Forced sterilization?

[koshergrl]

No thank you, once was enough.

 

[jwoodie]

The larger issue is whether people who can't take care of themselves should be institutionalized. Right now, the only way this can be done is if it can be shown that they are a present danger to themselves or others. That is why we have so many mentally ill people roaming our streets.

Since we can't just "catch and release" people back into society for the purpose of sterilization, the only other option is institutionalization, where their behavior can be monitored and controlled.

 

[koshergrl]

We used to do that, but the libs insisted that we shut down the mental hospitals and turn the crazies out.

 

[paravani]

Eugenics is part and parcel of Utopianism. A perfect world filled with perfect people. To the Nazis anything other than blonde hair and blue eyes was imperfect because they were creating the master race. There is Utopianism on its face. The idea of preventing children with birth defects gets bigger and bigger. Should a girl genetically predisposed to small breasts be allowed to live. After all she will require surgery later in life to correct her birth defect. Isn't baldness hereditary? Sure it is, so those defective boys have to go as well.

Cultures that practice eugenics don't last very long. Which is a mercy. And goals of Utopia go even faster.

I believe it depends on HOW the culture practices eugenics. I want to point out that even now -- and for several decades past -- our culture has allowed parents to practice eugenics on their unborn children.

When I was pregnant, I was given a blood test to find out whether my baby was at risk to have Down's Syndrome. The test came back positive, and we were recommended to have "genetic counseling" and amniocentesis to determine if indeed our daughter had Down's Syndrome, in which case a late-term abortion would be an option.

We were told the chances she actually had Down's were 3%; the risk of amniocentesis causing a spontaneous abortion was only 0.1%; so I did the math and blurted out, "That means that out of every 100,000 babies to whom you give this test, 100 babies die... and 97 of those 100 babies were perfectly healthy before the test killed them! How do you live with that?"

My point is that genetic counseling and amniocentesis are common forms of parental-consent eugenics in modern-day America, and they won't be abolished any time soon -- nor should they be.

UBC (universal birth control) is in no way comparable with this kind of eugenics.

UBC doesn't involve choosing NOT to have children; it instead makes the choice to have a child proactive, requiring a small amount of forethought, planning, and effort. The amount of effort involved in counteracting the UBC should be very small, certainly minor compared to the effort involved in taking care of a baby. It isn't intended to eliminate parenthood as an option for anyone except those who are unwilling or unable to make some small effort for the sake of having a baby.

That's the whole point of UBC: to change the paradigm of pregnancy-as-accident to pregnancy-as-choice.

Basically, putting UBC into metropolitan water supplies establishes a test for parenthood -- where currently the only test is whether one can find anyone who loves one enough or is drunk enough, stupid enough, desperate enough for money, or weak enough to force to have sex without birth control. The test isn't difficult, and it isn't expensive. It's simply this: can the parents obtain and remember to consume only non-UBC water (whether bottled, rainwater, or other natural-sourced water) in order to become pregnant?

Yes, it's a form of "eugenics" in that if you are too poor to buy bottled water (recently priced at 80 cents per gallon, less if you refill containers) and you are unwilling to make the effort to track down sources of free bottled water (like your local Catholic Church), then you will not be able to make a baby that would require much more effort than that from you if you were to give birth.

In that respect it is eugenics, in that it eliminates the possibility of parenthood for the lazy, the thoughtless, the apathetic, and those who didn't want or plan on getting pregnant at all even though they have sex without protection against pregnancy. Yes, UBC would eliminate accidental pregnancy for these people... but aren't these kinds of parents exactly the ones that cause so many of society's ills? People who are too lazy or thoughtless to care for their children, pay attention to their children, raise their children?

No, UBC wouldn't lead to any kind of social or cultural breakdown -- just the opposite. By ensuring that every child is a choice, UBC would ultimately strengthen society.

-- Paravani

 

[koshergrl]

Do you think our society is in a better place now than several decades ago?

Do you think there's less child abuse, fewer unwanted children, less crime?

