Should having children be a right?

Great Debates
41

First DEFINE ABUSE.

Right now if you slap your child for mouthing off to you – slap not punch – in some areas you are considered an abuser.

In other areas if you touch your child forcefully, say like to keep him or her from going out late at night below the age of 14 to ‘hang with the boyz,’ you can be arrested for abuse.

If you are a male and bath with your child – a once common practice – above the age of one year old you can be arrested for abuse.

If you use almost any for of physical discipline on your child, in many States you can be considered an abuser.

42

Ow! My brain hurts now. OK, so you people think that there is a problem in allowing everyone to have kids, since some of them are bad parents? And to cure this, you propose instead of allowing all of us to make that decision for ourselves, society would be better off if you had to have society’s permission first?

Now you have to wonder how society will make these decisions. I’m thinking that it will implement a new bureaucracy to handle the licensing of pregnancies. So in order for peaceful, honest people (to borrow a phrase) to procreate, they must first be subjected to some sort of horrendous DMV-esque baby registry.

If the average person cannot be trusted to bring offspring into the world without society’s permission, the proplem is is too big for that anyways.

43

Damn! This is a good one!

I read the thread, twice, and have realized the problem I am having itn trying to formulate an answer. The problem is that Loki has asked us to do something almost impossible:

**
The problem is that the plausibility side of the issue is impossible to avoid.

God question, though!

Let me take a stab…

IF (<-- Big “if”)…
[list=1]
[li]There was a way to identify bad parents and[/li][li]we could effectively render them sterile[/li][/list=1]
it would be a benefit to the human race to do so.

But here’s the thing. Heinlein said (and I believe) that the only true sin is stupidity. Mother Nature is a stern teacher and is unforgiving of stupid sinners - What we need is to challenge ourselves again.

:dancing dangerously off topic:

I doubt that there were any child molesters in the wagon trains. Probably no rapists on Columbus’ ships. Challenge and risks are unattractive to scum like that. If we, as a people/race/whatever, could find a new frontier to occupy ourselves with, most societal problems would be left behind.

OK - I’m not sure if I’m still anywhere near the topic, but I feel better now. :wink:

44

Sentinel: Yep, this is what’s prompted my thoughts on the matter - situations like those you described, and worse.

Ptahlis: ONLY LOCAL ANASTHETIC?!?!? EEEEE!!! You sir, are a braver man than I.

Andros: Thanks for the support :slight_smile: I agree with everyone who’s saying that the really massive issue is deciding on the standard to use, and I admit that if done wrongly we’d have hell on earth (people only allowed one child, baby-detecting guards, and Christopher Lambert escaping from an underground prison), but I must say that everyone seems a little pessimistic - it doesn’t HAVE to be evil.

Bjorn: In my Official Loki Approved Standards For Parenting Permission, single parents are absolutely fine and dandy. Come on, with one of the most able and competent debaters on the board called SingleDad, do you think I could say it any other way? :wink: Plus, I also agree that this will never happen, or at least is highly unlikely.

PLDennison: I’ve never stated overpopulation as a cause for my breeding policies - I don’t think global overpopulation will ever become a really serious issue.

Glitch: Hmm. Tricky. How about:
The Loki Approved Test Of Child Abuse Potential

Name:

  1. Would you ever abuse your children or raise them incompetently?

How’s that? :slight_smile: Seriously, I can’t. I’m not a psychologist, I’ve got no training or schooling in any relevant fields. I’m a computer geek, plain and simple, and everything I know on pretty much any subject I’ve picked up through independant reading. So nope, I can’t. Would anyone with relevant training or knowledge like to come to my aid and speculate whether such a test would be possible?

Ptahlis: Totally. As a sort of sub-debate, would anyone disagree that convicted child molesters and rapists and so forth should be denied the right to procreate?

Sentinel: I’m not really sure what you’re getting at, since abuse is only one of the possible grounds for denial of birthing rights in my Lokian Nazi Utopia (or something), but I’d say use the current abuse standard. Whether or not the current abuse standard is wrong or not is irrelevant, as it’s already a problem (if that’s clear).

