From iVillage: Child of vegan parents dies of malnutrition.

[Mark Rippetoe]

AS bright as this might seem, and as good a solution as it is at first glance, think about it what it would actually do. Anyone seriously considering pushing for a parenting license is asking for the destruction of democracy.

Yes, I know. That's why I am still libertarian.

[Ello]

@denbrkln

I think most of us jokingly agreed that a parenting license would be a good idea. To strip a person of their liberties, is as you said, a "destruction of democracy".

People make a lot of dumb choices in their lives, but that's their right. And, that's the beauty of it .

[James]

Even if I believed in fascism, I wouldn't trust the people who run our government to decide who should get to procreate. They would face the terrible choice of creating counter-productive licensing criteria or admitting that their own parents ought never to have procreated.

[snyderman3000]

Should people have the right to choose to have children even when they have no means to support them and then ask for government assistance to raise them?

What if the government gave assistance to people who bought cars they couldn't afford? Would be an attack on their individual liberties to try to keep them from purchasing said cars?

[Mark Edward]

We sort of had something like procreation licenses for a time in some states. Remember the absolutely vile Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and his famous line, "Three generations of imbeciles is enough"? Progressives of 100 years ago loved forced sterilizations.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I think that if the government pays for your child to be born, they also pay for a tubal ligation under the same anesthesia. But this always gets interpreted as eugenics, and that would make me -- depending on who is leveling the criticism -- an asshole, a racist, a eugenicist, a totalitarian, or a person capable of simple arithmetic.

[mstrofbass]

I think that if the government pays for your child to be born, they also pay for a tubal ligation under the same anesthesia. But this always gets interpreted as eugenics, and that would make me -- depending on who is leveling the criticism -- an asshole, a racist, a eugenicist, a totalitarian, or a person capable of simple arithmetic.

This will be a fun quote to put on my Facebook.

[Mark Rippetoe]

You have my permission.

[Guts]

Should people have the right to choose to have children even when they have no means to support them and then ask for government assistance to raise them?

What if the government gave assistance to people who bought cars they couldn't afford? Would be an attack on their individual liberties to try to keep them from purchasing said cars?

Didn't we already have cash for clunkers?

[51M0n]

Should people have the right to choose to have children even when they have no means to support them and then ask for government assistance to raise them?

What if the government gave assistance to people who bought cars they couldn't afford? Would be an attack on their individual liberties to try to keep them from purchasing said cars?

Your attacking the problem from the wrong end. Cut of government support and the problem goes away.