Should the mentally challenged be allowed to procreate?

[lacktheknack]

Yes, they should. Our ability to go against nature is what makes us human. Besides, not all children of the mentally challenged will be as well, and mentally challenged people are often some of the nicest.

no one should procreate
the human race should just fizzle out in the next 80 or 90 years

I look forward to you setting a wonderful example for us all.

 

[scrambledeggs]

I'm seriously disturbed by the fact anyone here could even come close to justifying an answer to the negative.

Just wow. People are so close-minded.

 

[Liudeius]

People who can't take care of their children shouldn't be allowed to have them. If the person in question falls into this category, no they should not be allowed to have children. If they are only slightly mentally disabled and are capable of raising a child, go ahead.

 

[Abanic]

What you are refering to is called Eugenics.

Eugenics is a slippery slope. Once the government starts telling certain people that they are not allowed to reproduce, then there is nothing to stop them from placing that same restriction on other unwanted groups as well. The issue becomes that the group in power can (and has) wiped out other groups that, for one reason or another, it doesn't like.

The Eugenics movement began shortly after Darwin's Origin of Species was released and over the following decades major governments sterilized, or even euthanized, the unwanted or unnecessary elements of their societies (60,000 mentally ill patients were sterilized without consent in the US alone). The existing eugenics policy (in the early 20th Century) in Germany was used as the justification to expand the system into a country-wide program of cleansing in an effort to purify the undesired traits from the 'master race', this program led to the annihilation of millions of Jews, Blacks, Catholics, Mentally ill (down syndrome, schizophrenia, retardation, etc), Gypsies, and political troublemakers in what would eventually be called 'The Holocaust'.

That is why we cannot allow selective breeding of the human race; because once it starts, nobody can know where it will end.

 

[SimuLord]

Hey, where's that XKCD about Idiocracy?

 

[Hashime]

Eugenics has been proven false, however some of the mental / developmental illnesses are hereditary and thus the person should not.
The question really is: Can the mentally challenged person raise a child?
I don't think anyone who does not have the abilities, economic means, or motivation to raise a child should have one, regardless of mental state.

 

[RatRace123]

I think that the odds of a mentally challenged person having a child with the same condition is about as likely as a "normal" person having a mentally challenged child.

That said, I'm not sure they'd be fit to be parents, or that they would would be cognitively aware enough for the... um, act of procreation.

So, I'm going to say, a very loose no... but it could vary.

 

[Arkham]

I'm not fond of the thought of the mentally challenged having children. I'm more concerned that, given their mental status, they may not be best fit to raise them. It depends on just how functional the parents are I suppose.

 

[omega 616]

I don't think it's an issue, having sex with a mentally disabled person? That has to be braking some law.

It depends on the level of disability I would assume. If it is full on downs then even if they could I doubt they would want to pass it on, if it was something less severe then only as long as there fit parents.

 

[WolfEdge]

Because, for those of you who only do things for your own benefit...

They came first for the Communists,
and I did not speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I did not speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I did not speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

-Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller

Protecting the rights of another human being, whether you despise them or not, protects your OWN rights.

 

[Canid117]

I don't feel like getting into a debate about eugenics so here is a picture of an adorable puppy.

Alright I'll weigh in. I do not support Eugenics.

 

[Internet Kraken]

-snip-

What on earth are you talking about? I never said all forms of genetic engineering were wrong. I said that enforced, selective breeding by the government is a terrible idea. I also tried to explain why discrimination on a genetic level was wrong. Never once did I say that genetic engineering designed for the purpose of eliminating an inheritable disease was wrong. But their is a different between genetic engineering and selective breeding enforced by the government, which was what this topic was about in the first place.

 

[mikespoff]

Ah, just what the world needs, more eugenics

Yup. Sigh...

 

[Freeze_L]

Yup.

Anything else wouldn't be freedom.

I have to say I disagree. Some of these people live on wheelchairs and can't even feed themselves. What part about their lives are 'free'?

OT: I realy don't think they should. Not to be mean, but why would anyone want to dilute and weaken the speacies by encouraging the reproduction of the weakest links? Of course it would also depend if their mental condition is genetic or not.

Those who do not study history shall be doomed to repeat it.
See: Mussolini and Hitler
Exact same logic was used by them to get rid of those they felt were "inferior" and because the pepole went along with it we now have to learn about the slaughter of millions of pepole. Eugenics is bad, this thought processes is bad, and it only leads to genocide. Also, i doubt those who are bound to wheelchairs and cant feed themselves, are going to be reproducing anytime soon, the pepole eugenics targets is not them, but pepole with any "disability" functional or not.
Once you justify killing or sterilizing anyone, you are a stones throw from expanding those you deem to be "handicapped". It never stops at the pepole you are thinking of, who don't reproduce anyways, it turns to those with autism and like syndromes, and i know more than a dozen functional autistics, then to those with learning disabilities, which would include a great number of pepole who only think in different ways then others, then it moves on too physical disabilities, and racial differences.

Eugenics is bad, the "weakest links" as you call them are anything but that. Pepole are Pepole not animals and definitely not cattle to be breed. Eugenics is bad for so many reasons, one could not count them all. it is truly an Evil prospect, formed of cold flawed logic, and illuminated by twisted beliefs.

 

[BakaSmurf]

No.

More often then not, mentally challenged people produce more mentally challenged people, the mentally challenged more often then not wouldn't be capable of properly caring for their similarly mentally challenged children, putting the responsibility on the government's, and by extension, the nation's shoulders.

This puts a drain on the nation's resources, resources that could be directed towards maintaining things like roads, or even getting the homeless back onto their feet. Instead, we're paying to care for a child that'll only ever take and never give back.

We're essentially allowing the creation of parasites by allowing the mentally challenged to procreate. Not all of them producing mentally challenged children doesn't justify allowing all of them to procreate, because most of them will produce mentally challenged children. This isn't even about doing the right/smart thing, either way allowing them to procreate does harm to everyone.