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comment by oyster
oyster  ·  2886 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Long, Slow Death of Religion

    I am not in favor of a government agency telling people they can or can't have kids.

    there should be some standard that we can agree on as a society that define 'acceptable minimums' for being a parent.

What ? How do we standardize something without some sort of agency ?





OftenBen  ·  2886 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    How do we standardize something without some sort of agency ?

I'm open to suggestions. Off the top of my head, we could crowdsource it. Ask people what they think the 'acceptable minimum' is for different things. Keep refining the questions until some sort of consensus is reached. Then somehow get prospective parents to reflect and honestly assess if they are able to meet those minimums.

oyster  ·  2886 days ago  ·  link  ·  

If people want kids, they'll have them regardless of what some randoms on the internet decide is acceptable.

I mean basically you think people should vote for a standard but you're stopping short of saying the standard should be enforced to avoid the whole government thing.

OftenBen  ·  2886 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    you're stopping short of saying the standard should be enforced to avoid the whole government thing.

Mostly because it can't be enforced effectively enough to warrant doing it in the first place. And what is government other than some random people?

As you said, people who want kids will have them regardless. I don't think that's a good thing. Children are people too, not just something an adult gets to have because they want one.

oyster  ·  2885 days ago  ·  link  ·  

So what about normalizing adoption ? Currently it's seen as the last ditch effort to have kids for those people who fail in every other way. If it wasn't viewed so negatively than maybe more people would make that choice when deciding if they want kids.

There are actual ways to convince more people to stop having kids they know will be sick that don't involve any sort of voting or standardized list of who can acceptably have children.

OftenBen  ·  2885 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That's another good approach, but emotionally difficult to sell. Most people who want kids want their own kids, and that's not a moral failing. Maybe it should be?

oyster  ·  2885 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Dude, it's not about looking down on people or moral failing. The more you look down on people, the easier it is to dehumanize them and the less you will care about their suffering.

That's not difficult to sell, it's just an approach that will take a new generation to fully understand. Considering adopting would have less of an impact on a woman's career since she skips pregnancy it could easily start to seem like a positive.