the right to bear children

Should people be regulated to have children only when they can afford it? What does that mean? How would it be determined? Should society pay money to raise children when the parents cannot afford it? Why or why not?

I realize this is likely to be a flammable topic but it was kind of started here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5568619#556864

It was a small subthread in a much longer item and I thought it was interesting. I hope we can talk, debate and even argue without too much hostility because I was really interested in what people had to say.

(Should people be regulated to have children only when they can afford it?)

If thats was the case, most of us wouldn't be here.

Who would make that determination?

the great depression, they all survived...amazing fortitude back then.

My dad told me a story about how his family made it to TX.

In the 20's they were farmers in Kansas. Depression and drought ran them out. My grandfather and his brother rode a horse drawn wagon from Selina Kansas down to Breckenridge TX ( about 600 miles ), where they found jobs in the oil fields. They worked in TX for 4 months, then rode the wagon backup to Selina, loaded their family ( 14 people total ) onto the wagon, then took them back to Breckenridge. In my office theres a picture my grandmother gave me. It's a picture of their house in Selina, it's a picture of their house 3 days before they left. There wasn't a green tree or bush in sight, the sand had blown into drifts that went all the way up to the eves on the western side of their 600 sq-ft non-insulated wooden house.

Thats just one story, theres many thousand more.

And we think we have it tough. LOL

have it tough is pretty funny sometimes...

My great grandfather hunted for food and considering refrigernation was not an option for most folks, he gave much out to neighbors, neighbors helping each other, it was much more prominent back then, and not done for the cameras, amazing difference than todays show of giving...

There were big family's back then, birth control wasn't available.
My dad had 6 brothers, He and my mom had 6 kids, losing one at birth.

Whats funny is, Myself and my 2 sisters only had one child, my 2 brothers having 2 each. Although raised in a large family we all chose to keep ours small.

I mean, that'd certainly cut down on poverty, yeah? :eyes:

Sterlize the poor, minorities and the handicapped.

-- I mean making people wait to have kids till they can afford it -- but would be a total nightmare in its implementation. Would you have enforced abortions for poor people? Yipes!

And yes, I'm in favor of old-fashioned welfare: single parents with no or little other income should receive a stipend to raise the children. It might "reward" behavior some don't like, but the alternative is children being raised in poverty.

They just couldn't have sex (no contraception either).

I'm sure the Church and FBI would come up with a way to enforce the "no sex" rule... (chastity belts?)

I would love to see parenting classes offered to all new parents, though. It would cut down on a lot of abuse if the parents knew some behavior was normal and didn't have anything to do with them, personally.

middle income people. People like me who make too much for public assistance and whose insurance (until recently) did not cover maternity much less well-woman care (I work in a man-dominated field with few women professionals.) I could not affford to pay off a $15,000 to $25,000 hospital bill for a c-section delivery.

when we got pregnant last year with our daughter, we were sitting pretty - now she'll be a year end of Jan and I'm about to lose my job and finances are so tight you couldn't pass a fart through...
My son four yrs ago on insurance - $200.00
My daughter this yr on insurance - $1200.00
My anger and frustration with the Bush administration - Priceless

my husband and I would like to have children, but no health insurance, and we can't get any help because of our income level (middle income.)A large hospital bill would destroy us.

We manage to own our own home, and have a car, but we scrape by. Sometimes even waiting for calls from the bill collector before we pay them. We haven't had a raise in two years, and I have had to pick up a second job. Somebody please tell me where the economy is good, because I'll move there.

there are a couple of options - one is a birth center that is staffed by np's and certified midwives - they have emergency equipment and are overseen by full doctors, but are less expensive than hospital. And the atmosphere is more "homelike" and less "medical".

I don't know if anybody is still doing it (my kids are teens) but I had mine at home with a midwife - it was about $1200 (late 80's we are talking) for prenatal, birth and followup. If you are not at risk this is a GREAT way to have a baby, but it takes a certain personality and is not for everyone.

