Should people be screened & certified 2 make babies?

Great Debates
21

Thing is, looking at it completely dispassionately, it seems like a good idea; we already quite ruthlessly selectively breed things like, say chickens and carrots for favourable characteristics, so why not humans?

I believe the answer to this question is the same as the answer to the question “Why is it OK to slice up chickens and carrots and cook them for dinner but so wrong to slice up humans and fry them for lunch?”

I think there’s also a significant element of the cure being worse than the disease; these “tax-sucking, crime-committing monsters” that the OP seems to see everywhere (and judging from the tone of the post, I suspect slaps this label on anyone and everyone that happens to piss him off even slightly) - these undesirable people are humans - you can’t destroy them in the name of bettering the human race, they are the human race

22

The problem, in my mind, is not that human beings have an inalienable right to reproduce that no government can morally oppose whatsoever. I think that’s absolute rubbish. People have no special absolute right to reproduce. We, as a society, don’t even consider the right to keep your children after you’ve created them to be inviolable. Children are routinely taken from their parents if those parents are deemed abusive or negligent.

The problem is that there is no known way of implementing such a system as the OP proposes so that it will be even remotely effective, fair, and cost effective.

The obvious question to ask first is, “What determines what makes a good parent?” It would be easy to go too far in making this decision. Some would argue that any parent who would raise their child in the “wrong” religion should not be allowed to reproduce. Some would argue that any parent who would raise their child to follow any religion should not be allowed to reproduce. Some would say any parent who circumcises their child should lose the right to become a parent. Some would say any parent who is gay should never be allowed to raise any child at all, whether or not it is theirs biologically. And so on.

But that’s somewhat misleading, isn’t it? After all, some can argue this, some can argue that, but as a society we already do have a system for removing children from certain parents. We generally do this only as a last resort and in the most extreme cases. So far as I know, children are not removed from their parents because of religion, race, or orientation. So why would things be any different before those kids are born?

But now we have to decide, before a child is born, whether their parents are going to be the worst of the worst. How the heck can we tell that? There can certainly be some warning signs, but there’s only one thing that I know of which is a truly reliable indicator: whether or not they are currently terrible, awful parents. If they have five kids they can’t take care of now, they probably won’t be able to take care of a sixth.

I therefore wouldn’t have any problems with making it illegal for certain people to reproduce - but only in those cases where it has been made abundantly clear that they cannot raise their children worth a damn. This is significantly different from the proposal in the OP, however, in that it is reactive and not proactive. We’re not trying to figure out who will be a bad parent; we’re looking around for bad parents and then telling them to stop reproducing.

23

Hey All! Sorry for not having gotten back sooner.

Okay, no; my idea has nothing to do with wiping out one race or another. I abhor racism and so skin color would make no difference to decide on who’s fit and who isn’t fit to be a Parent.

I should have said (as I mentioned in a recent post) that my own parents were about as irresponsible as two people could be. Without going into the details, let’s just say that as a conscientious person I try to do what my limited resources will permit me to do as a way to atone for them for having placed on the American tax payers the burden of having to feed and clothe me and my siblings for several years when we were kids growing up.

So I hope that this little admission will cause you to at least know that I’m not coming to this means of dealing with a most serious problem as some kind of a neo Nazi or something, but rather as someone that experienced first-hand the shame and pain of having been tossed into such a complex, dangerous and competitive world by two human beings that just didn’t have a clue. (It’s actually a bit more complicated than that, but you get the general idea.)

Also, I am well aware that “my idea” has been around for a long time. But the fact that it has is neither here nor there. I’ve been to a third world country, and believe me it’s a pretty dog-gone eye-opening experience to see so many people crowded into an area like sardines! I saw a river that was so polluted that one could not see any water, just a river of garbage that twisted about as far as the eye could see but with no movement or life. It was horrible!

Not long after I wrote my post, I was listening to one of my favorite radio talk show guys, and he referenced a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle that stated that a welfare lady just gave birth to her THIRD SET OF TWINS!

When I heard him say that I couldn’t help but feel a little better about writing my post in the tone that I did. Because without sounding like a broken record, folks, there REALLY IS a problem with too many people that are taking the same moronic path that my own parents took, and it is WRONG. It’s time to stop being polite with these people and start telling them, among other things, that it (supposedly) costs nearly $270-thousand to raise a child until it’s 18.

