draw welfare, be on birth control

[jarrod]

i was thinking a bit about this woman who pumped out a gazillion kids that she can't afford. now i don't think we need to go overboard here, having forced abortions or birth permits (although i'm willing to discuss birth permits on another thread), but if you're drawing state support you shouldn't just keep cranking out young'uns, either. i also don't think that welfare should be abolished, as some people truely do need it, & i would rather see the system abused by some than see help denied those who need it.

but couldn't we have some sort of mandatory birth control for women drawing welfare? have them get the shot every 6months or the lose their checks or something? i completely support women's reproductive rights, but it should be well understood that the more you rely on the government for security, the more freedom it costs you. if you can't afford a kid without state money, you don't get a kid. seems simple to me. but of course i'm sure it isn't.

jf

 

[jetboatdeath]

Simple just say you loose your check if you have a kid while on wellfare.No shots,that wellfare would pay for,no oh my god the government is now regulating birth.
Meening if you have 3 kids and go on wellfare thats it untill you get off the wellfare.

 

[jarrod]

i thought about that approach too...but honestly, without birth control it will cost more money in the long run. kids raised in that environment don't stand the best chances of improving their situation; most of us live the way we saw our parents live.

it's sort of lose/lose. either the government regulates birth (only if you're unable to provide for your children) or the government pays for a bunch of oopsies...either when they're kids or when they grow up & use the system in the same way.

jf

 

[Aikicomp]

Being Catholic I'm 100% against birth control, I believe it is an intrinsicaly evil act (being not open to life). In the case of that woman the most recent 8 were all concieved through Invitro which I also believe is intrinsicaly evil. (conception by removing the marital act of intercourse ).

Oh no, a political and Religious thread about birth control, now you've done it. you're right jarrod, it's not simple at all.

Yours in Budo
Michael

 

[elder999]

but couldn't we have some sort of mandatory birth control for women drawing welfare?

Unfotunately, while the idea might seem to have practical merit, for all too many people it raises the specters of Nazism and eugenics.

Now I get to say, again, back in the 20th century, :lol:-the early 20th, many countries, had compulsory sterilization programs, with the U.S. leading the way. This was part of a eugenics movement, designed to eliminate "undesirable" traits. The mentally ill, mentally disabled, epileptics and handicapped:deaf, mute and blind, were all targeted, as were blacks and Indians.-in fact, many women were sterilized by force, often without their knowledge when they were in the hospital for other reasons, such as childbirth. Ultimately, such programs were discontinued due to obvious ethical concerns, and such programs are now criminal.

There are, of course, other, simpler considerations to what you propose. Suppose you were married, Jarrod-perhaps you are, I don't know-and you and your wife, given the current economic conditions, had to get some assistance because you lost your jobs and couldn't get new ones. It happens.......now, suppose your wife also was three months pregnant-would she have to have an abortion to go on welfare?

 

[jarrod]

There are, of course, other, simpler considerations to what you propose. Suppose you were married, Jarrod-perhaps you are, I don't know-and you and your wife, given the current economic conditions, had to get some assistance because you lost your jobs and couldn't get new ones. It happens.......now, suppose your wife also was three months pregnant-would she have to have an abortion to go on welfare?

good question...i'd say yes, because unless she can prove the damn thing is mine, i ain't raising it.

seriously though, i don't know. eugenics is certainly a black mark on history, but i don't think that our fear of it should keep us from taking sensible, practical measures. & for the record i know that what i'm proposing could never, ever pass, i just wanted to put it up for discussion.

but i'd say that the scenario you outlined an example of assistance put to good use (& not just because it's me & my soon-to-be ex wife receiving it). the heart of this matter though is how do we get people to stop having kids that they can't care for?

jf

 

[Drac]

but couldn't we have some sort of mandatory birth control for women drawing welfare? Have them get the shot every 6months or the lose their checks or something?

