decide that those wacky extremists are so crazy they shouldn’t be allowed to have kids?

If the Christian Right ever gained power, how long would it be before they’d decide that you godless heathens should not have kids? After all, what could be worse than giving birth to a child condemned to hell? So let’s make parenting conditional on good church-goin’, eh?

Citizens in a democracy often vote for laws that are potentially oppressive when the ‘good guys’ are in office, because they trust them not to abuse the power. They never consider what might happen if the ‘bad guys’ get elected.

In any event, I’m still amazed at the percentage of you that are taking this seriously. China has been rightfully condemned by the U.N, Amnesty, and just about every other human rights organization for birth control laws FAR less restrictive than this proposal. Frankly, the very notion makes me sick.

54

Andros and Felice…

You think I am a jerk?

You guys propose an invasive government that will come into our personal lives, rate us on a perceived scale of how we MIGHT act sometime in the future, and then decide whether or not I will be allowed to have children. You propose mandatory sterilization. You propose that a human has no right to have children.

Your proposal is as bad as Nazi Germany and as bad as Communist China.

You can not just “seperate” the way this plan would be carried out and the “concept” of it. When you consider this plan you have to consider the reality of the situation.

You have now decided that the State should make decisions that I believe are between God, myself and my wife. You may not believe in God, (any god for that matter) but there are many people in this country that do.

You guys love to talk about how WE are the government. WE make all the decisions. Just because a majority can agree on something does not make it right. The Constitution grants the government powers, the government is not there to grant us our rights.

Andros,

I see you got all bent out of shape about my abortion comment. Please note that I was correct in my assumption. I am not trying to open the abortion debate, but what hypocrisy.

A woman has the right to have a baby because it is her body and she has the right to control it.

A woman does not have the right to become pregnant because society has not granted her the privledge of using her natural body the way she wants.
BTW…I took that leap in logic because I figured only an elitist could support this proposal, and elitists tend to have no consistency in their beliefs.

So as you two sit there and conspire to control the bodies and lives of every American, feel free to call me rude, obnoxious and selfish for supporting individual freedoms. At no point do I think we should ever BESTOW such power on a FACELESS government.

Forgive backwards ol’ me as I still support the individual as the person best suited to make their own decisions. Hopefully I will never regress to the point where I am willing to turn my life over to the government and ask for permission before I make any of my own decisions.

55

Lucky, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to confuse the issue. I guess what I am saying is:
If a parent gives birth to a child, then either they care for the child or somebody else does. If a parent gives birth to a child that they cannot care for, then the burden on society is increased, in that another parent must be found for that child. Therefore, the cost to society is minimized if the parent cares for their own birth children. But, society has a responsibility to ensure that parents take GOOD care of their children.

Now for crying out loud, I KNOW about all the problems with Norplant. This Gedankenexperiment presupposes that a safe, effective, reversible birth control mechanism could be developed which applies equally well to men or women. I am also presupposing that unbiased, fair criteria to define ‘good’ parenting could be developed. I realize that this would not be possible to implement, because those two suppositions are false. That’s why I threw this out to SDMB for discussion and didn’t write it up and present it to my Congressman for submission to the Senate.

This is entirely a thought- experiment, a discussion of a POSSIBLE solution to a pervasive societal problem. Clearly if I pursue this farther I shall be nailed to a tree because some people on this board cannot deal with hypothetical assumptions that violate established facts. So let me ask instead: does anybody have a BETTER solution to the problem of incompetent parents?

56

Freedom said:

And forgive backwards ol’ me as I watch kids grow up to be abusive, molestors, criminals, and/or drug users because their parents acted that way towards them, and wonder to myself why the hell we as a society turn our heads and shuffle our feet when faced with the fact that those people who cannot bear the responsibility of being a parent seem to be the ones with the most kids.

I say that Norplant treatments for repeat drug offenders, repeat child abusers, or repeat child molestors isn’t the fascist jackboot y’all want to make it out to be. I’m not saying it’s salvation, or even necessarily a good idea, but it ain’t the next step to Hitler’s master race that people seem to be reacting to it as.

JMCJ

Winner of the Mr. & Mrs. Polycarp Award for Literalizing Cliches for knowing an actual atheist in a foxhole.