I DO qualify for more assistance but don't really need it and the paperwork is SUCH a nightmare I refuse. And for anybody that says its easy to get welfare I freaking DARE them to try. It is NOT easy, it is humiliating.

I have had to ask for help on a couple of medical emergencies. You want to really stir up trouble? - qualify for lots of stuff but only ask for one thing! They just can't handle it - another welfare queen myth debunked by personal experience. Its just easier to take whatever they give you than just what you need!

Families are cut off after two years.

Children still get Medicaid though, until they are eighteen but assistance is cut off after two years due to welfare reform. Adults do not get any medical coverage, ever, unless they are pregnant, or disabled for 6 months or more.

Programs, like free lunch for kids and food stamps are being slashed making it even more difficult for those in poverty, particularly, single moms with young children, but still can't make it with daycare costs and other bills.

One million plus more people fell into poverty, last year alone. For them, it IS a problem.

It sounds like it is approaching an area of genetic engineering, where a master race is to be created and only people with certain characteristics are born, like high intelligence parents, blue eyes and so on.

But I do think limiting the number of kids like China does has some merit.

so that pretty much says it all. People have the right to make their own reproductive decisions.

and yes, society needs to suck it up and make sure people of all ages are all taken care of, whether they are born to poor or negligent parents, whether they work for negligent companies, whether they squandered their savings before they hit retirement age, whether the pregnancy was planned, unplanned, or the result of rape.

We had to go to the clinic 3 times last year. Radicals just want control over our decisions.

who can have children and how many. Having said that, I do wish more people would put more thought into having children rather than me hearing them afterwards complaing about how hard it is to raise them or how expensive it is. It should be something you really think about, not do and then think about it. But no, I don't want laws regulating it. That turned out to be a disaster in China and besides, its wrong.

(and I see moslty just a nightmare trying to implement something, no matter how good the intentions would be)

A lot of rules and regulations tend to be punitive based on after-the-fact sorts of actions. Could there be a way to create the conditions to reward or encourage more "responsible" reproducive behavior? I suppose this goes right to the abortion debate as well, but what sort of enticements to NOT get pregnant could be created rather than punishing (or rewarding) those that do?

all adults wanting to become parents. At the very least, the government should instruct parent-wannabes what constitutes child abuse and what legal but effective disciplinary options they have to control their children humanely.

Parent-wannabes should be required to do a "residency" with disabled children as well as with non-disabled ones to see if they really want to be parents and to better prepare them for life as a parent. Too many parent-wannabes have a naive sense of what it takes to be a parent. The ones who become overwhelmed take out their frustrations on the rest of us, especially us child-free folks who had the good sense to know that we didn't want to become parents in the first place.

My parents waited to become parents until after they had saved enough to buy a house. My mom was 28 and my dad was 34 when they had my eldest brother.

The parent types I abhor are those who keep having children but know they can't afford them. The other kinds of parents I abhor are those who have in vitro and the mothers jam their wombs with embryos hoping to break the record books or get on TV by have multiple babies at once. These kinds of parents are child abusers.

but not on the basis of whether you have enough income, that's way too subjective, among other things. But I would require parenting classes--essentially one would have to be licensed. I would also prohibit people with certain criminal records from being licensed: people with records of child abuse and/or neglect, rape, drug and alcohol abuse (until successfully rehabbed), first degree murder, maybe some others I haven't thought of.

And yes, I'm aware it's totally unworkable. Our culture would never accept such a thing.

I turn to my friend Mr. Smith to answer the question:

http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.

he says that fetuses don't have enough meat on them, and there's too much gristle :)

to have me, but they did anyway. Somehow we managed to get by.

It's not very often that anyone is forcibly denied to ability to have kids. I mostly hear it regarding the mentally disabled, or in rumors from massively overpopulated dictatorships (which usually want MORE kids, not less.)

But ask any couple who have chosen to NOT bear kids about the flack they get from all sides. Wannabe grandparents, siblings, friends and coworkers, fellow churchgoers, Even neo-racial supremicists. EVERYONE feels uninhibited about lambasting a couple who choses to not have kids.

