As those who cannot see that children need to be tended, fed, clothed, sheltered, educated and given health care for many years regardless of where they live and cannot be expected to drop out of the womb able to support themselves independently to avoid inconveniencing their parents? I’d have to agree with that one.
condoms do not stop the spread of
?**
Of course we can always use our adolescent girls as guinea pigs by forcing them to have the so called vancination to prevent HPV which only helps inoculate only a handful (four)of the strains of HPV. Another way to push “choice” to be sexually promiscutive despite the consequences.
,but it can be very harmful to women. But shoot why should we we worry about women
and if they get Cervical Cancer or become sterile. Sterility is what we want anyways, right Margaret? I mean Karen
Bless your heart, Bennie, hon, I don’t know what the heck you’ve been up to, but you may want to lay off for a while. When you are ready to have a civil, coherent and relevant conversation, get back to me, okay?condoms do not stop the spread of
HPV (human papillomavirus)
****Of course we can always use our adolecent girls as guinea pigs by forcing them to have the so called vancination to prevent HPV which only helps inoculate only a handful (four)of the strains of HPV. Another way to push “choice” to be sexually promiscutive despite the consequences.
Now HPV is not that harmful to men, warts and all
That comparission to Margaret Sanger is not justified. I really appreciate a poster with a different opinion from mine discussing this topic and asking questions and for specific examples. She caused me to dig a little further than I would have if everyone posting simply agreed with me.
Thanks. I would think that is glaringly obvious (although the comparison was to his particular idea of Margaret Sanger, I suspect, rather than the reality).
To be specific, I disputed that abortions, sterilizations and the use of contraception are forced on women in developing countries by US as a condition of receiving economic aid. I still don’t see evidence of that as US policy.
Do you agree with Petergee that “Western civilizations impose enormous economic burdens on people with families” (ie burdens beyond those that are engendered by having children, period, regardless of the location of that family)? If so, perhaps you could lay out what those are (other than the fact that I cannot send my small child out to work in a factory or on the streets to earn her keep or raise family income because of child labor laws)?
What folks seem to not be answering from the post to which you refer is the core question: “Is it inherently oppression or punitive for a government to offer financial incentives in order to manipulate population growth?” Note that we are not here talking about covert introduction of birth control agents, forced sterilizations or forced abortions.
If I may step in and answer this one. I am enjoying the exchange too.What folks seem to not be answering from the post to which you refer is the core question: “Is it inherently oppression or punitive for a government to offer financial incentives in order to manipulate population growth?” Note that we are not here talking about covert introduction of birth control agents, forced sterilizations or forced abortions.
My position is that if it is not inherently oppressive or punitive to families with smaller numbers of children to provide specific financial incentives and benefits (as in France) to encourage families to have more than two children, I fail to see how it is inherently oppressive or punitive to those who choose to have larger families to provide specific financial incentives and benefits to encourage families to have no more than two children.
My mom, conducting a meeting, is pregnant as a house, with me, her third child. On her right is the president of the local chapter of ‘zero population’ glaring down at “me.”
So it is only oppression if the effects are clearly visible to anyone passing by? The lack of “enough” children in a given time period is not clearly visible?
Then the norm was locale-based or group-based, not systemic in US society, if it changed by moving to Idaho.
Think about the effect that discussions about the sins of choosing to space or limit births has on that family with one or two children, and on the children involved. What message are you sending them? What message is being sent by incentives or social messages that say that one or two children are not good enough?
I invite all reading this thread to learn the “reality”of Margaret Sanger and her motivation behind spreading birth control.
newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?did=0906-gardiner
Karen,you asked earlier
That story shows that the eugenics that Margaret Sanger and others wanted to spread through contraception, turned on Europeans and European Americans. The widespread use of contraception brought birthrate below the replacement of levels in some developed countries, which affects the future of those societies. I tried to make that same point previously.
When governments offer tax deductions for child related expenses, parents still overwhelmingly bear the cost and responsibility of raising productive citizens of society. Children are the future of society—and the future taxpayers. By encouraging citizen to raise productive members of society, those families with fewer children also benefit.
Western civilization now lives an expensive lifestyle. That expensive lifestyle places economic burdens on those who live there. While environmentalists chastise large families for producing too many “carbon emissions”, car seat and booster seat laws require expensive, huge, gas-guggling vehicles to transport large families, unless we use public transportation. The story from France included a discount on public transportation; giving families with more children an extra incentive to use public transportation might be a friendly environmental policy.
Oh, if they only stopped at financial incentives…The countries we sighted here that offered financial incentives in places such as parts of India, then moved onto punitive measures such as threat of job loss or loss of voting rights for those with more children. If the reverse was true and those with 0, 1 or 2 children lost their jobs or voting rights due to family size, I would also consider that oppressive.
When governments offer tax deductions for child related expenses, parents still overwhelmingly bear the cost and responsibility of raising productive citizens of society. Children are the future of society—and the future taxpayers. By encouraging citizen to raise productive members of society, those families with fewer children also benefit.