57

Felice:

Besides the two false propositions you mention, the other question begged is that the majority of problems are caused by people who are fundamentally unfit to be parents, rather than by people who are temporarily under physical, financial or other types of stresses that increase the possibility of abuse. Since these can’t be predicted, sterilization isn’t a useful preventative.

Do I have alternative solutions? Sure, but none of them are perfect. Sex education, ready access to the forms of birth control that do exist, workplaces and schools that take into account the fact that most men and women with small children work outside the home, better options for maternity and paternity leave, a culture that doesn’t glorify violence and bad sex. Okay, now I’M getting into the realm of science fiction.

58

quote:

“I say that Norplant treatments for repeat drug offenders, repeat child abusers, or
repeat child molestors isn’t the fascist jackboot y’all want to make it out to be.”
Most of these people are men. What do you advocate for them?

59

We have postulated a hypothetical safe, reversible, effective birth control mechanism for men, cher. Yes, I KNOW it doesn’t exist at this time. Use your imagination. PRETEND we had such a thing. THINK!

From my work with Child Protective Services, I don’t know that it’s true most such offenders are men, either. Most of the children I saw in neglect and abuse situations, most of the adolescents who have grown into juvenile delinquents, lived with at least a mother.

I’m not sure what your other point is. I don’t know the statistics, but I will say that the majority of children in ‘unfit parenting’ situations are NOT due to temporary stressful situations. Mom losing her job does not make her an unfit parent. Mom being addicted to drugs or alcohol, Dad being more interested in partying than parenting, DOES make them unfit parents. Is it possible that Mom will overcome her addiction? Sure. Might Dad overcome his fondness for parties and take responsibility for his life? Sure. And in that eventuality, by all means, let them go forth and procreate. But until that time, what are we as a society supposed to do with the results of their sexual activity?

I’m not abandoning this thread, but I’m going on travel for the weekend. See you all Tuesday. Go ahead and burn me in effigy.

Felice

“There’s always a bigger fish.”

60

Well said, John.

Freedom: easy there, Trigger. Take a deep breath.

Yes. And the only reason you have given to the contrary is that “a woman’s body is her temple.” Which is very nice and libertarian and all. But you’re missing one big point, to wit: we do not live in a vaccuum I’ve been saying this all day now. If it were just you and your wife and your rugrat, no problem. But when you decide to have a kid, you are adding another member into society. As a member of that society, you have a responsibility to raise that child to be a productive member of that society. If you do not, you are infringing upon my rights.

Never read Swift, huh?

Is your only objection to this on libertarian grounds?

Hmm. I’m sure you didn’t mean to try to insult me there. Or make a snide aside. Again, my beliefs are my own and not your business. God doesn’t enter into it, unless you’re going to claim religious reasons for procreation.
pquote]You guys love to talk about how WE are the government. WE make all the decisions.
[/quote]
What part of “of the People, by the People, for the People” don’t you understand?

Duh. The majority agreed that slavery was acceptable. What’s your point? The majority currently think homosexuals shouldn’t be allowed to marry. Does that make it right?

My dictionary tells me that rights are granted by the government. Does your say differently?
Besides, who allows the Constitution to grant powers? It’s not magic, it’s not an overlord, it’s a document detailing how WE the PEOPLE want our Government to be run. IOW, it can, and has been changed.

Er, where? I don’t recall that bit. I was commenting on your lack of politeness.

Well, I would if A) you were correct and B) it were germane.

It’s only hypocrisy if:
I support abortion rights.
I support a woman’s right to her own body.

Again, since this is irrelevant, I’m not going to bother discussing it here–open a new thread. I will point out, however, that abortion affects the woman, while childbirth affects all of society.

So nice, I’ll say it twice–only until she reproduces. Then she is responsible to all of the people that child will ever interact with.

And Freedom, I’d appreciate a little less insult in the future. I enjoy talking to you, but I don’t have the time or the patience to listen to you call me names. You’re welcome to take it to the Pit if you must. Thanks.

(oh dear ghod, that didn’t sound too much like Phaedrus, did it?)

-andros-
gone for real this time–see yas!