Nope. The idea that applied eugenics = healthier society is a lie.

 

[jwoodie]

UBC is good in theory, but probably a nightmare in practice. Our only other alternative is educating people about the need to get married before having children. Unfortunately, this wouldn't be well received in many minority communities...

 

[koshergrl]

That's right, because we just spent the last 40 years convincing people that marriage is unnecessary and even BAD.

 

[Katzndogz]

The philosophers who explored Utopianism all ultimately concluded that it must fail. The concept of Utopianism depends on the central control of the Philosopher Kings of Plato's Republic, to the Planning Committee of Karl Marx. Each exploration into Utopia ends up the same way, control of the individual that must reach the smallest minutinae of life, until the people rebel.

What the proponents of universal birth control don't realize is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Which means, that if there is universal birth control there must also be forced pregnancies. The culture will still need workers. There will have to be a mechanism to produce those workers. There will still have to be a way of forcing those with superior genetic material to reproduce when they choose not to. Removing freedom from people never has the result of more freedom. In Thomas More's Utopia the solution was to kidnap people from surrounding city-states and conscript them into service to the superior Utopians.

 

[paravani]

What the proponents of universal birth control don't realize is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Which means, that if there is universal birth control there must also be forced pregnancies. The culture will still need workers. There will have to be a mechanism to produce those workers. There will still have to be a way of forcing those with superior genetic material to reproduce when they choose not to. Removing freedom from people never has the result of more freedom. In Thomas More's Utopia the solution was to kidnap people from surrounding city-states and conscript them into service to the superior Utopians.

Forced pregnancies when our population stands at 7 billion and rising? You must be joking...

You're missing something here -- something really BIG: we are currently experiencing worldwide unemployment, and it's going to get worse over the next few decades. You don't have to be an economist to see that.

Computers and robots are replacing human workers in every sector of the economy. Bookkeepers and accountants are being replaced by programs like Quicken; calculations that used to require ten engineers with slide rules a week to perform and check now take one computer microseconds or less; ATMs have replaced 95% of the bank tellers and bank managers; supermarkets are replacing human checkers with self-checking; and the automotive industry has replaced nearly all of its highly-paid, unionized workers with robotics. Farm communities are dying out because in the place of ten large farms that might have employed 20 hands each, we now have one mega-farm that only employs a few people to supervise the automated plowing, planting, irrigation, and harvesting systems.

The preceding is only a partial list of the jobs that are vanishing due to automation, computers, and robotics. Anyone reading it can easily think of dozens more examples.

The fact is, we don't need more unskilled workers. Over the coming decades, we will need fewer and fewer workers of any kind.

-- Paravani

 

[koshergrl]

Feel free to sterilize yourself.

Leave my family alone, though.

 

[Katzndogz]

Feel free to sterilize yourself.

Leave my family alone, though.

The best answer there is.

There is really no Utopia in Utopia. We aren't all going to be reduced to a handful of humans in a world of mechanical servants. It no longer even makes for good science fiction.

 

[FA_Q2]

Eugenics is part and parcel of Utopianism. A perfect world filled with perfect people. To the Nazis anything other than blonde hair and blue eyes was imperfect because they were creating the master race. There is Utopianism on its face. The idea of preventing children with birth defects gets bigger and bigger. Should a girl genetically predisposed to small breasts be allowed to live. After all she will require surgery later in life to correct her birth defect. Isn't baldness hereditary? Sure it is, so those defective boys have to go as well.

Cultures that practice eugenics don't last very long. Which is a mercy. And goals of Utopia go even faster.

I believe it depends on HOW the culture practices eugenics. I want to point out that even now -- and for several decades past -- our culture has allowed parents to practice eugenics on their unborn children.

When I was pregnant, I was given a blood test to find out whether my baby was at risk to have Down's Syndrome. The test came back positive, and we were recommended to have "genetic counseling" and amniocentesis to determine if indeed our daughter had Down's Syndrome, in which case a late-term abortion would be an option.