Waterj2: First of all, ‘you people’ seems to be about 3 people on the thread - so far I’m not winning the debate :wink: I’m not sure that assuming the baby registry process would be horrendous is really correct - maybe I’m seeing pessimism everywhere I look, but well… I’m seeing pessimism!! :slight_smile: (no offence). DMV is your vehicle registration department, yes? (I’m in Australia, here we have RTA). I don’t think the average person can’t be trusted to bring a child into society without permission, but I think you could say that there is a fairly large percentage of society that are just plain inadequate as parents. Maybe the problem is too big - do you have an alternate solution?

45

Andros said

To take a (dare we say it) Libertarian stand point on this - who says you have to feed my baby if I’m a crack addict and can’t care for it? As long as we’re messing with government policy, why not do away with the programs that make unwanted children a burden on the taxpayer?

The reason I say this is because I do think that having children is a right. I do believe that it is possible to forfeit this right (the convicted child molester, murderer, etc.). But I do not believe that this right should be revoked based on what someone thinks you might do or be like. Innocent until proven guilty. Unless you’ve committed some manner of crime that demonstrates you’re unfit to raise children, you should be allowed to have 'em. Obviously, this will result in some children becoming wards of the state when their parents prove their unfitness. But this already happens. The only real change that I think we could or should make is including castration as a portion of the punishment for certain convictions.

-ellis

46

Sorry to double-post, but there were two separate issues raised that I wanted to address.

This one is a bit of a hijack, so I will institute the appropriate tag.
[~hijack]

sailor said

I think, sailor, that you might like to take a look at an article written in Dec. 20th, 1997 issue of The Economist entitled “Plenty of Gloom.” I can’t link directly to the article, but if you go to the site, register (free), and access the archives, you should be able to find it. The article addresses the fact that “modern” scientists since Malthus have been making gloom and doom predictions about overpopulation, not a one of which has yet panned out.

It is a sound ecological principal that every ecosystem has a carrying capacity for each species in it. What this article is attempting to point out is that the human species has an incredible ability to alter this carrying capacity.

Not only this, but the “rate” to which you refer is diminishing. To again refer to The Economist (Dec. 31, 1999 “Herrings in a Barrel”), “Only in Africa is population growth still rampant…in many rich countries the birth rate has now fallen so low that the population is actually shrinking.” The article makes the point that, as population dynamics demand, the human population would continue to grow where the entire race to begin practicing ZPG practices (2 kids per couple) immediately, to approximately 8.9 billion in 2050 (from the same Economist article, but the figure is the UN’s).

In short, I don’t think that governmental pressures are necessary. As countries develop, their population growth is naturally falling off. If (and I realize that that is an “if” I just typed) this trend continues, we continue to increase the Earth’s carrying capacity, and we manage to bring the nation into some manner of industrial parity, we shouldn’t have much of a problem.

And, of course, if we ever manage to get off the Earth…

-ellis

[/~hijack]

47

Sdimbert: I’ve already revised my admittedly rather pointless stance on the specifics of the policies - I’m happy to try and defend those now :slight_smile:

‘Damn! This is a good one!’ Really??! Ya mean it? pride Thanks :slight_smile:

But I agree with your statement on the pioneers (whatever wagon trains are - I’m not too au fait with US history, are these like explorers of the US or something?), I think that if we did have some sort of new frontier to break, what you present would happen. Quickly, to Mars!

48

waterj2:

And one can apply that to anything society prohibits. (And I’m still waiting for *Lib to come in and tell me there’s no such thing as “society.” ;))

It can be argued that violence is nearly as much a biological imperative as procreation. Yet we limit violence. Hell, we limit sex already.

ellis:

Well, actually, you do:

Even in Libertaria, I have to pay. Lovely.

Folks, just to be a little more explicit, I fully realize the futility of arguing for basic competency tests for creating new members of society. Really, I do. But I want one thing out of this. Only one. Should be easy, but nobody managed to answer it the last time I went 'round on this topic.

Somebody please tell me WHY parenthood is a RIGHT.

49

Ahem :slight_smile:
From http://www.m-w.com:

**

50

For those who assert the “empty space” idea (i.e. I see a lot of trees and grass around me, what’s the prob?)…Our capacity to survive isn’t necessarily predicated upon sufficient living space. Hell look at Tokyo. It’s about resources. The most dramatic photos I have seen concerning this are of the Caspian Sea. Those nifty satellites up yonder show it as being a huge blue splotch about 20 years ago. Photos about from a few years ago show it being a blue splotch…that’s much much much smaller. The towns around it are ghost towns covered in sand. The docks that fed those towns are dry and there is no water for hundreds of miles, etc…

Also note that the area of the world that has one of the highest birth rates is in Palestine/Israel. To compete with each other both govts encouraged people to have as many kids by giving them money for reaching a certain number. Now the biggest issue there isn’t whose a jew/muslim/christian, but who gets the water rights.

