Should You Have to Get a License to Raise Children?

[Zeema]

I do think this is a good i do think that people need to have a license of pass some sort of test.

Because i see idiots coming in everyday younger then me [20 and under] With kids Thats bloody stupid i could nearly trip over the Parents Bloody Umbilical Cord and they just don't have any idea what there doing.

But A Test of some description should be put in place.

I didn't Mean to be offensive im sorry if i was

 

[jackpipsam]

yes I think we do

 

[MaxwellEdison]

Hey guys, I just read a story about a shit parent, so I've decided we should all have to take a test to prevent us doing something that can only be enforced if we were constantly monitored, with the threat of forced abortions or child-snatching as the only plausible way to keep people following the law!

God help us if you ever get power, man.

 

[j0frenzy]

That there are almost 10 pages to this thread blow my mind. Seriously? There is that much to debate on this? I can't count the number of people who are cursing us in the afterlife for thinking about this. This is a terrible idea. A well meaning idea, but terrible all the same.
Let's break down the ways in which this is bad.
1) What right or power do you have to determine what anyone does with their bodies? No seriously. Who put you or anyone else in charge of my body? What makes you a better person than me? My right to use my body however I like it does exist, and no one should have the power to take that away from me. You want where I am guaranteed that, I will give you two places. Roe v. Wade and Griswold v. Connecticut. If the state cannot tell me that I must have child, what makes you think it has the power to tell me that I cannot have child?
2) Just how open this system is to abuse. Who decides the criteria of whether or not you can have a kid? And what check is put on them? What is worse is that I have seen some people actually mention morality as a condition. Great, so not only do you have to fit a specific intelligence and prosperity level before you can actually be treated like a human, but you also have to agree with my view of morality. What if the necessary morality requires a belief in a higher power in the universe? What if it doesn't? What about political ideologies? And we are now bordering on thought police. Fantastic. I would invoke Orwell's name, but that I feel I need to to explain why this is a bad idea worries me.
3) It will be entirely ineffective. Yes, child abuse is bad. Yes, bad parenting can lead to bad citizens in a society. Let us address the child abuse. This will solve none of it. There is no definitive psych profile of the type of parent that would abuse a child, at least not one that is not going to be cast so widely that it is not going to include a bunch of innocent people along with it. And if you are telling me that it is seriously a good idea to arrest innocent people to stop crimes, than why don't we just arrest everyone for everyone's own good? That would solve a lot of crimes if all non-police were arrested. And even more importantly, how do justify punishing someone for committing a crime before they commit it? How? Because if we can now do that, then we arrive at everyone being in jail again because they might do something wrong. You are still innocent until proven guilty in the United States. In order to be proven guilty, you need to actually commit the crime, otherwise you have violated no actual law, unless we are getting into that who thought crime thing again. As far as stopping bad parenting, why don't we fix it in a reasonable way? Like teaching good parenting. What if we made basic child care as well as basic survival a mandatory class in our public education system? Isn't that a more rational response to idiots not being able to raise kids than sterilize everyone because some people are idiots?
4) As a side note to 3, this is large and costly for its unreliability. In order to get a large enough staff to investigate and enforce this sort of law, you are going to need a large organization and a lot of money to fund it. For the amount of money you are looking at to get this to work, it better work well. It should not be a vaguely it might help.
I get what you are trying to do, but this way lead no where good. Look elsewhere. Please.

 

[Thyunda]

What right does the state have to tell people if they can have kids or not? They can choose to withhold benefits and such, but the Government has absolutely no right intervening on personal, family matters. If people want kids, that's their business. We're not in such an economic crisis where a new baby could cripple us, so the test would be arbitrary, pointless, and downright wrong. Not just unethical. Wrong to the point of 'get that probe out of my ass'.

so you're saying these neglectful parents should be aloud to have kids? those kinds of people should be controlled, the child shouldn't have to suffer

Whether or not the child has to suffer for their mistakes, that's the business of the parents and the child. The Government should deal with the larger matters, things that aren't quite as personal. The Government already take children away from neglectful parents, and that can cause some real mental issues already. Parting a mother from a child never has positive effects either way, but nobody has the right to say they can't have children. It's just wrong.
For lack of a better term, they're playing God. And I'm an atheist. I denounce religion wherever I can, so for me to use that phrase, it's a fair big deal.

