Dilemma
April 7, 2008There’s one moral issue I’ve been struggling with for a long time now.
You see, for everything in this country, you’ll need a permit, a license. Want to drive a car or a motorcycle? Better invest thousands of Euros in driving lessons and a license. Want to externally alter your house in any way (even if you own it)? You need to get a permit from the local government. Want to go fishing? Get a fishing permit.
Want children? Go fcuk someone and pop out a kid nine months later. No permit needed, no license, no lessons. You need not pass any tests of competence.
Which is peculiar, to say the least. Raising children isn’t an easy task, and requires strength of will, determination, and the ability to completely put your personal needs aside for the benefit of your child. You need to be able to make yourself irrelevant, as the well-being of your child is much more important than your own. Not everyone has the ability to do this. Not everyone has the ability to love someone else unconditionally.
My parents have. That’s why I turned out so loving, caring, and all-round SUPERDUPER AWESOME.
However, a lot of people don’t. This year’s ’spring break’ (to put it new worldishly) lasts two weeks instead of just one. This is causing problems for many parents, as their jobs may not allow them to take two weeks off instead of just one. Complaints aplenty.
Well, tough luck. In order to fix this, you might have to organise spring break differently this time. Instead of both parents taking one week off at the same time so you can go on vacation, you’ll have to be a bit more inventive and, for instance, have mommy take the first week off, and daddy the second week. It’s not as if the vacation dates for this school year weren’t already known for god knows how long.
When you have kids, you’ll have to make concessions. You can’t and both have full-time jobs, and go out every weekend, and go on vacation whenever you wish, and have children. It just doesn’t work that way. You effectively gave all that up the moment you both decided to have a go at it without the pill.
This is not all the parents’ fault, of course. Especially when it comes to single-parent families, or simply poorer families, our government is not doing enough to help these people in their times of need. Welfare checks are way too low, and financial child support is near nothing. Which is interesting, seeing the Christian parties have a strong say in parliament and the government.
So, what’s the moral issue? Well, should we allow just anyone to have children, uncontrollably, without any checks as to whether or not people are actually ready or capable of being good and responsible parents? Should child molesters be allowed to have children? What about murderers? The mentally ill? The mentally handicapped? Are those people capable of raising children? Should they have the right to have children?
What about this one? Should a daughter and her father be allowed to have children? Their first one died, their second one is still alive. They pleaded guilty immediately, explaining their relationship is completely consensual. The judge took the consensual nature into account, and released the parents with a 500 AUD fine.
It’s not the incestuous relationship itself that that is the problem here. I may have a deep and strong physical and mental aversion against the whole concept, but this does seem to be a consensual relationship - whether or not these people are psychologically sound and actually capable of making consensual decisions like this is a different matter altogether, and not for me to decide. The problem here, of course, is the children. Can these people be called responsible parents? These children have a high risk of serious genetic defects due to their incestuous parents, and it’d be hard to argue the parents did not know of this risk. In addition, these children will face a life of hell. Forever will they have to bear the burden of their heritage, there’s a large chance they will be outcasts, which may even lead to them developing serious psychological problems. And their own children, in the future, will still be susceptible to serious genetic defects.
Consequently, in my book, these people are not responsible parents, and therefore, should have never been allowed to have children in the first place.
The problem with this moral issue is this: who gets to decide if people are fit for parenting? Who gets to evaluate prospective parents and say, look, I’m sorry, but you are not fit for parenting? I think most of us can agree that child molesters should not have children, but what about all the border cases? Heck, I’m sure there are many who would consider the right to have children so sacred, that it cannot be taken away, not even from child molesters.
So you see my dilemma.
I think you’re very much over the top with this. Whether a couple should be allowed to raise a child, could eventually be judged on an individual basis, if and only if the circumstances justify an investigation in the first place (parents with some types of criminal background, psychotics, molesters, etc., but not every and each couple and birth could be investigated upon). I think I wouldn’t have anything against that. But creating broad rules for entire societies regarding the allowance of having offsprings, on whatever basis, well, I simply find that idea outrageous.
Comment by l3v1 — April 7, 2008 @ 9:37 am
Define “etc”. That’s the problem, you see. Where do you draw the line? How many people must someone have killed before he should not have children? Should it be premeditated, or does manslaughter count as well?
So do I, and as such, I did not say we should do that. However, my objections to this are not moral, but practical (as mentioned in the blog post): who gets to decide when someone is fit (and imagine the bureaucracy!)?
Parenting is an art, and some sort of discussion on how to prevent cases like the one linked to in my blog entry is much needed, in my opinion.
Comment by Administrator — April 7, 2008 @ 9:47 am
I agree that some people might better not have babies. Although, having a baby might change an otherwise irresponsible person into a responsible being sometimes.
But licenses to have babies? Wouldn’t that also mean licenses to have sex between opposite sexes..? :P
It is possible watch over who drives a car, but it would be just impossible to watch over people’s sexual activities… Getting pregnant just happens sometimes, despite maybe taking some precautions too. I think putting cameras or policemen into people’s bed rooms wouldn’t work… :P After getting pregnant, educating the pregnant mother and his man is often the best choice. A forced abortion would be out of question most times, I think.
As to education and such things, there already are such systems in welfare societies. Young people get education in schools. And after a woman has gotten pregnant there is more education given by officials and medical specialist, there are health checks, pictures taken of the unborn baby to check if everything is ok.
Also the parents’ background may be looked into by officials early on too. There are systems, especially in welfare countries, to take babies away from too irresponsible or otherwise bad parents, and put the kids into children’s homes.