We were told the chances she actually had Down's were 3%; the risk of amniocentesis causing a spontaneous abortion was only 0.1%; so I did the math and blurted out, "That means that out of every 100,000 babies to whom you give this test, 100 babies die... and 97 of those 100 babies were perfectly healthy before the test killed them! How do you live with that?"

My point is that genetic counseling and amniocentesis are common forms of parental-consent eugenics in modern-day America, and they won't be abolished any time soon -- nor should they be.

UBC (universal birth control) is in no way comparable with this kind of eugenics.

UBC doesn't involve choosing NOT to have children; it instead makes the choice to have a child proactive, requiring a small amount of forethought, planning, and effort. The amount of effort involved in counteracting the UBC should be very small, certainly minor compared to the effort involved in taking care of a baby. It isn't intended to eliminate parenthood as an option for anyone except those who are unwilling or unable to make some small effort for the sake of having a baby.

That's the whole point of UBC: to change the paradigm of pregnancy-as-accident to pregnancy-as-choice.

Basically, putting UBC into metropolitan water supplies establishes a test for parenthood -- where currently the only test is whether one can find anyone who loves one enough or is drunk enough, stupid enough, desperate enough for money, or weak enough to force to have sex without birth control. The test isn't difficult, and it isn't expensive. It's simply this: can the parents obtain and remember to consume only non-UBC water (whether bottled, rainwater, or other natural-sourced water) in order to become pregnant?

Yes, it's a form of "eugenics" in that if you are too poor to buy bottled water (recently priced at 80 cents per gallon, less if you refill containers) and you are unwilling to make the effort to track down sources of free bottled water (like your local Catholic Church), then you will not be able to make a baby that would require much more effort than that from you if you were to give birth.

In that respect it is eugenics, in that it eliminates the possibility of parenthood for the lazy, the thoughtless, the apathetic, and those who didn't want or plan on getting pregnant at all even though they have sex without protection against pregnancy. Yes, UBC would eliminate accidental pregnancy for these people... but aren't these kinds of parents exactly the ones that cause so many of society's ills? People who are too lazy or thoughtless to care for their children, pay attention to their children, raise their children?

No, UBC wouldn't lead to any kind of social or cultural breakdown -- just the opposite. By ensuring that every child is a choice, UBC would ultimately strengthen society.

-- Paravani

The difference from your first point and your second (parental eugenics and UBC) is that one is in the power of the parent and the other is in the power of the state. How you missed something so fundamental is beyond me.

The fact is that, as the parent, you are always going to have that control and by rights you should. People should be free. Not only is it right but a truly strong society thrives on a free populous. What you are advocating is giving the state all the power. The power to set limitation on when or how you are allowed to become pregnant. Your arbitrary line is exactly that: arbitrary and utterly pointless. Today, the state decides that the water source is nice little 'obstacle' that you must overcome but when the state deems it necessary, they will move this marker to something more suited for them. The end result is still the same and it is most certainly NOT a better society.
I cannot fathom why it is so hard to understand that giving the government this kind of power over the individual is NOT a good thing. This is the utter rejection of the concept of freedom. In all honesty, I could give a damn about what's better, cheaper or going to create a stronger society anyway. NONE of those things matter. What matters is that I am free to carry out my own life in the best manner that I wish. That I am the arbiter of my life and its outcome. What you are advocating is that I give such basic rights as the ability to have a child over to the government.

This is truly crazy stuff. So bad you cannot even make it up. I am sure that the Nazi's thought they were creating a 'stronger' society also. It simply does not work out. It never will and the worst part is that such a mindset leads to the greatest atrocities that man has ever faced. I am sure you think it will be different this time because the people asking for it are so much better.

It won't.

 

[Katzndogz]

The Nazis thought that they were the master race. That human beings were in need of caretakers and they were the natural superiors who should be entrusted with the culling of undesirables. This is what eugenics is all about. Some people are so superior that they should rule over all others. They are the only ones who should make decisions for everyone else.

