Poll: Should having children require a licence?

[Zontar]

A simple question really. We've all met them, those parents who are either neglectful, abusive, or just incapable of properly taking care of children for one reason or another. In many places, you need a licence to own a dog or cat (though in most cases it's just an administrative fee for some paperwork with local vets) but all it takes to have the legal responsibilities of taking care of children, the future of society, is the ability to insert a rod into a hole?

Personally I come down on the "yes" side, mainly because I've met far, far too many parents who never should have had children in their care in the first place.

Thoughts?

 

[Colour Scientist]

Here we go again.
*takes deep breath*
Nope.

I should probably expand, although I don't think the subject is worth it. If licences were required in Bizarro World, how would you even enforce it?

Forced sterilisations?
Forced abortions?
Putting all children born to parents without licenses in care?

What would be the criteria for getting a licence?

Money?
Employment?
Mental Stability?

You can't predict how someone is going to fare as a parent, there are too many variables. Added to that, who would decide what the criteria should be? This idea comes up every so often and it's mind-bogglingly stupid and so far removed from reality.

 

[Queen Michael]

No, I think we should continue with the current system, where the fact that you're too horny to have time to get a condom is sufficient qualification to be in charge of a living human being during the most formative years of its life. Imagine the horrifying dystopia that would ensue otherwise! All children would get loving parents that would raise them with care and compassion! The horror, the horror!

 

[Barbas]

I know it's a difficult and lengthy enough process to adopt children in Britain. How difficult would it be to enforce this, how long would it take for people to acquire a license and how do you deal with cases of people avoiding it entirely? Fine them? Imprison them? Put their children into foster care for an uncertain length of time? Where do they end up themselves? Prison again? If they do, how have we solved the problem of children coming from dysfunctional homes and ending up in prison? The path has changed, but the destination hasn't.

The problem just seems to be education. Parents just don't seem to know what to do for their children a lot of the time. So help them out, give them the knowledge and the tools to do a better job.

 

[shootthebandit]

This sounds very Orwellian. Sure we need to stop people having kids that cant look after them but that problem is down to education as barbas says. Sure we are taught about contraception and the physical act of having a child but people are never told the financial "burden" and the effort it takes to have a child

 

[Esotera]

How would you even enforce licenses? Improving the provision of social care would be a more sensible approach to cases of neglect/abuse, and just plain support when a regular parent needs help with something.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Who gets to decide who gets to breed?

Almost inevitably, this will be used to try to make certain minorities disappear.

 

[Queen Michael]

Who gets to decide who gets to breed?

Almost inevitably, this will be used to try to make certain minorities disappear.

What would your opinion about this licence be if you knew minorities wouldn't be targeted?

 

[Thaluikhain]

Who gets to decide who gets to breed?

Almost inevitably, this will be used to try to make certain minorities disappear.

What would your opinion about this licence be if you knew minorities wouldn't be targeted?

Well...there is an implied licence in that the government can take children away from parents they deem unfit. In practice, this is exceedingly controversial and full of problems.

The general idea isn't without merit, though, there are plenty of people unfit to raise kids. I don't see how it could be made to work properly, though.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Conceptually, I agree with the perspective that it would be nice if there were some way to actually only let people who are capable of taking care of children have those children.

In reality, however, I can't really think of a legal and moral way to accomplish that. Conception and birth are a natural process, whether those experiencing them "should be" or not.

 

[Heronblade]

There should be some kind of qualifications yes. I've always found it ironic and sad that you have to jump through more hoops to open a lemonade stand than to be entrusted with the care of a young human being.

The only problem I see is the one others have pointed out, finding a way to enforce it in a manner that is and remains ethical.

 

[Auron225]

In theory, it sounds like a rash yet effective (like breaking a walnut with a sledgehammer) method of ensuring most if not all parents are ideal for raising kids.

But in practise it would fail horribly;

- Who decides what is/isn't an appropriate trait for a parent? There isn't one "correct" way to be a parent so it would be extraordinarily difficult to predict whether someone would do a good job or not. This would take a lot of time/money and think about how many people will applying for these licenses. I suspect if enforced, people will be waiting months if not years to get theirs. They could be going through the most ideal period of time in their lives to have kids yet are being bound by red tape.

- The system is open to a shit-load of corruption. Certain traits could be considered undesirable and so all parents with them could be denied a license, even they pass on all other aspects; thus using the law to dictate genetic selection. Some may argue the end would justify the means but the end wouldn't even be achieved...

- ...because how do you enforce this? Some people would have kids anyway, by accident or intentionally. What happens the parents? More importantly, what happens to those kids? Lock up the parents? Send the kids through foster care? I can't think of a single answer to those questions that don't sound terrible. For one, our prisons and foster homes are far from equipped to handle the much larger amount of traffic they'd be seeing. If prisons & foster homes suddenly do need up-scaled; I doubt whatever caused it is helpful.