 

[Chrishu]

This is actually a great idea, but basing it entirely on someone's, say, high school record like that would disqualify them is a bit harsh. It should focus on what they have done in their adult life, as well as looking for any sort of nurturing ability and a desire to bring the child into the world.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Also plenty of people can bullshit their way through any exam/course and still not gain anything out of it. How many people do you think go to Anger Management and turn out to be truly less angry people vs. people who blah their way through so they can get back to doing whatever?
Also change "anger management" for "rehab" or "parenting classes". We have (in the US) the DCF, which does attempt to judge good/bad parents and sometimes gets it right and sometimes TAKES KIDS AWAY FROM PERFECTLY GOOD PARENTS because of a bullshit reason. So, you think government bureaucracy can make people better parents? Haha, good joke bro.

 

[Ramin 123]

Fuck yes. A million times yes.

Take it a step further. Remove peoples ability to conceive until they get a licence allowing them to have kids. That way there wouldn't be thousands of kids in orphanages because their dipshit parents forgot about contraception and neglected to apply for a licence when they got preggo.

I've said this for a while.

You need to prove you're worthy to have children. And people need to stop using them as barganing tools to scam money out of the government. It's not fair on the kid and it's not fair on those of us who pay taxes.

As for what the test for licensing should involve.

1)First of all a medical. Asses the chances of whether or not you're likely to drop dead and leave the kid whilst they're too young to look after themselves.

2)Find out whether or not you have a history of genetic/heredity disease and whether you're likely to pass that on to a child.

3)A mental capability test. No so much intelligence. But find out whether or not the person is likely to neglect or abuse the child. Or simply whether they can handle parenthood.

4)And finally. Financial. It's not fair to the child or the state if you're going to require constant money to support a child. If you can't provide a decent standard of living yourself. Then you should not bring a child into the world.

These may sound like harsh, even Orwellian demands. But I think they're paramount to an evolved and civilised society and the sooner we work towards this kind of system the better.

And... this, if you study closer, is exactly what Orwell was talking about in 1984...seriously this is ridiculous. Who the hell are you or anyone to say who is and who isn't worthy to be a parent? I get your stance with taxes and stuff but I mean come on, how much more analysis and screening does the UK/US need?

And your screening process is completely stupid and regardless of how much you can research into someone's history, humans inevitably will get diseases of all sorts. You've got some Sparta mindset or something...

I know it seems Orwellian. (I actually said that in my last paragraph.) But that doesn't mean it's wrong.

I can make these judgements based on the thousands of abused and neglected children in my country. I can make these judgements because statistics don't lie. I can make these judgements because eugenics is a solid theory.

Give me a real reason why those 4 basic screening techniques are either out of line or wouldn't work?

If you don't fit certain criteria then you don't deserve to be a parent. In regards to financial and education. That may not be something that the natural world must contend with. But unfortunately we don't live in the natural world.

Our society has dictated that we live a certain way and money and education are paramount to success in this respect.

I'm not saying only the rich can procreate. But if you're incapable of looking after a child financially, you shouldn't have one.

So if you would require welfare/benefits to support your child. Then you cannot have the child. It's that simple. Why should others have to pay for your choice?

Mental capability. This one would have to be more lenient than the others. This would just be a basic psychological test to determine whether you're likely to harm or neglect the child. Nothing fancy. Just a stop check. If someone could identify that a person is likely to do a child harm. Why shouldn't they?

As for disease.... did I say this would eradicate all disease?

