The Right to Have Children

[Astaroth]

All species have a way of reproducing. We humans are born with genitials; once we grow up and reach a certain age, we can have sex and children. When you reach adulthood, you will not only be granted privileges, your responsibility will grow considerably as well. The right to have children goes hand in hand with being ready for that task. As a parent, you will have to take care of your children, you'll have to clothe and feed them.

But does our responsibility towards our children really start at birth or conception? Do we have an unalienable right to have children, just because we have a means of reproduction? Should everyone be allowed to have children? What is valued higher, the rights of a child or those of his parents?

If someone knows that he is poor, is fully aware that he might not be able to feed his child, that he might not have the money for medicine or clothes - does he still have the right to have a child? Isn't it highly irresponsible to put a child into the world, to expose it to poverty, to hunger, thirst and icy cold, when you know that you cannot protect it? What if you know that your child will have a horrible, dreadful life, full of pain, with many disabilities and diseases? Is it morally right to still give birth to the child, can your wish for it to live be valued higher than its rights? Are you not failing your responsibility as a parent by handing over someone to the dangers of the world, to the awkwardness he might have to live in? Is it not wrong to make choices for someone who cannot protest, who cannot do anything about it? Is it not wrong to force someone to live a life he or she might not even want? In the age of contraception, now that we have baby pills and condomes, is it still responsible to have a child, no matter how bad the circumstances you live in might be?

Pro-choice supporters always talk about a child's right to live, a right to be born. But what about the rights of those who might have a horrible life? Those who might be better off never knowing the pains of life, suffering and death. We always talk about how amazing life is, how wonderful it is to be alive, how we must thank our parents that we are here. But is that really true? Someone who was never born has never had any troubles, has never felt anything, never had to suffer. We believe that living is a privilege - but is it really?

By giving birth to a child, you create another being and immediately force enormous decisions on it. You value your own will much higher than your child's rights and thus ignore your responsibility as a parent. Having children is a right, a privilege. A child should never, ever be considered as a mere "toy" you want to have now because you feel like it. Unfortunately, our society has yet to accept that.

[Tankbuster]

You open quite a few streams of thought in your post, but I would go with paragraph number 4: life is not always a blessing, and is not always enjoyable. I'd rather be dead than be born in Eastern Congo or Darfur and live a miserable life of war, death, starvation, in miserable life conditions.
Same thing with tough criminals or psychos: they will poison their children with their ideas and (non-existent) sense of morality.

So from a moral viewpoint, I'd say: yes, we should be able to stop certain people from reproducing.

But from a practical/realistic point of view, I'd say: no. Simply because: who's going to choose when it is acceptable? For me, there are A LOT of people who offer their children nothing but a youth full of brainwashing and mind-poisoning. I would never allow them to have children, or at least take the child away for proper education.
But of course, I would never go as far as to cut away their genitals to prevent them, or busting into their houses to steal their children or something.

So are you speaking theoritically or practically?

[Justice and Mercy]

So from a moral viewpoint, I'd say: yes, we should be able to stop certain people from reproducing.

Right, let's force everyone in Darfur into clinics where we can tie tubes and give vascectomies.

[Tankbuster]

Right, let's force everyone in Darfur into clinics where we can tie tubes and give vascectomies.

I said: from a moral standpoint. Not practical.

Unless you're going to argue that the life those babies have there is worth living.

[Justice and Mercy]

I said: from a moral standpoint. Not practical.

Unless you're going to argue that the life those babies have there is worth living.

Morality demands that it's not our place to decide who should be having babies and who shouldn't.

[fieldmarshal]

Morality demands that it's not our place to decide who should be having babies and who shouldn't.

Sorry no, morality has to do with what is good and right, not who has the rights to do what. So in that case, absolutely not, some people are just unfit to be parents, either they are irresponsible or cant financially support children. Yes everyone has the right to be parents, but at the same time everyone has the moral responsibility to their children. If you fail at that moral responsibility, you loose your right to be parents, it is the case for kids, if there is any signs of harm to the child by the parents, the state does step in and the parent could loose their kids. So i don't see why it cannot be applied at some level to unborn children, with our rising population, scarcity in resources, poverty and child abuse, there should be some regulation imo of having kids, for the good of the whole society. Dont ask me how to regulate this, because i don't know, its a legal nightmare. So basically i believe that people just have the legal and natural right to have children, not the moral right, because moral right involves responsiblities, and lot of people just arent morally responsible.

