What your saying makes perfect sense if taken at face value. What you don't hear in that conversation is people who are anti-birth control and abortion, but who also don't want to support welfare, are anti sex outside of marriage. That's the part of the conversation that doesn't get talked about because trying to regulate people having premarital sex would be politically abhorrent, however it's the unspoken underlying behavior that set of people want to curb. Think about it for a second. If you didn't have the lifeline of welfare, WIC, medicaid, etc, and you had no option to have an abortion, would you risk having unprotected sex if you knew you would be 100% responsible for the upbringing of that child? Add in the fact that you now have to pay for your contraception out of pocket and it all adds up to different ways people can curb sexual behavior without coming right out and saying, "I want to stop people having casual sex."
I can get behind this concept. If you're going to control who gets to have children, and who doesn't then you've already gotten the government involved. Centralizing the birth process is the next logical step; and allows for further manipulation for the benefit of the species. To a certain degree society does need it's poets, and artists, and lawyers. To a greater extent, we need engineers, ditch diggers, and mechanics. Giving a central authority control to establish the population on a certain path in life, would be a means to that end. Extensive testing at the age of 15 to establish suitability, physical and mental, for certain careers and shuffling them off to appropriate educational facilities would make more sense than giving them a standard public education and then job training after that. Better to have those best suited for vocational training started on the path at the age of 15 than 18; thus allowing them to enter the work force already trained. Likewise with those suitable for say... Sociology degrees. With respect to civil rights, the system should be built to allow them to choose their own path at 18. If a person is suited best for food preparation, but they'd prefer to try their hand at medical school you can't ethically deny them the choice. But back to the topic, what if you were to take it to another level entirely? Begin to augment the natural human body with prosthetic organs and limbs at an early age? Or even engineer from a human base, an entirely new class of human? One that has few, if any genetic flaws?
Just some random thoughts: - I didn't mean to make a thread about eugenics or legislating childbearing. I was thinking more along the lines of social programs and how much support any individual or family could reasonably expect from society in general. - Crazy Wolf touched on a great point: the more affluent and educated a population becomes, the lower the birthrate dwindles. It's the tragedy of the human condition. The people who are 'enlightened' (whatever that means), educated and capable of raising children who will be thriving members of society are the people who don't have kids. The people who are presently sustaining the birthrate are the deeply religious, and those in the bottom of the socioeconomic brackets. Globally, it's developing countries who have the exploding birth rates. How to overcome this conundrum? How do we get more 'correctly' raised children (healthy, mentally sound, with a sense of social responsibility, etc), as opposed to children who will never excel and have all the disadvantages placed on them right from the start? - When we start saying things like, "Take that child away from those idiots and give it to a loving family who will raise it well," what loving family are we talking about? There is a CHRONIC, horrific shortage of foster families right now. Typically children will be placed in an already overcrowded foster situation, in a temporary housing situation (i.e. hotel room with social worker), or shuffled off to a relative of the screwed up parent. Adoption? To where? Sure, thousands of well-to-do parents are looking for babies; but only a specific kind. Older children, children with addiction issues (due to maternal drug abuse during gestation), children with developmental issues or physical handicaps...you know, all the weaker children who have been taken away forcibly by the state? Who is in line to adopt those kids? - As a personal anecdote, I'll share this. In my heart, I think I was ready to have kids when I was 28. I've become acutely aware that the clock is ticking, and when I see families with babies it stings a bit. However, until and unless I can afford to properly raise a child (read: clothing, time missed from work, braces, ideally private schools, university, etc) then I won't have one. As time passes, I realize that the odds of me having kids are diminishing and that REALLY stings, but so be it. No way am I bringing someone into this world only to burden someone else with responsibility they didn't ask for, including my extended family and the state. I wish more people *cough*my cousin*cough* would think about the burden children place on others when their parents can't look after them.
Yes, you would. And the birthrate would skyrocket. Go to any developing country where women have no control over their reproductive rights.
Not really. Im not anti-birth control by any means, but definitely anti-abortion when used in cases of laziness, and that doesnt automatically make me a religious zealot. The point is to not perpetuate a welfare state, especially when kids are involved; not trade one stupid safety net for another. Does this really have to do with the topic at all, or did you just want to take another pointless jab at religion?
I'm sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear: As a developing nation becomes developed, it too will show a decline in birth rates.
So, what exactly constitutes an abortion performed in a case of laziness, and how common do you think this type of abortion takes place?
I want to say that children are a privilege, but at the end of the day they are a right. Personally, I think if you have the means you can have as many children as you want. And I'm not just talking about financial means, but also the ability to take care of them. But that leads to a debate about teenage pregnancy, which is tragic but not exactly a reason to take a child away. Also, at what point would this parent interview take place? Before conception? At the time of birth? I'm not sure how it would all work out. Can we also take into account the kind of people that will come of everyone's parents being stable and loving? Memoirs would go out the window...