Howabout the right of childless couple to get the equivelent of maternity/paternity leave? Paid daycare? Reduced per-person insurance costs? Tax reductions? It goes on and on.

end :rant:

Oh yeah I'm getting rich of having children. :eyes: I have no more insurance because the rates more than tripled for my family in the last 5 years. Paid daycare. Yeah right, try to squeeze that out of the government. Your rant basically says you deserve the extra money that the government gives you to help raise children without the burden of raising children. That makes perfect sense to me. :eyes:

I worked at a site that provided subsidized daycare for its employees pre-school aged kids. With no kids I could not make use of that benefit, yet you can be sure my salary took a hit to pay for it.

My insurance likely costs the same as yours would, if you only had yourself and a spouse. And mine has become more expensive over the years as well. However, if you look at your insurance you'll see that adding each of your kids costs less than adding your spouse. Yet, kids are pretty expensive, medically. How does that work, unless people without kids are footing the bills?

When you take maternity/paternity leave, SOMEONE is working extra hours to cover the workload. That's me, a salaried employee with almost no overtime benefits.

I'm not saying you are getting rich. I'm not saying you have it easy. In fact, most of the time I don't complain, as I'd rather our society help its parents raise well adjusted, well edjucated, well loved children. You've taken on a tough assignment with kids, one of the toughest.

But I wish someone would acknowlege that childless couples are footing some of the expense too, rather than accusing us of being deadbeat, non-contributary leeches on society.

(Edited. I recalled that the daycare I mentioned a former employer provided was subsidized, not free. My bad.)

in my second post - how could you create conditions that rewarded the decision to NOT reproduce that wouldn't be punitive to others?

Maybe the standard deductions on income tax could be fiddled with - although the view that not getting those deductions is a punishment is a matter of perspective.

They are giving overtime or extra shifts to "so and so" because they have children to feed? I had that happen once before working for myself, I told her, "ok, and I've got a big screen TV to buy." I'm sure this happens to hourly workers who are childfree all the time.

is eliminate the dependent deduction. If you want to have 15 children, at the very least I think the government should not have to subsidize that decision with tax-breaks.

Whether or not to forbid people from having more than 2 children is a thornier question. I personally don't have a problem with it in principle. The practicalities of how it would be enforced are unclear to me.

And if so, what becomes of all the children who have yet to be adopted? State-sanctioned placement?

And many single moms didn't actually plan to be single with children. Stuff happens that we can't control.

What if kids are taken away because the family is homeless, then the parents start doing better, do they get the kids back?

I think there are better ways to help people with a hand up when they need it. I believe some kind of welfare can help, but I also believe those who are able should work. Help with housing, jobs, education, child care, food, and health care can keep families together and people productive and in the middle class. A strong middle class contributes to the common good and enhances our nation's security and prosperity.

Deciding who may or may not have children is very close to being able to decide who must or must not. The government is the last entity to decide such personal issues.

... that includes transfer to the public some significant percentage of the poverty that children would otherwise inherit! How's that for "revenue neutral"?

:shrug:

You do NOT have the right to have 25 kids. There are *way* to many people in the world, and as far as I'm concerned by having to many kids is a form of abuse to the children, as well as an infringement on the rights of other existing people to have a quality life. While every couple (or partnership or individual) has a right to children, to say that right extends to having a right to as many kids as you want is crazy.

At this point in the world each extra person is degrading the quality of life for everyone else just by existing. It's horrible, but true. To think that your right to fertilize every last egg of yours, or that all your spermies deserve an egg, as much as you can, regardless of the consequences is crazy.

What do you suggest forced abortions?

from an accredited university, assets over $750,000 and a fenced-in yard should be allowed to procreate. :eyes:

Of course, soon, there will be absolutely nobody to do any actual WORK.


Seriously, what I do wish is that we had to take something or eat something in order to become fertile rather than the opposite.....