It would however thin the amount of heredity disease that gets constantly passed on. In the wild, the sick die. This is natures way of coping with genetic abnormality (that isn't beneficial). In our world. Healthcare and finer living mean that people who are sick can live very long and prosperous lives. Which is fantastic. But if this illness is genetic and can be passed on to offspring. Then it does become an issue.

The difference between passive and active eugenics is that you're not actively removing those who are ill. You're just removing their ability to procreate. Which seems like a massive breech of their human rights. Yes. But it also means they don't pass on what is essentially a death sentence to their children.

Does this sound very harsh and almost evil? Yes. It does. But that doesn't change the fact that it's perfectly logical.

I'm not expecting everyone to be in the same mindset as me. I've got a pretty solid logic > morality mindset that most don't share.

But this is how I see things.

Ok how do I put this...? The way China had things is humane to say the least e.g. there's a limit on how many kids you have, but filtering out the human race is just...too far. I mean come on man, think about it if we started this where does it end?

If some bloody ejitt was given that type of control what would stop their own ambitions from taking it further e.g. "ohh let's get rid of them ginger bastards, never liked them". Maybe you'd like to think your way is right as most people do but I'm not sure you're taking all things into consideration particularly the corruption that infests the human mind and how bad a catalyst that would be if such a proposal existed (i.e. your filtering of humans).

 

[Person342]

No. As much as I hate to say it, this is unethical. Yeah, there are hundreds and thousands of people out there who are too f***ing stupid to be parents, but that doesn't mean that the government should be allowed to regulate who can have a child and who can't.

Plus, how the hell would you enforce it? You can't MAKE someone use a condom (which has something like a 2% chance of not working anyway) and you can't MAKE someone take birth control.

How can you enforce anything? When you think about it there's not much stopping you from stealing, murdering ext... The only thing that does is the punishment that you recieve when your discovered. I say have it so they either have to take the test once they're pregnant and if they fail they chose between an abortion or giving it to somebody else and paying for the child's upkeep.

 

[TheTaco007]

No. As much as I hate to say it, this is unethical. Yeah, there are hundreds and thousands of people out there who are too f***ing stupid to be parents, but that doesn't mean that the government should be allowed to regulate who can have a child and who can't.

Plus, how the hell would you enforce it? You can't MAKE someone use a condom (which has something like a 2% chance of not working anyway) and you can't MAKE someone take birth control.

How can you enforce anything? When you think about it there's not much stopping you from stealing, murdering ext... The only thing that does is the punishment that you recieve when your discovered. I say have it so they either have to take the test once they're pregnant and if they fail they chose between an abortion or giving it to somebody else and paying for the child's upkeep.

There's nothing stopping you from stealing or murdering, except for the thought that you'll get caught (and that it's ethically wrong).
Having a baby is not wrong, so good luck getting a law passed to regulate who can have children.
Plus, it'll probably be like driving a car. If you don't have a license, how are people going to know, unless you crash, and the police come? It's not like policemen can just accuse anyone of being illegally pregnant, and make them give them their papers, they have to have a reason. Additionally, what if the person who's pregnant just stays in their house for nine months? What are they going to do? Search people's houses? Right. THAT'll happen.

There are thousands of problems with this. If you can't see that, then you'd probably be one of the people who would fail the test for a childbirth license, so there's no real point in arguing for it.

 

[FamoFunk]

No, purely because it would be impossible to enforce any sort of rule, test etc. to see if a parent if be fit enough to bring up a child.

Thank god for Social Services if a child ever is in such a shitty situation at home.

 

[ImprovizoR]

Someone mentioned communism. I just gotta say a quick little thing about it. There is nothing wrong with the core idea of communism, what's wrong with it is it's realization. It's too perfect to work. And the only way for it to work would be on a global scale - the whole world. And even then it wouldn't work because there will always be people who feel like they should have the power and be above others. People like me.

I'm not sure about licenses. It might work. Some people just shouldn't be allowed to have kids EVER!