We should...

i completely support women's reproductive rights, but it should be well understood that the more you rely on the government for security, the more freedom it costs you. if you can't afford a kid without state money, you don't get a kid. seems simple to me. but of course i'm sure it isn't.

There was a case up here of a welfare Mom that was on her number 8 kid..As soon as she recovers from one pregnancy she is back out smoking crack and partying and will soon pump out another kid..There was talk of sterilization which the ACLU would not hear of..

 

[Andy Moynihan]

Well, this is one of those threads where I might have interjected one of my traditional observations concerning the intelligence or rightfulness of anyone having anymore kids at all, ever, cynic that I am--but I'm tired and soon must go to work.


Short answer--I say yes.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Unfotunately, while the idea might seem to have practical merit, for all too many people it raises the specters of Nazism and eugenics.

Now I get to say, again, back in the 20th century, :lol:-the early 20th, many countries, had compulsory sterilization programs, with the U.S. leading the way. This was part of a eugenics movement, designed to eliminate "undesirable" traits. The mentally ill, mentally disabled, epileptics and handicapped:deaf, mute and blind, were all targeted, as were blacks and Indians.-in fact, many women were sterilized by force, often without their knowledge when they were in the hospital for other reasons, such as childbirth. Ultimately, such programs were discontinued due to obvious ethical concerns, and such programs are now criminal.

There are, of course, other, simpler considerations to what you propose. Suppose you were married, Jarrod-perhaps you are, I don't know-and you and your wife, given the current economic conditions, had to get some assistance because you lost your jobs and couldn't get new ones. It happens.......now, suppose your wife also was three months pregnant-would she have to have an abortion to go on welfare?

Well said.

There is and has always been a basic dichotomy between what are seen as two fundamental concepts in the USA.

The first is reproductive freedom. We don't tell people how many children they can have - we certainly don't like it when we hear about China's (often brutally-enforced) One-Child Policy.

The second is not punishing children for the 'mistake' of their parents. Like it or not, the children of the aid recipient are not to blame - they didn't do it, and it's unfair to punish them; we in the US just don't do that.

Add to this the fact that we try to keep families together, we don't want to become a country that 'takes' and raises children on a casual or unnecessary basis, and then add the basic resentment many people have when they play by the 'rules' and are not rewarded the way they perceive people who ignore the 'rules' are, and you have a problem.

I don't see any answers here. Cut off aid, the children suffer. Take the children away, and our nation becomes something I don't want it to be. Enact laws on the number of children a person can have - or a person on any kind of public aid - again, a fundamental violation of reproductive rights that I don't want to see happen.

But I absolutely understand the anger and resentment against people who intentionally or even unintentionally abuse the system in this way.

In college, I knew a young woman who was barely out of her teens. She was attending college on the state dime, she had three kids, each by different fathers. She told us that this was intentional (she was not stupid or uneducated). By having three different fathers, she got maximum child support from each of them. She lived on public assistance, she loved and wanted her children and claimed to be a good mother to them, but she had no desire to ever work for a living and was very clear about how she was going to make that happen.

We were disgusted, of course, but she claimed she was no different from the factory worker who fell off a ladder and suddenly could not work anymore for the rest of his boat-owning, skeet-shooting, go-fishing-every-day life.

In any system of government largesse to the those we feel deserve our aid, there will be those who figure out how that system works, exactly, and then exploit it to their advantage. And to stop them, we'd have to stop the aid, which we previously devised because we did want to help the deserving.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Well, this is one of those threads where I might have interjected one of my traditional observations concerning the intelligence or rightfulness of anyone having anymore kids at all, ever, cynic that I am--but I'm tired and soon must go to work.

My wife and I have no children. This is intentional.

 

[shesulsa]

Oh man. This isn't a can of worms ... this is a dang mountain of snakes!

I've got a lot of opinions about what's already been said, but I still see no simple answer.

The short, easy answer seems to be 'yes' as it relates to personal responsibility, the affordability of subsidy, prevention of system abuse and transition out of the system.