For those of you that still feel strongly about everyone having the right to procreate, let me mention to you just two examples of actual “parenting” that I read about in the news (even though you’ve no doubt read hundreds of similar accounts).

Oh, maybe around 18-years ago, it was reported that parents of a toddler living in Houston, Texas, I think it was, decided that they’d like to get their hands on some big money. So, the young couple decided that the best way to go about doing this was to collect on an insurance scam. While the mother held the baby in her arms, the father carefully poured Drano (a liquid pipe cleaner) down the throat of the baby! The baby died an agonizing death 3-days later.

In another incident involving a person that had the right to make a baby, a “mother” decided to unstop her toilet by picking her baby up by its ankles and began using it as a toilet plunger!

And let’s not forget Susan Smith of South Carolina, another great parent. You may recall that she and her husband had split and so because she felt that her two young boys were hindering her in her desire to have a potential suitor take an interest in her, she decided to concoct a BS story about some black guy supposedly car-jacking her, and then driving off with her two babies. A week or so later she confessed that she drove her car into a lake, and thus the authorities found her dead children in the car at the bottom of a lake.

But everyone has the right to make babies, right? Sure they do. Sure. Of course.

As far as the question of criteria goes, let’s just for now agree that there’s a need to revamp our thinking on the issue. And then from there permit bright compassionate people to figure out the general details and then present them to the general public to hash out and vote on how the ultimate formula should look. (I could lay a lot out myself, but am in need of sleep at the moment.)

Lastly, someone stated that it would never work because nothing ever works when the government gets involved. For the most part that’s true. However, those folks that have been handing out the food stamps and welfare checks have done a solid job for many decades, so maybe they could take control of the hands-on operations of this plan and make it work, no?

Oh, one other thing. YES – be proactive! Be VERY proactive!!

24

Cherry-picking extreme examples like that does nothing to support your case - which isn’t about dealing with the extremes, it’s about dealing with everyone.

And crikey. Ranting doesn’t help either.

25

We could start with the blacks and the Jews. Move on to Arabs next.

26

Why do you make a comment like this?

27

Actually, if you read some of the leading lights of the eugenics movement, and actually study the legislation as it was enforced in most Western countries, the focus of this “enlightened” social movement was the reduction of the number of “feeble-minded” individuals (namely criminals, moral deviants and the mentally retarded) in society. The fact that these people were seen to be concentrated in certain races was seen by eugenicists as coincidental - and indeed, states like Virginia did not discriminate when it came to sterilizing its mentally retarded citizens. It merrily did so for black and white ones alike.

The similarity to the sentiments expressed by the OP is striking. The fact that this was used to justify unbelievable suffering should trouble him, but it doesn’t seem to.

We have basically lived through this nightmare already. This history is well documented. I guess the OP either is completely ignorant of it or likes it just fine.

Sickening, either way.

28

Are you even aware of the sickening uses your sentiments have been put to over the years?

Let me cue you in to something - those bad parents you want not to breed seldom are found exactly evenly distributed among all of the races and religions of the world. Imagine that. :dubious:

Also, when governments seriously get down to business on this, they either get lazy on the measuring or just toss out the measurements altogether and just shoot for their real targets all along.

Could be Hutus. Could be Tutsis. Lots of times it’s Jews.

29

The government of Canada as recently as the 1930s was performing forced sterilization on the western Native Americans, affectionately referred to by the local populace as ‘Chugs’.

30

Such as: What is the punishment for having unauthorized children? Is the state going seize them and put them into foster care? Or just put them to death?

31

As I said, clip them early and there’ll be no babies. No babies, no punishment.

32

And so therefore what?

33

I missed the part where you advocated forcible sterilization. I’d rather raise taxes until our eyeballs bleed and pay welfare to every lazy neer’do’well who wants it. That America is far preferable to yours.

34

I love (most) Jews. :slight_smile:

35

The criteria for choosing who gets to breed and who does not changes periodically, not very long ago it was about wiping out other tribes. You know salting Carthage.

36

Next time you are at the DMV, I want you to imagine that you are waiting to get screened to see whether you are qualified to have a baby. When you see the blank look in their eyes that says, “I don’t care whether your car ever get registered or not.”, imagine they are thinking that about your right to breed.

37

Not just your right to breed. Your right to have them not cut you up and tie your tubes.