 

[Vault Citizen]

A medical check for any hereditary diseases is done to see if there are serious complications for bringing a child into the world. For instance, my father has a family history of heart disease which caused my 30-something year old half sister to have a heart attack after living a very healthy life. If the medical check exposed this, they wouldn't have let him reproduce with anyone

That paragraph is way too close to invoking Godwin's law for comfort.

I disagree with this, I'm on the (centre) left so I'm comfortable with the state providing health care and stuff but deciding who should and should not give birth would be way too much involvement in the personal lives of citizens by the state.

It would basically be the system enforcing one view of what a parent should be and I find the criteria to be too black and white in its view of the world.

It might look good in some aspects on paper but would be awful if ever brought into effect.

 

[Ramin 123]

Ok how do I put this...? The way China had things is humane to say the least e.g. there's a limit on how many kids you have, but filtering out the human race is just...too far. I mean come on man, think about it if we started this where does it end?

If some bloody ejitt was given that type of control what would stop their own ambitions from taking it further e.g. "ohh let's get rid of them ginger bastards, never liked them". Maybe you'd like to think your way is right as most people do but I'm not sure you're taking all things into consideration particularly the corruption that infests the human mind and how bad a catalyst that would be if such a proposal existed (i.e. your filtering of humans).

I know.

I covered that with someone else. I don't trust any one enough to actually give them this kind of power. It would obviously be abused for someones benefit. And I'm certain racism would wriggle it's unwanted face in at some point too. But I wasn't proposing that we put this idea to the government. I'm mearly saying what an ideal system for dealing with over population and child abuse would be.

Haha sounds like communism then.

 

[Tasachan]

What if the person is illiterate? You don't have to be literate to be a good parent, but it's going to make a test pretty darn hard.

If you can't even read, I highly doubt you make enough money to raise a child.

My husband's supervisor is illiterate. He makes more than my husband does, and we're living on just his wages. It's possible.

Really? That's awsome. Are you sure he's not dyslexic though? You can still read if you are, though it's much harder to learn.

No, he's completely illiterate. But he's too caught up in his pride, so he won't admit that he doesn't understand the forms he signs.

 

[Cyberjester]

You do realize that's an impossible idea, yea?

I'll give you an example.

Say one of the laws was that you had to be able to have children to have children.
So any hetrosexual copy is welcome to it, any freaks aren't. They are however allowed to adopt, but only from certain institutions. In this world, we call that discrimination and sue. Hell, if you even think like that you get sought out and sued. Your beliefs are invalid and you will admit it or pay up.

Or another example, and I'll get to the point shortly. I read an article recently about crime in France with illegal weaponry. The idea was to restrict gun licenses which would then take guns off of most of the people except for the ones who illegally access them. There was a shooting where a person who formerly had a license used his formerly legal gun so it made some kind of sense.

Gun lobbyists don't like that idea. So scrap getting rid of guns, instead, increase your police forces ability to deal with them. So we go from shirt, pants and a side arm to ballistic armor, helmet, voice comms and assault rifles with hollow points. It'll stop small arms fire, and they'll be better able to deal with all those illegal hand guns. And now in our hypothetical world we have the problem of citizens being shot on the street for grabbing a handbag.

The only way a license could be introduced is to turn the nation into a police state. Granted, the current status isn't exactly ideal. It wouldn't even be that much of a change needed to get to that stage. But it would still be a full on 1984 world.

What's with all the "I support this" though? This from the crowd that was screaming about how the person accessing loli which is illegal in all of the USA and AUS, I think Britain outlawed it as well and has been for some time, was found out and sentenced under the laws in place. If you support rights so much, then support rights. It's stupid, given the amount of idiots I've come across with children, and they aren't even the majorly abusive ones, a license scheme would be a good idea. But if you want a "free" state, in as much as you can be free in this world, then you can't have a license.

 

[Altorin]

No. definitely not. The right to have your children and raise them the way you want is sort of ingrained in our culture. And people are allowed to think and behave in ways that you don't like, get over yourself. The same freedom that lets you postulate ridiculous ideas like this is the same freedom allowed to everyone else who just wants to raise their kids in peace.