This is what makes me believe that there will be regulations on the number of progeny we can shoot out. I doubt it will have anything to do with personal parenting potential.

51

Sdimbert: Oh! I figured that much - I thought wagon trains meant a specific occurence of wagon trains in history, like… uhh… cough other similar terms cough.

52

Just for the record…

:ahem: From College of the Siskiyous:

Check the sig…

53

andros -

Sorry to have been confusing in my post. I was attempting to give the first paragraph from a Libertarian view point - I shouldn’t have to support your crack baby. The second paragraph was supposed to be my point of view - I will support your first crack baby, but you sure as hell aren’t going to have a second one.

In other words, I personally do believe that you, as a member of society, should have to support some children. I do not believe that this gives you, as a member of society, the right to remove the right to procreation from those who have not demonstrated any criminal lack of fitness to be a parent (more on why later). I don’t believe in a fully libertarian society; sorry if you disagree. I hope that this clears up your confusion with my post.

Now, about the “right” to having children. I believe that you have the right to do anything that does not harm others. I therefore believe that you do not have the right to restrict my actions unless I am harming others. Ipso ergo, if I have not committed any manner of crime, you have no right to limit my procreation. Once I have demonstrated that I am harming others, you can infringe on my rights to procreation, but, until that time, you best back off. Hope that sufficiently addresses your question; I’m sure you’ll let me know if it doesn’t.

-ellis

54

China right now might be something of an example in that they have a current law that prohibits more than one child being born in families – though exceptions can be made if one has enough money, power and political and social ‘use.’ They have the ‘baby’ police and unauthorized pregnant women have been rounded up by the law and aborted. Women who have not been caught in time have been arrested and their newborn ‘vanishes’.

Some years back I read, in Readers Digest, a condensed story from a Chinese Woman who fled China after becoming pregnant illegally and she was a doctor there. Once the authorities discovered she was with child, her requests for exemption were denied and they took her baby.

If such a requirement as to have prospective parents get a license to have children put in place here, a way to not only enforce this would be needed – which no matter what would violate civil rights and there would always be those who while either failing the test or choosing not to take it, would have babies anyhow and have to be dealt with.

That could get messy.

55

Sounds basically fair, but leaves some unanswered questions.

  1. How long does the sterilization last? Is this to be a life sentence then? Does the sentence (one for all life) fit the crime at that point in a consistent manner with other felonies?

  2. Assuming that it would not be a life sentence, then presumably we are going to throw them in jail (I know I am living in a dream world ;)) so they won’t be having kids anyway. So, what need is there for sterilization, just lock 'em up.

  3. Is it fair to apply this to child abusers and not other serious criminals. And by this I mean “you have committed crime X, therefore we will remove the ability for you to commit crime X in the future”. Should we give a lobotomy to mastermind computer hackers? Cut off the hands of thieves? Yes, I know this is the slippery slope argument, but why, in your opinion, does this apply to child abusers and not other criminals?

56

Hmmm – a lobotomy to Mastermind Computer Hackers – let me think, ----- (reflecting on all of the viruses out there, all of the mayhem created by hackers breaking into computer systems ‘just for fun’, all of the deliberate problems created by hackers which costs us a few million yearly and the many, many pissed off PC owners who have to fork over tons of cash to get their systems reworked after a hacker screwed them up (and many just barely being able to afford it) ---- I think YES!

Either that or tie them to some post and let everyone pissed off at them take a whack at them with a caneing rod.

No!- NO! Amputate their fingers!

Dress them up like a girl and throw them into the worst prison we have for a night - amongst the inmates.

Wait – is drawing and quartering still legal somewhere?

Depending on their race – make them walk through the worst minority high crime section in the States with a BIG sign stating that they hate (whoever the minority is) and see if they come out the other side – reasonably alive.

NO, wait – wait! Get a Hollywood makeup crew to color them Black and find the biggest, nastiest KKK meeting and drop them in the middle of it with a sign stating they hate Whites.

(Would’ja think I sort of dislike hackers?)

