Is procreation a right?

[skeptic]

Is the right to spawn children a God given or constitutional right?

I ask because a guy in LA voluntarily submitted to castration this week to qualify for parole as a sex offender.

I also ask because the Chinese one child policy doesn't recognize any natural right to bear children.

I also ask because some decade soon most of the world will be embracing all manner of cloaked and overt emphasis toward reversing the population explosion.

I also ask because we don't need 6 billion, or 9 billion or 12 billion people sucking the life and resources out of the planet. Or at least I can't think of a single reason why we need or want so many people choking the life out of the planet.

And I ask because the castration tactic may be a final solution for a LOT of our social ills. It may be adopted as a voluntary option if you want parole as a sex offender, or if you want to receive public services, or for other reasons, criminal offenses as just one example. But I think the day is coming when most of the world will be selecting who can and who can not breed.

We don't have much of a problem with mass murder, not as a species or as a society. We embrace genocide and war regularly and usually with very little persuasion required to "bring us onboard". So I won't take any moral arguments posited as serious discussion. We are, after all, an immoral species and we always have been an immoral species. We have no problem denying people their God given rights, enslaving them, brutally murdering them or condemning them to starvation. We are so casual in committing these crimes that we ordinarily don't admit that they are occurring or measure them with the same moral compass we would apply if A) somebody had done the same to us or B) if we were committing this crime against somebody who we consider one of US.

So as a matter of opinion, principle, law, pragmatism is procreation a God given or constitutional right?

 

[JBeukema]

No

 

[Charles_Main]

Is the right to spawn children a God given or constitutional right?

The fact that you feel the need to even ask that question tells me our Constitution is not being taught well in school.

Life, Liberty and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

lol

 

[skeptic]

No

Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927)

Thanks, but it is a pretty old ruling. Is it still considered the operative precedent?

 

[JBeukema]

No

Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927)

Thanks, but it is a pretty old ruling. Is it still considered the operative precedent?

Yep. Still in effect. A later ruling said you can't discriminate based the type of crime, though. Buck v. Bell was never overturned.

 

[skeptic]

Is the right to spawn children a God given or constitutional right?

The fact that you feel the need to even ask that question tells me our Constitution is not being taught well in school.

Life, Liberty and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

lol

Pursuit of happiness does not necessarily include any specific activity.

For example I can't use ecstacy legally, I can't jack off in public, and I can't race a motorcycle on public surface streets. Even tho any of those could reasonably make me happy.

 

[gekaap]

The fact that you feel the need to even ask that question tells me our Constitution is not being taught well in school.

Life, Liberty and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

lol

Hey genius, that's not in the constitution, that's from the Declaration of Independence.

 

[Charles_Main]

I ask because a guy in LA voluntarily submitted to castration this week to qualify for parole as a sex offender.

Key Word Voluntarily.

I also ask because the Chinese one child policy doesn't recognize any natural right to bear children.

So now we should base our policies on what a Communist/Totalitarian 1 Party state does? China has nearly 4 times our population and less usable Land than we do. Not sure why you make the Comparison anyways.

I also ask because some decade soon most of the world will be embracing all manner of cloaked and overt emphasis toward reversing the population explosion.

The jan 2011 Edition of National Geographic says By 2050 the world as a whole will have reached replacement levels of new Births. Meaning as developing Nations like China and India Develop, They will start having less kids, just like much of the Already developed world already has. Meaning that by 2050 births will be matching Deaths and the World Populations will stabilize. The Same article Debunks the "Population Explosion Theory" Claiming the explosion is already over. You should read the article. It says World Population will stabilize, and makes a good case that the Idea that the world can not support 10 or even 20 Billion is simply not true. They make one point that you could fit all the people on the planet right now into an area about the size of LA.

So as a matter of opinion, principle, law, pragmatism is procreation a God given or constitutional right?

IMO it absolutely is a right. That is not to say it can not be taken away. We have other rights, like the right to vote, that can indeed be taken away if you do something that merits it.

 

[Charles_Main]

The fact that you feel the need to even ask that question tells me our Constitution is not being taught well in school.

Life, Liberty and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

lol

Hey genius, that's not in the constitution, that's from the Declaration of Independence.

Hey genius he asked our Opinions. I was not implying that it was in the Constitution. I was simply saying that IMO the right to procreate is part of the pursuit of happiness.

Why do you dismiss the Deceleration by the way? After all that document was explaining why we were seeking to self govern in the first place. Does it not.

Why don't you point out the Provision of the Constitution that gives the Fed the Power to tell you, you can not procreate? After all the Constitution is essentially a list of things the Fed can and can not do to you. Not a list of rights.

 

[BrianH]

The fact that you feel the need to even ask that question tells me our Constitution is not being taught well in school.

Life, Liberty and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

lol

Hey genius, that's not in the constitution, that's from the Declaration of Independence.

Hey genius he asked our Opinions. I was not implying that it was in the Constitution. I was simply saying that IMO the right to procreate is part of the pursuit of happiness.

Why do you dismiss the Deceleration by the way? After all that document was explaining why we were seeking to self govern in the first place. Does it not.

Why don't you point out the Provision of the Constitution that gives the Fed the Power to tell you, you can not procreate? After all the Constitution is essentially a list of things the Fed can and can not do to you. Not a list of rights.

Not only that, but the Constitution reflects wishes of the Declaration of Independence.

 

[skeptic]

I also ask because some decade soon most of the world will be embracing all manner of cloaked and overt emphasis toward reversing the population explosion.