Oh, if they only stopped at financial incentives when seeking to reduce populaton you might have a point. The problem shown in the places we sighted here that offered financial incentives for sterilization (such as parts of India), then moved onto punitive measures such as threat of job loss or loss of voting rights for those with more children. If the reverse was true and those with 0, 1 or 2 children lost their jobs or voting rights due to family size, I would also consider that oppressive.
Western civilization now lives an expensive lifestyle. That expensive lifestyle places economic burdens on those who live there. While environmentalists chastise large families for producing too many “carbon emissions”, car seat and booster seat laws require expensive, huge, gas-guggling vehicles to transport large families, unless we use public transportation. The story from France included a discount on public transportation; giving families with more children an extra incentive to use public transportation might be a friendly environmental policy.
ppct.org/facts/research/sanger.shtml
That story shows that governments are just as willing to enact policies that encourage additional childbearing when it suits their purposes. If it is not oppression to provide cash bonuses and other incentives to have additional children to meet the goals of the government, then I don’t see how it is oppression to provide cash bonuses and other incentives to have fewer children to meet the goals of the government.
I offer to you that the Catholic Church does not teach that it is sinful to have only one child. Proof–Catholics believe the Mary remained a virgin and had an Only Child, Jesus and we further believe that God preserved Mary from sin. Her statue is found on pedestals throughout our churches, (some Protestants even accuse us of goddess worship because we hold Mary in such high esteem.) We hold Mary as an example to all because she did the will of God which brought Jesus to the World.
I don’t want to go off-topic but this site is it’s own set of propaganda. The book, “Margaret Sanger: Father of Modern Society,” by Elasah Drogin in gardens’ link is a well researched book. It contains images of the actual Birth Control Review showing its catchphrases, in context. Sanger’s interest in eugenics wasn’t popular at the time. It was covert for many years in the 20s. Speakers brought into the US on the topic were the same leaders from the Nazi movement. It is one of the topics where far right fascism and far left communism agreed. US eugenicists denial of what the Nazis were doing played a part in our delayed response to the war.
So you are saying that the average Catholic will look at an average American family who has only one or two children and not immediately leap to the conclusion that the reason for that is the family practicing some form of contraception, which they believe (if they follow Church teachings) is sinful? That has not been my experience (and that experience would seem to be borne out here).
I am not aware of any society in the world in which parents do not “overwhelmingly bear the cost and responsibility” of raising their children. It is more of an issue of what proportion of their resources do they have to use in order to do so even to a minimal level and whether they do so out of choice or out of lack of other options.
So would I. We have already agreed that any form of forced population measures is oppressive. Pronatalist policies can be just as oppressive countrystudies.us/romania/37.htm
Much of the expense of Western civilization lifestyle that is cited in reports on how much it costs to raise a child is an expense of choice. Take a look at the articles Petergee cited, that included in there things like extracurricular activities, entertainment, recreation, cost of a “big enough” house in a town with “good schools”, etc. It would be more instructive if we could find estimates on costs of providing a basic education, basic level of food, shelter, clothing, etc and then look at how that compares with similar expenses in developing countries.
I agree that it is difficult to apply Western standards to those in different cultures, but I think that that is what is happening. Western lifestyles are largely expensive due to choice. I have been looking for any statistics that show the proportion of a family’s income and resources that are devoted to childrearing globally, but haven’t been able to find them. I have found information on the different percentages based on income levels in the US
) She finally decided to leave said organizations when the line between ‘children discouraged’ crossed to ‘children shunned.’ Her pro-life stance was a higher priority.Honestly, I can’t say that raising premiums with every additional person covered is inherently wrong. It is simply not the norm in group coverage in our society at this time, where we are more familiar with one rate for “employee” and one rate for “employee + family” regardless of the number in the family. That is an example of one of the subsidies that I mentioned, one which a lot of folks in the world do not have access to, not an automatic right.
Personally, I see “better” as “more options”. I see better as more ability to control things that affect my health and that of my family. Pretty obviously, those women who seek abortions to end unwanted pregnancies, even when they are illegal, are crying out for “better” options.
I disagree, because I see a contradiction between the “in general” and “in any circumstance”. Generally, yes, I believe that a child who is wanted is a good thing and certainly there are many women who long for children who cannot have them. However, I can’t honestly say that I believe that to a woman who is already unable to care for her existing children due to lack of resources a new pregnancy that she did not want is automatically “better”. If it were, there would not be the women seeking abortion, even when it is illegal and costly in terms of money, resources and the emotional and physical tolls and risks, that currently do so. To tell that woman it is better that she should have no choice in whether or when she gets pregnant again is what I find just as oppressive as anything else.
My experience is that **virtually all non-Catholics **leap to the same conclusion. A few Catholics leap to this conclusion, but I’ve never heard of a Catholic leaping to this conclusion about somebody whom they knew is a Catholic.