You do understand that you're not required to put your child in private schools? And that you don't have to pay for their university education? I mean, lets face it, that's the ideal (I guess) but plenty of kids turn out really really really well without it. Further, it seems that having a kid figure out how to pay for his own education makes him appreciate it more. When mom and dad are the one footing the tuition bill, grades don't seem to matter as much. There aren't any guarantees. None. If one waits until one can afford a child, one will almost likely NOT have a child. It's always too expensive. There is going to be at least once in your life post children that you're knocked to your knees - divorce, cancer, death, layoff, money, bankruptcy, whatever - when having kids is a definite chore and not the easiest thing in the world. Does it mean you're an unfit parent because you're dealing with those things? No...not if you're doing your best to make your situation better. Finally, I find it odd that people want to keep abortion a choice - KEEP THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF MY UTERUS! type of zealotry, but would consider legislating birth/pregnancy/licensing. Yes, I know we've all met people who are 'too stupid to breed'. It sucks. They can. They do. Often the cycle perpetuates. Sometimes...tho...it doesn't.
Of course you aren't required to do these things; personally, though, I think the more education you can provide a child with, the better. And the education you get when they're packed in classes of 40 kids with a teacher who has an associate's degree isn't on par with what private schools offer. In addition, I don't want my children to begin their lives as young adults $100,000 in debt. My parents were kind enough to pay for my university education. Due to my father's career, we lived in remote places that necessitated private schooling. I have cousins who have been educated in the public system. I also have cousins that have been educated almost exclusively in private schools. From my own mixed experience (private and separate - I went to Catholic school, not public), and from the anecdotal evidence I see in my family, private schools are LEAPS AND BOUNDS better. They prepare you in a way the public system simply does not. I want my kids to have the opportunity to be whatever they want. A carpenter, a doctor, a lawyer...I don't care (as long as none of them are architects). It would be my job as a parent to give them every tool I possibly could to start their lives, and I'd like to at least equal what my parents were able to do for me. Does that mean buy my kids cars and give them credit cards and cell phones when they're 11? Hell no. But I'd like them to be well learned, travelled and not have the burden of debt.
I don't trust private schools. Everyone in my immediate and extented family who is of age has a bachelor's degree or better and all of us went to public schools. I took a tour of a private school once when I was a teenager and the feeling I got from it was one where absolute conformity was mandatory, and furthermore the homogeniety was disturbing. I won't say more than that but rest assured even if I was a millionaire there's no way I'd put a child of mine in a private school.
Not to derail the thread here, but a 20 minute tour of a school when you were in your teens isn't really a great benchmark to compare anything to. Look at the stats and talk to people who have been to both. Is conformity a bigger issue in private schools than it is in public? Sure. But it's also less prone to cliques (uniforms take away a lot of material status), has way better resources (for example, my high school art class had a whole floor to itself that included a kiln, printmaking facility, sketching area and textile instruction), and in general the teachers are of a higher calibre.
None of these were true in my case, except maybe the latter (it's hard to compare, since I can't compare the same grade level. How does one compared a 5th grade teacher to a high school physics teacher?). And I went to a school that is regarded as one of the better non-prep* schools in a state w/ good education numbers, where over 95% of students attended 4 years schools every year. Teenagers will form cliques and there's no way to stop that. The idea that 1) they won't figure out who is rich anyway, and 2) that you can stop this impulse by merely changing what they way really undersells the pervasiveness of that behavior. At least where I grew up (suburban, for what it's worth), the public schools had more money per student and nicer facilities. I can't say that the teachers were necessarily of higher caliber per se in public school, but I know for a fact that they were paid more. You generally pay for the atmosphere, lack of distracting students, and attentiveness that the system allows for, not for the things you mentioned. It's actually possible I would have had more opportunities in public school, since the local one actually offered more AP classes than my private school did. You're really painting public schools with an insanely broad brush here, and underselling the good ones. If you can afford to send your kid to private school on your own dime, odds are the area you live in has some decent public schools. What you almost universally can say for private schools is that they generally have a bigger safety net. It's harder to fall through the cracks there, and odds are you'll end up in college somewhere at least mildly reputable unless you truly fuck up. * I don't know if this distinction makes sense in Canada. Prep schools are places like Phillips Exeter. Often but not exclusively residential, and tuition can rise to be in excess of $20,000. At a truly elite one, we're talking $30K+, $40K to board. Private school in my case was a much more modest local Catholic school.
Again, I'm sorry to derail... In Canada: Public school - can be attended by anyone. Where you go is determined by your address. Grades K-6 are elementary school, 7-9 junior high and 10-12 high school. Some areas have no junior high, so it goes K-8, and 9-12. Separate school - the Catholic school board. Pretty much exactly the same as public. Your parents need to be baptized for you to be accepted (some cases, the child also needs a baptismal certificate). They have a different school board than the public system, and on your taxes you get to choose which board you pay to. As such - at least, when I was young - the per capita spending was higher in Catholic schools, ergo the education was slightly better. Private school - often religious. Usually expensive. You'd be looking at $10-$15k per year per kid, although you'd get a discount with each subsequent child. We don't have prep schools, that I am aware of. The private schools I and my cousins went to were all overseas. In my case, it was also a boarding school. In my cousins', they lived at home with their families.
Agreed. I'm going to start a new suggestion thread so the private vs. public school discussion can continue there if there's interest.
Virginia passed an involuntary sterilization law in 1924. The first person it was applied to was Carrie Buck, and her case went to the Supreme Court where Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his majority opinion upholding the law stated, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." It wasn't repealed until 1974. Sad.
Sad it was passed into legislation in the first place, and took 50 years to get off the books, 29 after the defeat of Nazi Germany. And sad that the Supreme Court upheld such a decision. Eugenics is just deplorable.