There are also contraceptives. And highly advanced medical systems, and many other systems in society to take care for babies even though their background might look like far from ideal.
And you know, there are many famous people who come from quite bad backgrounds, but through their own efforts and with the help from others, have managed to overcome the bad things in their background and may even have done lots of valuable things themselves to help the society and others later.
People are more than just the sum of their genes and family background.
Comment by irbis — April 7, 2008 @ 10:32 am
Interesting blog post, really. I have thought about this myself too, but I just don’t really know what to say..I don’t like at all the concept of limiting an individual’s freedom but then again, since we are talking about children here, it is sometimes just so horrible to hear how some people mistreat their children or how horrible parents some people can be. Children shouldn’t have to suffer just because “bad people” are allowed to have children, it’s not the kids’ fault.. :/ But I just don’t know where to draw the line.
Comment by Nita — April 7, 2008 @ 12:12 pm
Man, i’m shocked! Come on! No moral objections ???
It’s just morally horrible, against human rights, and would need a totalitarian system to be enforced. But appart from that you say “why not ?” ???
For an example implementation see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy
Our laws already protect the children, it might still be insufficient in some cases but all we can do in a free world is to enhance this protection.
regards
Comment by aldeck — April 7, 2008 @ 1:35 pm
What a hypocrisy. You say that you are for human rights, and yet, you object things like the One_Child_Policy, which was created exactly because it tries to protect the REST of the planet and humans in general. Personally, I fully support China’s decision to do that, I hope India and any other country with too many humans per square mile do too. It’s the RESPONSIBLE thing to do, not only for the country, but for the planet and the whole world. And then, you talk about human rights. Most fish are expected to die by 2040 in the oceans. What human rights you think they would survive when half of the population STARVES because the natural resources are all gone because of over-population?!?
Now, regarding children from people that shouldn’t have children, unless the planet goes into starvation mode, we won’t see such a ruling. The first people who will suffer such a ruling, will be indeed criminals and what not. But before that, I don’t think the world will be able to support such judge decisions for criminals not having children — even if they are criminals or simply incompetent. It has to come to a point of no return stage for humans to order such things.
Comment by Eugenia — April 7, 2008 @ 6:28 pm
Eugenia, I am sure you do know that the One Child policy is believed to be the lead cause of the infanticide of baby girls by family who would rather have a boy. So the “protection of the rest of the planet” as you said has a pretty high cost - which bear the moral question - is it the real solution ?
I cannot in good conscience agree with such method, especially from a country with a totalitarian regime.
In same line, no matter how despicable the cases Thom mention, I cannot think of a regulatory system other than the current legal system - which have its limitations - but is the basis of our current society.
Comment by Chris — April 7, 2008 @ 7:49 pm
I agree with Chris - obviously - on the one-child issue. The policy has been an utter, utter social disaster. I’ve debated this issue with Eugenia before, witha set of VERY strong arguments. There is not one solid reason to implement a one-child policy - esp. since its original goal (fight overpopulation) is much better remedied with a structural solution. Let me quote myself:
I’d like to close the issue of overpopulation here and now on this blog post. It has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Comments concerning this mater will be deleted.
Comment by Administrator — April 7, 2008 @ 8:06 pm
Edited by admin: Err, I said no more discussion on overpopulation. It’s off topic.
Thank you.
Comment by aldeck — April 7, 2008 @ 10:32 pm
The problem is that attempting to restrict reproduction for some “inferiors”, also known as eugenics, is what got the Nazis in trouble. The only difference is that we have a real inferior here, not just a few groups that we don’t like.
Comment by karhu — April 7, 2008 @ 11:05 pm
Sniff, it took me 1 hour to write :-( Well you will probably delete this one too…
Well, although i was also responding to eugenia, i talked about the morality of controling birth, wich _is_ your subject, unless i need to practice english a little more. I think that overpopulation was on topic too imho (birth control). You wrote more about overpopulation than me :/
Anyway, i hanged on your blog for a few days and i’m really sad for not being able to discuss a subject with you. Isn’t the comment section made for that? Why don’t you encourage discussion, instead of playing the badquote/offtopic police? You seem to really snob people that don’t agree with you, and that’s not fair play.
Well, good luck with your blog, and try to bring some good vibes here, the place could be nice.
Comment by aldeck — April 7, 2008 @ 11:11 pm
Read up on your history. Eugenics has NOTHING to do with preventing unfit parents from having children.
Comment by Administrator — April 7, 2008 @ 11:11 pm
aldeck,
The comments section is here to foster proper discussion on topics that I deem fit. I’ve been engaged in discussions on overpopulation before on this blog, and there is no need to regurgitate the old arguments. On something that is off-topic, even. They tend to end in tears anyway.
Comment by Administrator — April 7, 2008 @ 11:14 pm
Nice post. For a movie on a related topic, I suggest Mike Judge’s “Idiocracy”. (It is NOT about overpopulation - it is about long-term consequences of stupid people having more progeny than smart, educated ones.)
Comment by jrlah — April 8, 2008 @ 6:28 am
You need thousands of euros of lessons to get a driving licence? I taught myself how to drive, total cost = 40 euro theory test, 15 euro for a learners permit, 40 euro practical test, 25 euro for a full licence. Are there more fees or are they just far higher in the Netherlands? Admittedly, I’d argue they should be far higher fees to prevent 17 year olds buying old Glanzas and rallying them around public roads, but anyway…
Comment by Cian — April 8, 2008 @ 10:06 am