Anyway, Government shouldn't be telling people how many kids to have - but we could, I suppose, set a limit on how many kids Government will subsidize before attaching some serious restrictions on public assistance.....

We do quite well. My bil says that any family that makes a combined income of under $250,000 is poor. Who would actually make the guidelines? When you make $30,000 you think that $50,000 is wealthy. One of the best families I know are quite poor economically but they don't know it. Both parents came from welfare families and both work at menial jobs but to them they are doing very well. They are fantastic parents. Who is to say?

I just like to use ......:eyes: instead of ......:sarcasm: ........


I was born as my Dad was starting his Bachelor's degree after four years in the Marines. We were a broke student family all through my Pop getting his PhD....

So, I agree wholeheartedly with you and, were I not being facetious, would have posted something similar to your post....

sure it would be good for the government to pay for the children..... but in times like these we wouldnt exactly want to "go for broke" as far as how to calculate the cost just add up all the food, water, TP, etc the kid would need untill he is of the age to get a job.

but then if you turn on any channle your likely to see an economy built on loans, even for a lazy boy they advertise the price in a loan.

and only after passing a parenting test and getting licensed could would-be parents get a pill or something that would allow them to get pregnant.

just because you CAN have a baby doesn't mean you SHOULD have a baby (or 20)

I don't believe the government should have anything to do with whether, if, how, when, and who has kids. It is one inalienable freedom that should not be messed with.

Once we start requiring classes, then we can require the IQ and/or means to take the class. Next would come genetic screening. We freak when Indiana tries to keep gay folks from doing invitro..or for that matter, anyone not married. So no way can we agree to make having children an earned right. Because who do we give our power to? George Bush? The Supreme Court? The Church?

No, this is one area that needs to stay comletely random, otherwise we have a test tube society.

say early high school - but NOT as a prerequisite to reproduction - just as a general education requirement - like an enhanced health class or something.

I know lots of high schools have it as an alternative/optional class but why not require it?

I think to get out of high school you should have to take a life skills class. No question there.

And I think perhaps in order to receive, say, public assistance or teenage pregnancy services in the school district the same requirement.

Better what we have now than any restrictive alternative

In any decent society wealth should have no bearing on the ability to have children. However, social and environmental responsibility should figure greatly. Humanely achieving population stabilization and then shrinkage to reach carrying capacity is the greatest challenge of our day.

As to whether any given individual should be regulated I can only say this; I have had a surprisingly large number of people tell me that if they had it to do over they wouldn't have had children. Considering how fucked up their kids are(many of them), hindsight is indeed golden. As stated above, there ought to be a test but how you'd pull that off is beyond me too.

Women who are given the means of controlling their fertility and that is birth control and sometimes abortion will limit their families to what they can afford. Studies have been done that indicate this. Also, giving a woman even a rudimentary education will increase her chances of having fewer children.

But we should never legislate such a thing. There will always be CPS.

However I do get peeved when I end up footing the bill for people's irresponsible choices, particularly when one of the reasons I have chosen not to have kids is because I know darn well I cannot afford to.

Case in point. Two of my recent coworkers that have come through one of my agencies have had four children each with their boyfriends. Woman #2 came in to the job 7 months pregnant. Each of them worked only one job, which pays around $9 an hour, minus the cost of health insurance, taxes, etc. Whether their boyfriends work(ed) and how much they contributed I have no idea but one thing I do know is that each of them received some level of government assistance. (Even if I hadn't heard it from them or through word of mouth there is no way anybody could raise four kids on $9 an hour).


These women knew darn well they couldn't afford to live on that. So why did they have one child, after the next, after the next, after the next? The only answer in my head is that they knew they had government benefits to rely on. And that is what makes me angry.

I have no anger towards people who are disabled, elderly, ill or otherwise genuinely in need of benefits. I have no problem with people who have children and have an unexpected or traumatic life event that causes them to suddenly need benefits for a period of time--my own mother was one of them. I do, however, take issue with people who have children knowing beforehand that they have no means to support them and rely on the government (i.e., the taxpayers) to support them.