 

[Jarlaxle]

A few years back I was acquainted with a woman named Susie. Susie has a laundry list of physical and metal handicaps. She is married to a very nice man, who also has a long list of both physical and metal handicaps. Both susie and her husband are supported by the state.

The issue is that, while being supported by the state, Susie and her husband decided to have babies, lots of babies. The last time i saw Susie, they were up to 4. Each of their children have physical(not sure about the mental) handicaps. They now have a case worker who visits the family regularly, and the state provides a helper who also comes at least once a week.

I can remember a coworker commenting that Susie was the poster child for forced sterilization.

The question is, should people who do not have the mental capacity to fully care for themselves, be allowed to procreate? Is this a slippery slope best steered clear of, or should the state be allowed to sterilize the mentally impaired.

Oh i am in support of forced sterilization on not just the mentally impaired.



Tennessee man has over 20 kids; owes child support to 15 women | WTVR.com

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3e41prVDv4]15 Kid Welfare Mom: "Somebody Owes Me" - YouTube[/ame]

That's one of those times where I think free sterilization would come in handy.

If I donated my bolt cutters for the cause, would that qualify as "free sterilization"?

 

[Katzndogz]

This is the candidate for forced sterilization.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bavou_SEj1E]I Got 15 Kids & 3 Babydaddys-SOMEONE'S GOTTA PAY FOR ME & MY KIDS!!! - YouTube[/ame]

 

[PaulS1950]

Hey, if forced sterilization was implemented for everyone then in about 100 years all the worlds troubles would be over. So would all the peoples troubles, those who were not dead soon would be and population would be back to "0". We would finally have "world peace" and no wars.

I don't imagine everyone would volunteer for it but then people don't usually volunteer for such things. We can just make it the law - through the united nations. Then we wouldn't need their "One World Government" that they keep pushing.
No more taxes, no more illness, or death or noisy neighbors. Just peace and quiet for all the other species on planet Earth.

 

[Noomi]

There is a senate enquiry going on here into sterilisation. A mother of a severely disabled woman has told the senate why her daughter should never be allowed to have children. For a mother to speak out like that, the daughter must be very disabled and unable to care for herself, let alone her kids.

We do need to do something to stop people who are extremely disabled from having kids.

 

[AmyNation]

In accordance with this discussion. The forced abortion.

Court May Force Mentally Disabled Nevada Woman to Have Abortion | LifeNews.com

With obvious public outcries against forced abortions in China and forced sterilizations of mentally handicapped individuals in Nazi Germany, one might assume the United States knows better.

However, today, in Nevada, the life of an 11-week-old unborn baby and the future of his or her 32-year-old mother hang in the balance as a judge considers whether or not to order the woman to undergo an abortion and sterilization against her will.

Elisa Bauer, who suffers from severe mental and physical disabilities attributed to fetal alcohol syndrome, is currently in the final weeks of her first trimester. The second-oldest of six children adopted by William and Amy Bauer in 1992, Elisa has epilepsy and is said to have the mental and social capacity of a 6-year-old.

This should horrify anyone. The disabled woman, Elisa, HAS responsible guardians to make these decisions. The State doesn't agree with the guardians, whose decision should be final. It's cases like this that fundamentally changes the relationship between the government and the citizens.

Sounds like her adoptive parents are incompetent. I hope the court is looking into revoking their rights.

 

[there4eyeM]

How can we effectively discuss the 'will' of a six-year-old capacity person certified as retarded? Not to mention the question of how such an individual could have become pregnant.

We make decisions all the time about life and death, based upon what is most desirable for the living. It is hypocritical to pretend that such choice is not made or that it is not valid. Human compassion must rule, but that can be nuanced.

 

[Two Thumbs]

There is a senate enquiry going on here into sterilisation. A mother of a severely disabled woman has told the senate why her daughter should never be allowed to have children. For a mother to speak out like that, the daughter must be very disabled and unable to care for herself, let alone her kids.

We do need to do something to stop people who are extremely disabled from having kids.

Choose tyranny

And try not to get upset when it finally goes to far and your life is impacted.

remember; you didn't ask, you demanded it.