 

[Cerebrawl]

I'm starting to think that there should at least be a mandatory suitability evaluation for new parents, so clearly unfit parents don't get to raise kids. Nothing very strict, just a basic check for drug abuse, mental illness, domestic abuse, etc. The kinds of things that would get kids removed from homes by child protective services already.

 

[tippy2k2]

No, I think we should continue with the current system, where the fact that you're too horny to have time to get a condom is sufficient qualification to be in charge of a living human being during the most formative years of its life. Imagine the horrifying dystopia that would ensue otherwise! All children would get loving parents that would raise them with care and compassion! The horror, the horror!

I don't think there's anyone here who has said that licensing itself is a terrible idea (granted, I'm post #14 so maybe we'll get to that).

So far, every single poster's problem with it seem to be the logistics. Who gets to enforce this? How are they going to enforce this? What is the criteria for baby-making? What are you going to do with the people who rebel against it? Do I need a special license to use my gimp mask?

If anyone can give us any realistic answers to these questions, you MIGHT be able to get a real debate out of this. However, until that happens, I'd be absolutely shocked if this question wasn't answered with an overwhelming NO-vote by the forum.

 

[Coakle]

What would your opinion about this licence be if you knew minorities wouldn't be targeted?

So things like their citizenship, education, incarceration, or financial situation wouldn't factor into the the test?

The best case scenario would be a parenting test that would be carried out like the US Constitution Test.

In the United States, kids must pass the US Constitution Test before they are allowed to graduate High School. Schools will give the test while the student is completing their, mandatory, year of US History.

Requiring kids to pass the US Parenting Test before they can graduate would cause schools to add a 'Now What?" section to the curriculum. It would probably be folded into any existing Sex Ed programs. Of course, not passing it wouldn't make it illegal to have kids. Americans don't need to graduate High School to vote. It would just act as a way to make people better parents.

There could also be positive financial incentives for passing a parenting test. The government could offer cash for a parent who is able pass a test and get certified as fit to raise kids. If both parents pass, the award gets doubled or something. The idea is really poorly thought out. It sounds good, but their are other issues that I'm not taking into account.

 

[SJXarg]

No thanks, this just sets the stage to convert more things we consider rights, into paid for (and revokable) privileges. What's next, a license to breath, so the stupid stop wasting our oxygen? I get what you're getting at here, which is that some people aren't fit to be parents, and it's far too easy to become a parent despite the prevalence of things like the pill, and condoms and so on, but converting a right into a privilege isn't the way to fix that.

Besides, who pays for the establishment of the authority to grant licences, the creation of the test and standards, and who pays for the administration? You would, through your taxes, until it gets farmed out to private companies to charge you money to have you sit a test you paid someone else to create.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Yes and no.

I mean ideally yes since I have read too many news on the death of a child was cause of neglect or abuse from the parent (sometime gaming related). In saying so, what's exactly will be the punishment/ repercussions for having a child but did not achive a licence to have one in the first place, a large fee to pay? The worse case scenario would be a force abortion which would be horrid especially when the parent do genuine want a child.

The only way this would be implicated is that everyone is sterilize (to ensure no one can have a child without getting a licence) and by getting the licence will somehow make them fertile again which itself would be a stupid way to extinct the human race just because of an licence to have.

 

[HellbirdIV]

A simple question really. We've all met them, those parents who are either neglectful, abusive, or just incapable of properly taking care of children for one reason or another. In many places, you need a licence to own a dog or cat (though in most cases it's just an administrative fee for some paperwork with local vets) but all it takes to have the legal responsibilities of taking care of children, the future of society, is the ability to insert a rod into a hole?

Personally I come down on the "yes" side, mainly because I've met far, far too many parents who never should have had children in their care in the first place.

Thoughts?

No, enforcing a "license" on a basic biological function is quite a ridiculous concept.

Instead we need a culture that understands that some people aren't fit to raise children and isn't afraid to take children away from their parents if they are, for example, anti-vaccinationist or creationist loons.

Having children is a right, but rights can be revoked when people break the law - like for example directly or indirectly endangering their own children.

 

[DEAD34345]

I voted yes, but I really meant yes in an ideal world in which implementing this system would actually be possible (actually in an "ideal" world everyone would be good parents anyway, but you get what I mean). It's a sad fact of life that having children is so incredibly easy that people do it accidentally all the time, and yet comes with such a great amount of responsibility in directing an innocent person's life. I blame God/evolution/The Flying Spaghetti Monster for designing such a shitty system in the first place.

 

[Bocaj2000]

It's a bodily function. That would be like getting a license to eat and shit. The law would be ludicrous and the enforcement would be draconian.