Registered: Aug 2000
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Contraceptive Concept «

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: A New England
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It would be an easy tool for the rich to receive unfair privilege.

Only people willing and capable would be allow to procreate.

Who has the right to decide who is a 'fit' parent?

The potential for abuse is truly enormous.

People simply shouldn't allowed to make these kind of decisions for other people.

The idea, quite frankly, horrifies me.


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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: The Bottom of the Toyem Pole
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Are you saying that you don't think that there are minimum standards for parenting that could be agreed upon by all? I am not suggesting that people have to demonstrate that they can send their kids to the most expensive colleges, but rather that they can afford basic life needs. Specifically this applies to welfare families or those below the poverty line. If you can't afford to feed the people in your family now, you shouldn't be expanding the family.

Contraceptive water would eliminate both the risks of potential uplanned pregnancies and the cost of contraception on an individual family basis.

As for it being biased towards the rich, what so you mean by that? Are you insinuating that rich people would be able to have kids but poor people couldn't? I don't know if that is really a bad thing.

I do concede that rich people would probably be able to have kids even if they weren't psychologically or emotionally qualified. It is easy enough to buy a shrink to sign off on that.

Who decides the standards? We do! I suggest broad standards, mostly aimed at making sure potential parents are aware of the lifestyle changes inherent in parenthood. Simple consultations with advisors who help them consider everything involved and ensure that they really are ready for kids.

I don't see how abuses could be so out of control as to outweigh the positives here. Barring wholesale racial discrimination, simply telling some people that they shouldn't have kids because they have no money or are irresponsible people isn't a bad thing.

Parenting is an responsibility, not a right.

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All Hail Eris!!

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: A New England
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No human should have the power to dictate to another whether or not you can have a child.

We are driven by a need to procreate, to perpetuate our line. You would stymy our genetic imperative (our core purpose to relate to my comment on your previous article).

The method you suggest is dictatorial.

Contraception should be offered and enticements given to use, but never, I believe, forced upon an unwilling party.

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A closed mouth gathers no feet.

[This message has been edited by Goatboy (edited 03-07-2001).]

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Registered: Nov 2000
Location: Houston
Posts: 545

Good Lord, man, that is fascist. Address the problem, not the symptom. We don't have over population because we can simply procreate. Limiting right to parenthood would not solve the cultural problems that caused over population.

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Registered: Jul 2000
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Yeah, what he said.

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: MI
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The possibility for abuse is way too high....if a gov't wanted to enforce something, remove a group, etc they would merely have to deny the ability to procreate. Granted, anybody that wanted around this could find ways around it by simply not drinking the water, but it still proves a point. As for poverty levels, raise the people in them up through better programs, job education and financing for COLLEGE, not a handout. The gov't (at least in the US) spends enough money on the military and administrative costs that if the funds were diverted everybody would have a chance. We would all prosper. Hell, clinton had a $700,000/yr office in Manhattan, NY. That money alone would pay for around 5 people to go to college, with full housing, etc. Simply put, instead of addressing the problems through yet another wasteful, dangerous program one could easily raise the education level of the population, eliminating it from the get go.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Myrtle Beach, SC
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I'm gonna have to agree with Goatboy and the others. It's too easy to abuse this. Birth control should be easily and readily available, and efforts should be made to educate anyone who plans on having children, but nobody should have the power to decide whether others can procreate or not.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: the heart of an awl
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I know you read Lessons of History. I know you've read all that business about evolution.

what are the two methods for ensuring enough of your offspring stick around long enough to reach sexual maturity?

1. Quality. produce limited numbers of offspring and devote resources to their survival.

2. Quantity. The keno method. cover enough spots and one of them will hit. Brute force fecundity.

i've always kind of figured that #2 is the method that gives a chance to those that don't have access to the resources of #1.

your proposition is elitist. eugenics always is.

also, my cynical side tells me that your solution wouldn't really promote parental responsibility as much as sexual irresponsibility.

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POW!

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: The Bottom of the Toyem Pole
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The purpose of my proposal really isn't aimed at improving parental responsiblity or screening or anything like that. Mostly it is a way to control population at a time when it is drastically needed.

The points I made about restricting access to the antidote are really secondary and were added simply as points that would profer themselves. Consider the situation in China for example. Whether you agree with their policy or not, this type of system would minimally reduce the amount of abortion and social strife associated with extra children.

In the U.S., there is no way that the populace would support any kind of screening or limitation of access, for the most part. There are people who would restrict certain people, say those with Down's syndrome, from reproducing even today.

To avoid letting the question of access to the antidote drown the main point, what if the antidote was freely and readily available. There would be no restrictions on who procreates. Contraceptive water would simply remove unwanted or unintended pregnancies. What do you think about that?

As far as the eugenics name-calling goes, where do you draw the line between responsible population control and fascist eugenics?

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All Hail Eris!!

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Registered: Jul 2000
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I used to agree with Nute's points; now, I'm in a gray area, as far as that's concerned (blame the damned hormones). What I would offer is to get rid of all fertility clinics and specialists. Have people adopt, for fuck's sake, if what they really, really want is a child to raise and to love. That idiot couple in Iowa STILL pisses me off. They already had a child, and decided that they wanted more. In come the fertility experts, and suddenly, they have septuplets. This was not a miracle of God, as they claimed; it was a miracle of science. Plus, they already were limited financially, so why pay all the money for fertility treatments? And why do Americans go around rewarding people like this by buying them new cars, new houses, diapers, college funds, and such, when responsible people actually have to WORK to make ends meet?

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: The Bottom of the Toyem Pole
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bunkum brings up another good point. I think that people who have fertility treatments should have to sign agreements that they will only carry at most 3 children. It is horribly cruel to bring children into the world like that. Developmentally they just aren't ready for it.

Not to mention the near impossibility of being able to handle 7 kids at once psychologically as a parent. Humans aren't supposed to give birth to litters of babies. I hope those kids all band together and manipulate their parents.

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All Hail Eris!!

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Registered: Oct 2000
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quote:

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Originally posted by T H E A S Y L U M:
Contraceptive Concept «

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: A New England
Posts: 9187

Am I the only one to post in this forum?

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: The Bottom of the Toyem Pole
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/me waves frantically to Goatboy.

Dacarlo- Actually, its China that has the one child policy. As far as I know, it isn't enforced through taxation but rather a child registry. Any conceptions after the first are aborted, plain and simple. However, if the child is born, they won't kill it so some parents try to hide it until after the birth. However, I have also heard that if a mother gets exposes during birth, the delivering doctor sticks a syringe full of formaldehyde in the top of the skull as the baby crowns on its way out of the birth canal. Pretty much guarantees the baby doesnt make it out alive.

As for Japan, the problem is just the opposite. Japan has a rapidly aging society and no youth to support it. There is official policy of encouraging extra children, but the costs of living and education are so high that many parents still opt for just a single child. Japan historically has not really supported immigration labor at all, but will have to to stay alive in the coming decades. Perhaps when the economy picks up people will decide that they can afford extra children, but the population is expected to decline for a few more years at least.

Speaking of population decline in terms of death rate exceeding birth rate, the population of the United States is declining as well. The decreases are offest by immigration though, with a net result of overall growth. Population growth worldwide is expected to continue worldwide for probably another 50 years, peaking at about 12-15 billion. However, these are just projections. With a conscious effort, we could stop growth in as little as 20 years or it could continue past the 20 billion mark.

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All Hail Eris!!

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