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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (22816)	6/11/1998 2:47:00 AM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Fertility, right or privilege? Hmmm . . . I think society is involved in a pretty big debate about that at the moment. Obviously, fertility is a natural right, in the sense that the only way it could be curtailed is UNnaturally, through some demonic, dark plot like Hitler loved to dream about, or like the Chinese do, with late, horrific, forced abortions. On the other hand, in a natural environment, animals who are not healthy cannot feed or protect their offspring, so they are not as likely to survive and breed again. What we seem to have done is protect the right of women to reproduce, by creating some kind of safety net for them. But with the welfare state we saw that this did increase the numbers of children born into poverty, and we are moving as a society back to the middle again, trying to determine whether reducing welfare benefits for subsequent children results in fewer children being born to dependent mothers. A study I read a couple of days ago suggests that capping welfare benefits has some effect, but not a major one, on reducing births to women on welfare. On the other hand, it may be increasing the abortion rate: search.washingtonpost.com Recently a law was passed in North Dakota which holds women responsible not to drink during pregnancy. A pregnant woman who is abusing alcohol can now be forced into treatment, in order to lower the rate of fetal alcohol syndrome, which is quite high in this state. In reality, this criminalizes poverty to some small degree, since affluent women would not normally come to the notice of the authorities. Also, to some degree it is the fetal age as much as the amount of alcohol consumed that can damage the baby, so enforcement is quite subjective. Several states are experimenting with similar laws, for example drug testing women on medicaid during pregnancy. There is an argument to be made that once these kinds of programs are well known, the population at risk will simply not seek any prenatal care, however. All of this tinkering around the edges plays with the issue of fertility--right or privilege. Of course, the ACLU is heavily involved arguing that these are intrusions on the right of fertility. I think you also need to consider that among women on welfare, there is more social pathology than in the general population. Not all these women will make good, rational decisions even if we do social engineering so that the logical choice is not to reproduce. Even though the society may begin leaning towards fertility as a privilege, babies will still be born to parents incapable of nurturing or rearing them. In answer to another part of your post, I think most people in any modern society would prefer steak to beans, figuratively speaking. There is a huge difference to me between a safety net as something so that people do not fall through the cracks while they are hunting steak, and as a huge beanery with nice, enticing smells wafting and comfy chairs. The trick is to get everything somewhat balanced. Western Europe is working through this equation at the moment, so it might be interesting to watch them.