[julmoo]

I think everyone has the right to have children.

But I think that right should be realized. Poor people should think of it when they are about to get a child/waiting for a child.
Some people get children just for fun or because of the money (in Germany get familes something like 300€ every month)
It is really sad when you have to hear in the news that a child died because the parents couldn't care for it or because they hated it

What makes me mad is the things that happen here in Germany. A lot of women just kill their children because of unknown reasons.
Such people shouldn't have the right for children. But you never know what is in the mind of the people

[Astaroth]

I am mainly speaking from a moral and ethical point of view.

[Beanbee]

Morally and Ethically I have to say everyone should be allowed to have children. I can understand there could be great socio-economic and health issues due to a birth but we can't even promise a perfect life for a child with a perfect upbringing. Perhaps when we can guarentee a safe highly superior life to all children we can talk about 'breeding rights'. Do be careful though, there's been plenty of atempts to 'breed out' a group of people before. Give people the right to say yes and no and they will discriminate.

[KaerMorhen]

Morally and Ethically I have to say everyone should be allowed to have children.

not at all!!! junkies such as alcos, narcos and alikes should be sterilizated if denied or failed to detox therapies. It is absolutly horrifing what those scums are doing to children

[Oswald von Wolkenstein]

not at all!!! junkies such as alcos, narcos and alikes should be sterilizated if denied or failed to detox therapies. It is absolutly horrifing what those scums are doing to children

Hey guys, it's been done, we already know that forced birth control is a very very bad idea.

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[Maverick]

When I take the word "right" out of the equation the idea that only intelligent, emotionally healthy couples reproduce sounds logical.

[KaerMorhen]

Hey guys, it's been done, we already know that forced birth control is a very very bad idea.

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The PRCh example is not what I meant. The utter lowlifes who'd sell or even kill the child just for another dope or shot must be banned for having children at all!!!

[Oswald von Wolkenstein]

The PRCh example is not what I meant. The utter lowlifes who'd sell or even kill the child just for another dope or shot must be banned for having children at all!!!

I wasn't thinking of China. I was thinking of Eugenetic Policies developed in several western countries in 1920s and 1930s. The ban on the mentally handicapped reproducing is one the vestiges of this movement.

Nazi Germany is the culmination of this movement.
The Nazis expanded the law until the only healthy baby, in the eyes of the state, was an Aryan one.

Josef Mengle, later famed as the Angel of Death, got his start sterilizing undesirables. The Nazis intially did this covertly. They brought in people for interviews and during the interview they would radiate the reproductive organs. (For the men, they had a chair that would emit x-rays directly into the testicles of male being interviewed, often causing burns. For the women, they did fake T.B. screenings and toasted her ovaries instead of taking pictures of lungs.)

Soon people who were forbidden to reproduce included the Physically and Mentally Handicapped, Alcoholics, Addicts, Prostitutes, Mentally Ill . . . Gays, Jews, Roma and Sinti and non-Whites

but sterilization wasn't quite fast enough --

so they started Euthanization programs --

again covertly at first by neglect -- They annouced a program of state care of all handicapped children. And they gathered them up, promising the best care for the children. But instead, they killed the children through exposure and starvation and sending false letters to the parents -- but people caught on pretty quick when children who already had appendectomies were reported to have died during appendex removal. But this didn't stop them.

The Nazis did the same to adults. Suddenly young mothers, briefly admitted to Sanitariums for post partem depression were dying of "strokes" in mass. But it took too long to starve and freeze adults to death and the adults sometimes fought back.

So they started gassing the adults in hospitals in 1937. The technique of gassing worked so well, that . . . well, I am assuming that you know the rest of the story.