The jan 2011 Edition of National Geographic says By 2050 the world as a whole will have reached replacement levels of new Births. Meaning as developing Nations like China and India Develop, They will start having less kids, just like much of the Already developed world already has. Meaning that by 2050 births will be matching Deaths and the World Populations will stabilize. The Same article Debunks the "Population Explosion Theory" Claiming the explosion is already over. You should read the article. It says World Population will stabilize, and makes a good case that the Idea that the world can not support 10 or even 20 Billion is simply not true. They make one point that you could fit all the people on the planet right now into an area about the size of LA.

Thanks for the reply. A few years ago somebody told me that everybody alive today could survive in Australia. So I looked up the arable land available in Australia, divided it by 6 billion and found that they could all survive, but only if they could feed themselves from a 23" x 23" garden. (yes that is 23 inches squared).

We do not know yet if we have already surpassed the limits of the Earth to sustain our population. The Oceans are dying and the green revolution is already delivering diminishing returns, meaning negative yield increase/acre. I don't consider National Geographic anything more than a venue for propaganda either. They may mean well, but as a rule they aren't real. They are in the entertainment business.

 

[skeptic]

The fact that you feel the need to even ask that question tells me our Constitution is not being taught well in school.

Life, Liberty and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

lol

Hey genius, that's not in the constitution, that's from the Declaration of Independence.

Hey genius he asked our Opinions. I was not implying that it was in the Constitution. I was simply saying that IMO the right to procreate is part of the pursuit of happiness.

Why do you dismiss the Deceleration by the way? After all that document was explaining why we were seeking to self govern in the first place. Does it not.

Why don't you point out the Provision of the Constitution that gives the Fed the Power to tell you, you can not procreate? After all the Constitution is essentially a list of things the Fed can and can not do to you. Not a list of rights.

The Deceleration of Independence?

 

[manifold]

it's legal
anyone can do it
you don't need a permit

sure seems like a right

 

[skeptic]

So now we should base our policies on what a Communist/Totalitarian 1 Party state does? China has nearly 4 times our population and less usable Land than we do. Not sure why you make the Comparison anyways.

Because only China and India have yet faced the kind of resource exhaustion the whole world will soon face and China did indeed adopt a zero population mandate to address it.

It didn't work, btw, in the 302 years sine the one child policy was adopted China's population increased almost 40%. China still has a birth rate that exceeds their death rate (10 million more Chinese every year) and there is absolutely no guarantee that either China or India will stabilize their pop growth, and great uncertainty about places like Africa, South America, Pakistan, Indonesia etc.

When the population explosion finally crests in 2050-2060 life on Earth may already be grueling, and the full effects of the human impacts on the planet may not be fully realized for another 200 years.

In a nutshell the problem is that our economy and politics place little priority on saving the poorest of the poor. 18 million people already die each year due to malnutrition. Preventable deaths. But nobody cares. And nobody will care when 180 million are dying each year from malnutrition. Those are the poor. they have no power and their lives are cheap.

 

[BrianH]

War, disease, and natural disaster will reduce the population. It always does. It's just a matter of time.

 

[dilloduck]

War, disease, and natural disaster will reduce the population. It always does. It's just a matter of time.

Don't forget asteroids.

 

[Charles_Main]

So now we should base our policies on what a Communist/Totalitarian 1 Party state does? China has nearly 4 times our population and less usable Land than we do. Not sure why you make the Comparison anyways.

Because only China and India have yet faced the kind of resource exhaustion the whole world will soon face and China did indeed adopt a zero population mandate to address it.

It didn't work, btw, in the 302 years sine the one child policy was adopted China's population increased almost 40%. China still has a birth rate that exceeds their death rate (10 million more Chinese every year) and there is absolutely no guarantee that either China or India will stabilize their pop growth, and great uncertainty about places like Africa, South America, Pakistan, Indonesia etc.

When the population explosion finally crests in 2050-2060 life on Earth may already be grueling, and the full effects of the human impacts on the planet may not be fully realized for another 200 years.

In a nutshell the problem is that our economy and politics place little priority on saving the poorest of the poor. 18 million people already die each year due to malnutrition. Preventable deaths. But nobody cares. And nobody will care when 180 million are dying each year from malnutrition. Those are the poor. they have no power and their lives are cheap.

again I suggest you read the Jan 2011 edition of National Geographic. According to them the Idea that we will face serious over population problems is some what over stated.

Besides. The US is just barely at replacement levels. If it was not for immigration our population would actually be shrinking like much of the Developed worlds is. Before we start telling people they can not have kids, I would think it would make sense to stop importing so many immigrants, if we are really so worried about over Population in the US.

according to the Article World population growth is and will continue to slow, By 2045 they predict only 9 Billion people. The point out that with 9 Billion people spread out over the 6 inhabitable continents the worlds population density would be slightly more than half of Frances today. Have you been to France? Not exactly over populated. The United State Population IMO would have to quadrupole before we started having major over crowding issues. Hell where I live in Michigan, far more than half of the land is still undeveloped. We are a rather sparsely populated country in fact.

Yes there will be problems in certain places, like India, and China, and Maybe Africa with over crowding, but nature has a way of dealing with that.

 

[rdean]

no such thing as magical spirits or the occult

 

[xsited1]

Is procreation a right?

It depends on the country. Those that advocate liberty would say, "yes."

 

[JFK_USA]

Yes.