38

Are you kidding? They are the first ones we would sterilize! Obviously, the law-abiding, healthy, smart, decent and balanced people are the ones who will make that decision.

39

Nope. It would be like teachers. One of society’s most important duties trusted to imbeciles.

40

GuyNblueJeabs, I will take your argument seriously, and I will do it without insulting you, and without mentioning the obvious similarities between your beliefs and those of the Nazis and numerous other historical monsters.

You begin by declaring that “90% of the world’s ills are due to screwed-up people having kids.” Obviously this statement means nothing at all until you can say (1) what the world’s ills are (2) which 90% you’re referring to and (3) how you judge a person to be “screwed up”. Until then, it’s pretty much a waste of time to discuss whether we agree with your beliefs, because it’s not even clear that you have specific beliefs.

You list crime and welfare as ills, repeating each three times for reasons known only to yourself you claim. You claim that almost all criminals can be traced back to people who weren’t fit to raise corn. (Exactly how one judge’s a person’s fitness to raise corn you leave unexplained.) In any case, your statement about criminals and their backgrounds is a lie, so we need not worry about that any longer.

As for welfare, most welfare is corporate welfare. If you could prove that multi-billionaire CEOs were all raised by unfit parents, you might have a case. Otherwise, you don’t.

Then you proceed to say that the “law-abiding, healthy, smart, decent and balanced people are the ones that ought to make the babies.” Well, let’s consider that. Law-abiding is a tough bar to reach. Anyone who runs a red light, smokes pot, or carries an undeclared magazine across national borders is not law-abiding, so by that standard no one could ever have a baby. Smart is relative; one person’s genius is another person’s idiot. Decent is also relative; I imagine even you’d agree to that. Balanced doesn’t mean anything until you tell us what conditions you want your parents balanced between. As for health, it’s ambiguously defined, transitory, and it’s unclear why you would want parents to be healthy.

I think it’s fairly obvious why this is. Having kids is a necessary and natural part of life, while running a beauty salon isn’t. You need a license to operate a hot dog stand, but you don’t need a license to eat.

No.

You can drop the “maybe”.

If not being a genocidal police state is being PC, then we can all agree that PC-ness is a good thing.

That’s what they all say.

Volunteering to have a crime committed against yourself does not justify committing the same crime against others.

Next you go on to say that you’re not a neo-nazi, not racist, don’t hate Jews or Blacks, etc… But consider: you’re willing to let the authorities commit genocide and trust them to only commit it against those who, in your view, deserve it. So what’s to guarantee that the authorities won’t use race-based qualifications to decide who survives and who doesn’t?

Next you move on to your personal experiences. You refer to your own “shame and pain” at your own circumstances. But shame and pain are natural parts of all humans lives. Most people get over them without demanding that they be inflicted on other people. You should too.

On to the mysterious, unnamed third world country with garbage in the river. Committing genocide in response to a garbage-filled river seems to me like a bit of an overreaction. Cleaning up the river seems more appropriate, not to mention much cheaper. In any case, the United States is not a third-world country, so that’s irrelevant to a discussion of our policy.

  1. Radio talk show hosts are not widely known for their truthfulness and honesty. 2. The fact that people exercise a right multiple times does not mean that the right is wrong. 3. I also dislike it when you sound like a broken record, so at least we’re in agreement on something. 4. Repeatedly claiming that there’s a problem won’t create a problem. 5. If you want to tell people that having kids is expensive, be my guest, though you’ll likely find that everyone knows it already. I’m okay with that; it’s the genocide I disagree with.

Now on to your list of anecdotes. Argument by anecdote is so intellectually lazy that I won’t bother answering it, especially since others already have. But I’ll point out one thing: consider Susan Smith. At the time she gave birth, wasn’t she generally healthy and smart and everything else you want in a parent? So according to your bizarre logic, wouldn’t she be one of the few people who is permitted to have kids?

No.

  1. Bright compassionate people would agree that everyone has the right to have children. Anyone who does otherwise is neither bright nor compassionate. 2. The United States has no mechanism for bringing such a vote on a nationwide scale. 3. What you propose is unconstitutional, so it can’t be implemented at any level of government. 4. There’s no reason to bother voting on a proposal that would only be supported by one person, and opposed by all decent people.

Believe me, I will.

Also, if you’d like to see your ideas debunked at greater length, G. K. Chesterton kindly wrote a book with the self-explanatory title Eugenics and Other Evils. Enjoy!