57

I hope I’m not hi-jacking here, but is it true that in China you can legally have only one child? If so, why is there not an outcry against this? Isn’t China MostFavoredNation?
I’ll just agree with the people who say you should be allowed to have children if you want.
I have noticed, however, that the more religious a person is, the more children they do have.
A former church friend has 12 at last count. She is 36.

58

My, my, how quickly we hand over our freedoms. Just to state the obvious: If you determine that someone else does not have the right to have a child, you’re basically determining that you don’t either. Are you guys sure you want to make this determination?

Andros:

I submit that this falls under Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Teletubbies. Either you can say that your body is your property, and that you have the right to impregnate it (if possible), or you can say that this is part of the “pursuit”, as it does not, as far as I can tell, directly violate the rights of any existing people. As to unconceived children, I would say that they are, at best, theoretical people, and, thus, have no rights.

ellis555:

To me, this is starting to get really close. If you take away my right to have a child because I will abuse it, you have thrown most of our freedoms out the window. In most free society’s, the notion is to punish people only if they have done something wrong. Someone who has not yet abused their child has not done anything wrong: It is pushishment without a crime.

What if someone has beaten their children in the past? Does it then make sense to keep them from having children? I assume the logic is that you are preventing them from continuing to commit crimes. I submit that this is going too far. The crime was not in having the child. The crime was in abusing the child.

We do not prevent drunk-driving offenders from buying alcohol or from purchasing cars. We do not prevent people who abuse their wives from remarrying. We do not prevent former muggers from owning knives.

This is all because we value freedom. If you value freedom, you do not support punishing people for a crime that they have not committed. In fact, if you really value freedom, you do not try to restrain people from committing crimes. You create punishments that encourage them to choose not to commit crimes.

59

Ummmm sdimbert…I’m not quite sure what you meant to prove with this reference. I did say specifically that Palestine/Israel had ONE OF THE HIGHEST birth rates. Never said it had THE HIGHEST. In fact you little quotation mentions GAZA…which is where? Palestine methinks…

PS Palau has 16,000 people. A birth rate of 220/1000 means something signiicantly different for a population that small than it does for places where there are hundreds of thousands or millions of people.

60

ellis:

Gotcha. My bad.

:snort: No, I in no way support pure libertarianism.

Here’s the nub. If, as I believe, unrestricted breeding by all persons, regardless of economic or emotional capability, harms others, then I do have the right to restrict breeding. I’ve seen too many kids born with addictions, fetal alcohol syndrome, problems stemming form low birthweight (as a direct result of parental responsibility), etc. ad nauseum to accept that dropping sprogs willy-nilly is harmless to me or to society at large.

As an example, lets go back to drug addictions. For the moment I’ll stick to booze. Alcohol is legal in the US for those over 21 years of age. Provided a person does not drive while drunk, or otherwise harm or risk harming anyone else, there are no problems with that person drinking as much as (s)he wants, right? Now let’s assume that person is a pregnant woman. Still no problem–the developing fetus is hers, I accept that without reservation. Then the kid is born, and he’s (pardon the expression) a freak. Classic FAS. Do we let the kid die when the mother can’t afford the hospital bills? No, of course not, because we as a society have decided that we should keep the kid alive. I agree with that–despite some of the names I’ve been called, I do not support letting people starve or die from lack of medical attention. But that kid will be expensive throughout his life, and the medical evidence strongly suggests that the kid has very little chance of growing up to be a healthy and productive member of society. And it could have been prevented.

:smiley: I’m not that pushy, am I?
On to Smartass:

:rolleyes:

How is this obvious? I’ve (read: society has) determined that anyone who can’t pass the test can’t legally drive. I’ve determined that anyone who has hepatitis can’t serve me food in a restaurant. I’ve determined that someone cannot dump a load of garbage in the middle of the freeway. And any number of examples that have in common a real or potential cost to society (and therefore to me).

Please, explain to me how having babies is different. (I’m not trying to be a jerk, I’m actually serious.)

Ok. No problem so far. But the problems arise when the pregnancy is over and the resulting child gains his own rights to L, L, and tPoH. Wouldn’t you say that a crackbaby (or even a kid whose parents cannot afford a clean home and good food) has had his right to life a bit infringed?

What doesn’t? Being pregnant? Absolutely. Having a kid? If that kid costs me money, then your pursuit of offspring has indeed violated my rights.

Nothing to add, I just love that line. :slight_smile: