Question for the right wingers

Originally posted by wolf


That's pretty stupid.

You're claiming to be on disability subsequent to brain damage, and continue to use substances which even in small amounts contribute to brain damage.

See? The act of a brain damaged person!:p

[DanaC]

You're claiming to be on disability subsequent to brain damage, and continue to use substances which even in small amounts contribute to brain damage.

You phrase that in such a disdainful and doubful way

Oh, Wolf's just pissed at me because I mistook her for a guy when I first started posting here. She seems to have disliked me every since. Oh well, you can't please everybody (and I DID apologize). ((shrugs shoulders))

[wolf]

Originally posted by marichiko
Oh, Wolf's just pissed at me because I mistook her for a guy when I first started posting here. She seems to have disliked me every since. Oh well, you can't please everybody (and I DID apologize). ((shrugs shoulders))

Everybody mistakes me for a guy. There is a long cellar tradition of mistaking me for a guy, because I don't have traditional girly opinions and style. That's not the issue. Never was.

I stand corrected, Ma'am!

[Lady Sidhe]

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news...36/detail.html


This is why I think some people should be sterilized....they aren't able to protect themselves because they don't know any better, and it seems no one is protecting them. At the least birth control should be mandatory in these kinds of places. They can't take care of themselves, much less a baby. There's no point in putting another, possibly profoundly mentally disabled, child into a system that doesn't give a shit.

[DanaC]

Why is your emphasis on changing the fertility of people unable to parent instead of tackling the system which "doesnt give a shit* ? Surely the answer should be to make the system "give a shit"

Jeez, Sid, here you've got a state employee who rapes a severely mentally retarded victim, and your response is "Let's sterilize the retarded"? Don't you think your priorities are a tad out of whack? How about let's ensure that state employees NEVER in any way abuse the people who are under their care whether mentally ill, retarded, anything else. That story is about a terrible abuse of trust against an innocent victim, completely unable to take care of herself, and your response is let's sterilize her? Why? So she can be thrown to the rest of the male employees of that institution and used any way they please, without the unpleasant consequence of a pregnancy? I knew you were conservative, but Jesus Christ, does conservatism preclude humanity?

[Lady Sidhe]

Oh, I think the guy who did it should be sterilized too. No point in letting a rapist pass on his genes.

And yes, I've said this before: people who are too mentally deficient to take care of themselves should NOT have children. That's not cruel; it's common sense. Our child welfare system is already overburdened, and you wouldn't believe how many children in foster care are abused by people who just take them in for the money. Why subject MORE children to an already overburdened system?? I mean, DAMN, at the very least, make sure the aforementioned mentally deficient individuals have NORPLANT. These aren't baby dolls we're talking about. They're CHILDREN.


As to making the system give a shit--well, when you've got state employees who are WAY underpaid and WAY overworked....you can't MAKE them give a shit. There are around 200 kids to a SINGLE social worker. Better to make sure the kids aren't born in the first place. I don't see what the problem with that is.

I mean, damn....it's like someone who won't get their cat fixed because the kids should be able to see "the miracle of life." What they DON'T let the kids see is the poor, unwanted kittens being gassed to death in the local animal shelter. It's the same thing. People who are not able to take care of themselves should not be able to have little people that they can't take care of, just to experience the "miracle of birth," or whatever reason people give for wanting to let them have kids nobody wants.

It's not cruel. It's a hell of a lot more humane to NOT let them have kids than to take away their baby doll at birth, then let that baby doll slip through the cracks and end up in an abusive foster home.


Sidhe

Sid, you don't get it. Your priorities are way out of whack. You are so high up on your bandwagon that you can't see what is going on. This is a news story about an atrocious breech of trust committed against a completely innocent victim. This is not the place to start whining about your personal agenda in regard to the mentally defective. It will win you no adherants to your cause. Trust me on this one.

[Lady Sidhe]

1. I'm not looking to win adherents. People have their own opinions on this, and trying to change them won't do any good.

2. I'm more worried about the potential children. These people are in institutions that should screen employees a hell of a lot better, and watch them a hell of a lot better, than they do. However, there's no excuse for the clients not to be on NORPLANT. Some people shouldn't reproduce. Period. It just ends up hurting the kids.

3. The SOB who raped the girl should be put in a cell with Bubba for the rest of his life. I'm not sorry for thinking that way, either.

Some people can't take responsibility for themselves, and it's up to the people who are supposed to be taking care of them to do so. That doesn't always happen, and there's nothing I can do about that. But there are ways to minimize the damage, and ways to punish the offenders, if they'd just do it.


Seems we have more care for stray animals than we do for human beings. We'll sterilize a stray so it won't have unwanted babies, but god forbid we do it to humans so THEY won't have unwanted babies. Unwanteds are unwanteds. They all suffer. So what's the problem with preventing the suffering in the first place?

All people see is the word "sterilization," and they lose their minds. They don't think of the larger picture, or the ramifications of all these unwanted children. To them, I say the same thing I say to anti-DP folks:

You take these kids home with you when they're born, and take care of them. If you're not willing to do that, then don't complain when someone puts forth an idea you don't like.

I don't have any personal animosity towards people who are mentally slow. And I don't have any problem with functionally retarded people having children. I just don't think that people who can't take care of themselves should be able to give birth to people they can't take care of, who will end up being abused by the system, whether the system intends to abuse them or not.