But then, there are people who have religious beliefs against anything other than behavioral birth control and if the government steps in requiring such, it is against religious belief. We already allow Jehovah's witnesses and scientologists and others to refrain from immunization, organ transplant, blood transfusion, etcetera, so why we wouldn't give this nod as well, I can't imagine - the precedent has already been set.

And the point that it smacks of eugenics is really the biggest black spot on the idea ... forced abortions come to mind ... reactions to the Depo Provera, etcetera.

Removing a person's assistance because they become pregnant seems to be counterproductive to the whole purpose, even though it seems to make sense.

I could be a hard-nose and say, since the Catholic Church refuses to allow birth control and since they are the richest entity on the face of the earth that they can just provide Catholic welfare for all their needy families since they refuse to acknowledge the fact that the requirement that people refuse to control or prevent pregnancy is archaic and applicable to a time when entire tribes were decimated at the whim of one man and can't apply to an over-taxed earth. Ya know ... in fact ... my nose is hard enough to go ahead and say that.

It stands to reason that no-one on gov't assistance should be procreating ... but if a couple is already expecting and they come to a point where they require assistance, then it should be given them. I can't say I want starving children back on the street, either.

However, the procreation issue *is* one of the main problems with people being unable to get off of welfare. A single job is barely enough to house and feed one person anymore, let alone provide all a child needs, including childcare so the adult can work.

I don't think there are easy answers, but I stand by my earlier assertions that child support should be federally controlled and mandated. That alone would take many custodial parents and their children OFF of welfare.

 

[arnisador]

Like many here, I see the practical benefits but cannot get past the eugenics issue. We don't really need more people crawling this planet nor do the taxpayers need more mouths to feed, but I'm not comfortable forcing people on welfare to take a prescription drug (which can have side-effects) nor deciding who is and is not fit to breed. (The unfairness imposed by the lack of comparable male birth control is a whole other issue.) If there were a way to make people take responsibility for their own kids, that'd be great. In the meantime, I'm not going to divide people into breeding-worthy and non-breeding-worthy classes.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Eliminate government welfare programs, remove the incentive to pop out a pay raise every year.

 

[Kreth]

Eliminate government welfare programs, remove the incentive to pop out a pay raise every year.

Sorry, we can't do that. I'm going on welfare. Free healthcare, funded by those evil smokers.

 

[shesulsa]

Sorry, we can't do that. I'm going on welfare. Free healthcare, funded by those evil smokers.

:lfao: :bow:

Eliminate government welfare programs, remove the incentive to pop out a pay raise every year.

So ... here's the thing ... my parents were born in '28 and '29. They remembered stepping over dying, starving people on the sidewalk, feeding people off the back porch, the regular looting of stores and violence from the poor.

There's a lot more people in the US now than then.

Do you realize just what it would mean if we were to completely remove assistance programs right now?

The best situation is there would be homeless camps everywhere ... no, I mean *everywhere* ... and those who could afford to help would do so.

But the problem is those who can afford to help are asking the government for business loans, getting bonuses they don't deserve and won't be helping them.

The poor will have guns and knives and will be ruthless in their search for sustinence and profit; they will not care who they cut down for their survival.

Martial law will be instated and your rights ... you know those ragged, battered tattered things that define you as an American? Well, kiss them goodbye.

I really can't understand why we can't federally control child support. If we can track down a bumper sticker, we can track down a mother or a father who is not paying.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Because there's too much 3rd party cash to be made in collecting support...it's a major industry, and about as accurate as a couple of recent nominees tax returns too. But, child support reform and corruption issues, is another topic, and one I'll be avoiding.

The problem with Welfare is, it's supposed to be a system to help you over a rough patch, not be your lifestyle. There used to be a stigma to it, now people consider it a badge of pride, of getting one over, of beating the system.

Welfare people live better than alot of us "working stiffs". Sorry, that's not right.

