Right vs. privilege

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Our world is and has been a disaster due in part to an uncontested human right which in my opinion has gotten way out of control:

Child-bearing.

I think that bringing a child into this world should be a privilege; not a right.

I think that individual human rights place too much of a burden on global human well-being and prosperity.

Not to mention HAPPINESS.

I however have no idea how something like this could be implemented.

It could backfire and bring even more misery than what was supposed to remedy.

Any ideas? comments? criticism?

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Re: Right vs. privilege

Dark knight wrote:

I think that individual human rights place too much of a burden on global human well-being and prosperity.

"human global well-being and prosperity" - you mean for the future...? Which humans would they be....our children...??

I'm not sure the world is a disaster. I think it's doing great, 'specially humanity. We're enjoying a plague of success !!

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Assuming you're not being sarcastic; here's an image of "very happy" little children who have not been "plagued" by our success...

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/6434/terrorch8.png

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No, not sarcasm.

Here's a WHO site explaining the ever decreasing world child mortality rate since 1970.

http://www.who.int/whr/2003/chapter1/en/index2.html

Things are getting better all the time, don't let the nightly news reports (or sensationalist pictures like yours) fool you.

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Re: Right vs. privilege

Dark knight wrote:

Our world is and has been a disaster due in part to an uncontested human right which in my opinion has gotten way out of control: Child-bearing.

There are signs that things are improving. Population-tallying is a tricky business, but studies show that birth rates in the United States are showing a general decline over the past 20 years or so. Also, the first five years of the 21st century have so far shown a slower rate of global population increase compared to the booming 20th century.

Dark knight wrote:

I however have no idea how something like this could be implemented.

I don't either, not without opening some dangerous doors, which might be a good argument for not trying to implement anything at the legal level. I suspect the best we can do is advise people on the consequences of child-bearing, both short- and long-term. According to the USDA, the average cost of raising a child is increasing, and based on my own experience this seems to be discouraging adults to have children. I have a few activist friends who are doing what they can to encourage people to consider adoption as well.

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Re: Right vs. privilege

Dark knight wrote:

Our world is and has been a disaster due in part to an uncontested human right which in my opinion has gotten way out of control:

Child-bearing.

I think that bringing a child into this world should be a privilege; not a right.

I think that individual human rights place too much of a burden on global human well-being and prosperity.

Not to mention HAPPINESS.

I however have no idea how something like this could be implemented.

It could backfire and bring even more misery than what was supposed to remedy.

Any ideas? comments? criticism?

Abortion advocates often claim abortion to be a right because 'the woman has the right to control her own body'.

Procreation control, such as what you advocate, would be based on the woman NOT having 'control of her own body.'

How would you address this?

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Re: Right vs. privilege

Dark knight wrote:

I think that bringing a child into this world should be a privilege; not a right.

DK, it's not either - it's a biological consequence of the reproductive act.

You might as well say 'breathing should be a privilege; not a right'

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Re: Right vs. privilege

Dark knight wrote:

I think that bringing a child into this world should be a privilege; not a right.

A privlage? Its a biblogical function. And also 65+ is becoming the fastest growing age group. less children mean less taxes meaning less spread the cost, which is more pressure on those who are around and less care for the elderly.

Read The Giver (a novel) then talk to me your thaughts of child control, the elderly and free thaught.

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hingehead wrote:

You might as well say 'breathing should be a privilege; not a right'

Isn't it?

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Re: Right vs. privilege

hingehead wrote:

DK, it's not either - it's a biological consequence of the reproductive act.

You might as well say 'breathing should be a privilege; not a right'

It's not quite a true analogy, since the reproductive act can be exercised or not according to choice, while breathing cannot (plausibly, anyway).

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Re: Right vs. privilege

Shapeless wrote:

It's not quite a true analogy, since the reproductive act can be exercised or not according to choice, while breathing cannot (plausibly, anyway).

Tell that to thousands of teenage girls,lol.

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Stop holding your breath, girls!

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A simple, incontravertable fact is that reproduction is neither a right nor privilege, it is nothing less than, nothing other than, the supreme, overarching, all-encompassing imperative for any species; all other considerations pertaining to the issue of existence are subordinate to and facilliate the perpetuation of the species at study.

We (and everything else that lives) are because we breed - period.

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I agree.

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I agree as well, though it should be noted that reproduction's role of perpetuating the species does not preclude its treatment as a right or a privilege; the two conceptions can be held simultaneously, though only the former is natural.

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Procreation, as breathing, in the animal kingdom are only 'rights' up until the point something higher on the food chain eats you. At that point it is that creatures 'right' to have a snack.

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plainoldme wrote:

I agree.

I agree with the writer of the topic, not with Timberlandko, whose post was unseen by me when I entered mine.

Above all, we need to reproduce with the greatest of caution and responsibility.

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Given that we alone - so far as we know - among the critters on this planet are capable of conscious ethico-moral decision making, we have the obligation, the duty, to excersize judgement in the matter of procreation; it is incumbent upon us, an evidently unique-to-us vital component of the species-perpetuation imperative otherwise shared with all that lives, to assess our own situation and to breed responsibly with respect for the capability, natural or human-effected, of our environment to continue to support our species. This obligation is absolute, whether recognized, acknowledged, and fulfilled or not; it may be ignored only at the most dire peril to the continuation of our species.

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A brilliant (though not widely known) novel "Sea of Glass" by Barry B. Longyear changed everything about my outlook on world population.

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I suspect that underlying most of the world's problems are population pressures. Every crisis is, as I think Aldous Huxley called it, a double crisis.

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Right vs. privilege

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