Sidhe

I couldn't agree with you more on your third point.

I will now address the question of eugenics, since I feel that I have made my own priorities clear on this one.

I couldn't agree with you more that every child should be brought into this world by parents who are able to love and care for it. Ideally, if you realize that you can't take care of a child, you should take steps to ensure that you don't bring one into the world. What about people who lack the capacity to make this decision for themselves? There you place a foot on that damn slippery slope. Human beings are not cats and dogs that we make decisions for in order to bring the population of domestic pets under control. At what IQ level do you set the line for enforced sterilization? 90? 80? What about a person who has an IQ of 79? Intelligence is not a matter of simple Mendelian inheritance. Multiple alleles, as well as environmental factors all play a role in a person's eventual IQ as an adult. If we set the precedent of sterilizing one segment of the population as "undesirable", isn't it that much easier to go after the next group and then the next? Where does it stop? I think the answer of "sterilize the bastards!" is too simplistic an approach to a very complex and potentially lethal question. Do we really want "Big Brother" intruding into our lives and deciding if we are fit to be parents or not? Would everyone who gave birth have to present some certificate of "eugenics" to the government or be forced to have an abortion? I am extremely wary of the seeming fast and easy solution of "sterilize them all!"

[smoothmoniker]

Originally posted by marichiko
At what IQ level do you set the line for enforced sterilization?

How about a simple competency test? If you aren't competent to feed, clothe, and shelter yourself, you probably shouldn't be responsible for tending to those basic needs for someone else.

-sm

[Lady Sidhe]

Originally posted by marichiko
Ideally, if you realize that you can't take care of a child, you should take steps to ensure that you don't bring one into the world. What about people who lack the capacity to make this decision for themselves? There you place a foot on that damn slippery slope. Human beings are not cats and dogs that we make decisions for in order to bring the population of domestic pets under control. At what IQ level do you set the line for enforced sterilization? 90? 80? What about a person who has an IQ of 79? Intelligence is not a matter of simple Mendelian inheritance. Multiple alleles, as well as environmental factors all play a role in a person's eventual IQ as an adult. If we set the precedent of sterilizing one segment of the population as "undesirable", isn't it that much easier to go after the next group and then the next? Where does it stop? I think the answer of "sterilize the bastards!" is too simplistic an approach to a very complex and potentially lethal question. Do we really want "Big Brother" intruding into our lives and deciding if we are fit to be parents or not? Would everyone who gave birth have to present some certificate of "eugenics" to the government or be forced to have an abortion? I am extremely wary of the seeming fast and easy solution of "sterilize them all!"

SM said it very well.

Actually, the way I see it is this: you have to take a test in order to get a driver's license, so that you can be trusted to be on the road. Why is it that you don't have to take a test to be a parent? Doesn't being qualified to raise kids rate just as high on the priority scale as being able to drive?

Secondly, environmental factors don't have that big an effect on mental retardation. You don't become functional if you're profoundly retarded, and you don't go from being functional to being profoundly retarded short of something like lead poisoning or an accident. There's a difference.

And why shouldn't we take steps to bring the population of unwanted children under control? I'm not advocating abortion, I'm advocating PREVENTION. For those who lack the capacity to make the decision for themselves, or who are, because of that lack of capacity, subject to possible sexual victimization, SOMEONE has to make the decision for them. You don't miss what you never had.

As to the IQ level one sets for enforced birth control or enforced sterilization, I've already established my opinion on that one: if you're not able to take care of yourself to the point where you must be institutionalized so that someone else can take care of you, then you should not be allowed to have children.

I'm not saying they're "undesirable." I'm saying that they aren't able to take care of themselves, and therefore should not be allowed to bring into the world children that they can't take care of. I personally think people with a history of abusing children should be sterilized. It's nothing personal. It's what's best for the children, or potential children. There's nothing wrong with requiring profoundly retarded people to be on norplant or some other type of birth control. I advocate Norplant because it isn't something that has to be remembered, either by the individual or by the caretaker. It's continual birth control for five years.

Perhaps if there were standards for becoming parents, there would be fewer abused children out there. Do you think a floridly psychotic person with delusions of persecution, who won't take their meds, should have children that they could possibly incorporate into their delusions and possibly harm? And since we know that schizophrenia runs in families, should we expose these children to possible mental illness in themselves?

I'm not talking about a Big Brother situation. I'm talking about common sense. If you abuse your child, they take it away. You're not allowed to have that child anymore. If you neglect your child, the state likewise steps in. Profoundly mentally retarded individuals will neglect a child because they don't know any better. Therefore, they, like any other neglectful parent, should not have said child. The best way to prevent neglect on the part of the profoundly retarded person is to prevent them from having children in the first place.


Sidhe

[Lady Sidhe]

Speaking of sterilization, I'd get mySELF sterilized if I could afford it. I have one child, which is all I want. I know I don't want any more children, and I know I can't afford any more children. That isn't to say I wouldn't love another child if I had one, but having to take birth control all the time, and worrying that it may fail (my daughter was conceived on birth control) gets to be tedious. If it were up to me, I'd get the plumbing taken right out and not have to worry about it anymore.


Sidhe