Now we have some woman who's pumping out kids by the dozen, looking for a $1.2 million dollar home, and free money from others????? WTF!
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/showbiz/2009/02/20/sbt.octomom.homeless.cnn

Sorry, kids as an income source I have an issue with. I can't agree with forced sterilization policy, as much as I might want to though.

 

[Drac]

Because there's too much 3rd party cash to be made in collecting support...it's a major industry, and about as accurate as a couple of recent nominees tax returns too. But, child support reform and corruption issues, is another topic, and one I'll be avoiding.

The problem with Welfare is, it's supposed to be a system to help you over a rough patch, not be your lifestyle. There used to be a stigma to it, now people consider it a badge of pride, of getting one over, of beating the system.

Welfare people live better than alot of us "working stiffs". Sorry, that's not right.

Now we have some woman who's pumping out kids by the dozen, looking for a $1.2 million dollar home, and free money from others????? WTF!
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/showbiz/2009/02/20/sbt.octomom.homeless.cnn

That was a big joke around here for the longest time...The welfare bldg use to be in downtown Cleve..All the cars parked around the blocks were new Caddys and Lincons...I would have to drive by daily in my POS on my way to my 2nd job just to make ends meet..

Sorry, kids as an income source I have an issue with. I can't agree with forced sterilization policy, as much as I might want to though.

At least you're honest about it...

 

[MJS]

i was thinking a bit about this woman who pumped out a gazillion kids that she can't afford. now i don't think we need to go overboard here, having forced abortions or birth permits (although i'm willing to discuss birth permits on another thread), but if you're drawing state support you shouldn't just keep cranking out young'uns, either. i also don't think that welfare should be abolished, as some people truely do need it, & i would rather see the system abused by some than see help denied those who need it.

but couldn't we have some sort of mandatory birth control for women drawing welfare? have them get the shot every 6months or the lose their checks or something? i completely support women's reproductive rights, but it should be well understood that the more you rely on the government for security, the more freedom it costs you. if you can't afford a kid without state money, you don't get a kid. seems simple to me. but of course i'm sure it isn't.

jf

What needs to be done, IMO, is to limit the amount of aid that these people get. I mean, I have no issues with helping someone thats in a jam, BUT, I expect that these people should do their part as well, and if it means getting off their ***, and getting a job flipping burgers or working at WalMart, then so be it. But to sit home, pump out kid after kid, with no support from the babies daddy, and milk the system, thats wrong.

IMO, if you can't afford a kid, you shouldn't be having them, plain and simple. Now, I've said that to some people and they turn around and say, "Will anyone ever be ready?" My answer to that is this....if you're 15, still in school, living at home, with no job, then no, keep you legs closed, if you must have sex, use protection, and dont have any kids. Sure, especially in todays world, where people are losing their jobs like crazy, it can be hard, but think about it....economy aside, who stands the better chance of raising a kid...someone who works flipping burgers 10hrs a week, or someone who is established in a job, making $60,000/yr?

And then people wonder why things are so costly. Because someone has to make up the difference for all those that milk the system.

 

[Phoenix44]

Simple just say you loose your check if you have a kid while on wellfare

That just penalizes the kid.

I'd say, if you're on "Welfare" you have to do some productive work to pay the taxpayer back. Clean a park, answer phones, address envelopes, get some kind of work-study, provide day care services.

Oh wait, that would be socialism.

 

[MJS]

Being Catholic I'm 100% against birth control, I believe it is an intrinsicaly evil act (being not open to life). In the case of that woman the most recent 8 were all concieved through Invitro which I also believe is intrinsicaly evil. (conception by removing the marital act of intercourse ).

Oh no, a political and Religious thread about birth control, now you've done it. you're right jarrod, it's not simple at all.

Yours in Budo
Michael

Hmm...I'm Catholic and I'm not against birth control. On the other hand, its one thing to have a child and be able to support it. Its another when you have a kid or kids and you need a crutch. IMO, the crutch should be a temporary thing, not a permanent thing, because people feel the need to pump out 10 kids.