The Nazis had the same concern as some posters in this thread, they wanted to make sure that only fit parents would have babies. And the Nazis are really not much different than anyone else. Anyone can make the mistakes they made, if they are arrogant enough to assume that it won't go wrong a second time. If it went wrong for them, it will go wrong when someone else tries it. No matter how humanitarian the intention.
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[Bovril]

I don't think that phrasing the question in terms of rights is appropriate. Rights are social facts, not inherant features of what it is to be human. Since you said you want to talk about this in purely ethical rather than practical terms the idea of rights does not come into play. So the question becomes is it immoral to have children when you know that they will most likely wish they had never been born? Well, it seems to me that when the question is phrased like that the answer becomes obvious. As is so often the case the difficulty is with formulating rather than answering the question.

[Personified Boredom]

If you [this is a generality, not a personal] were to ever, ever, ever try to take away my biological right to breed, pardon my french, but I'll kill your whole ing family. Or the family of whoever it is that seeks to deny me the chance to breed.

This is beyond morals and ethics. You have hit a point where you're ing with nature. I don't like that. Species breed, overpopulate, die off, and start the whole process again. The moment you begin to alter that pattern, you've done something wrong.

Does that sum up my view tersely enough?

[Cluny the Scourge]

If you [this is a generality, not a personal] were to ever, ever, ever try to take away my biological right to breed, pardon my french, but I'll kill your whole ing family. Or the family of whoever it is that seeks to deny me the chance to breed.

This is beyond morals and ethics. You have hit a point where you're ing with nature. I don't like that. Species breed, overpopulate, die off, and start the whole process again. The moment you begin to alter that pattern, you've done something wrong.

Does that sum up my view tersely enough?

Indeed it does, and you have done an excellent job of putting yourself forward as a good example of a category that, under and future legislation restricting the right to procreate, should be banned from it. "I'll kill your whole family"? You would indeed be a test case for someone who earnestly believes in the freedom to procreate at will, because they would be hard-pressed to accept that you could be trusted raising a child.

[Djûn]

If we're talking about rights, then the Rights to Private and Family Life are considered two of the many fundamental human rights about. Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights enforces this in the UK.

If however, as I suspect and as Bovril has so learnedly mentioned, you are talking about a code of morals, I would still be inclined to side with the view protecting this Right. It's far too fundamental to be given too much thought, in my opinion. If this is to do with abortion, then I would support you claim that a child who is to be brought into the world to a family who would be totally unable to support its severe mental or physical defects should be allowed to be terminated. Though this type of argument quickly falls into a slippery slope and justification of this position is difficult at best.

[jonny duck]

If we're talking about rights, then the Rights to Private and Family Life are considered two of the many fundamental human rights about. Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights enforces this in the UK.

If however, as I suspect and as Bovril has so learnedly mentioned, you are talking about a code of morals, I would still be inclined to side with the view protecting this Right. It's far too fundamental to be given too much thought, in my opinion. If this is to do with abortion, then I would support you claim that a child who is to be brought into the world to a family who would be totally unable to support its severe mental or physical defects should be allowed to be terminated. Though this type of argument quickly falls into a slippery slope and justification of this position is difficult at best.

Nice post, +rep

I agree with you that the right to have children is a fundamental right, that should not be taken away from anyone, no matter what the circumstances. However the difficulty comes when trying to find a place amoungst it for homosexual couples. Are they also entitled to a child, having chosen (or it has been chosen for them) to follow a path where nature prevents them from having a child? Should they be "entitled" to one? Of that I am not so sure, and it becomes very hard to justify one's position without sounding like a homophobic idiot, but as clear as I can see it they should not be prevented from adopting or from IVF, but should not be given priority above heterosexual couples.

As for abortion, couples should be given the right to abort their child if they wish, but abortion should never be forced upon anyone. If the child would suffer because they are unable to provide inadequate care then it can be taken from them and adopted into a home that can provide for it, but to force abortion onto someone is tantamount to murder.

[chamaeleo]

...and the crack-ho who's preggo with her 3rd soon-to-be retarded kid, what right does she have to burden our society with her effed up offspring?

I'd support legislation requiring mandatory hysterectomies for losers like her, as well as vasectomies for repeat-offender violent criminals...a little less testosterone could even be a good thing. Hell...let's offer people $30,000 checks to volunteer for the surgery!