Government restriction of reproductive freedoms

[Exy]

There's a long unpleasant history of attempts at eugenics -- for much of the twentieth century, the US government sterilized some American Indian women, for instance, and sterilization of the "feeble-minded" was common in a lot of Western countries until relatively recently. I think generally social attitudes have swung around to most people agreeing that eugenics is maybe not that great a thing, so you don't really see much of this anymore in the West.

What are the limits of this, though? Is direct control of people's reproductive abilities just something that should always be outside of the purview of the State? Would it be reasonable for the State to require sterilization of, say, people who abuse or neglect their children (to avoid giving them more potential targets)? Or people who reproduce despite being on public assistance? Would it be okay for the State to require some sort of long-lasting birth control or reversible sterilization as a condition of providing welfare?

In sum, my question to you guys is this: what are the circumstances in which the State may extend its tentacles (so to speak) to restrict people's ability to procreate?

[OtakuLoki]

The problem is that I mistrust bureaucracies.

I recognize that they are necessary, and are often manned by individuals who have the highest standards to do the best they may within the framework of their regulations and procedures. However it only takes a handful of monsters to really mess things up for a lot of people. Then the natural tendency of the bureaucracy, as a social organism of its own, to protect itself from damage by protecting the people within it who are abusing their positions makes effective policing difficult. (Not impossible, but always a matter of corruption here may be finally shut down after several years, but corruption there and there will be growing in the shade.)

With some things I feel that the inevitable abuses are simply part of the price paid for the benefit derived from the mandate. Police agencies come to mind, as does the IRS, here. Other things I see no way but a bureaucracy to take care of functions that I feel are vital, in spite of what I feel to be glaring flaws in the system. Fostercare, and CPS in general, come under this category to my mind.

Given the difficulties in judging how people will combine traits when they have children, I don't believe that there's sufficient benefit to balance the potential ills of broad eugenics based reproductive control by the gov't.

Then we start getting into specific cases. I've seen at least one news story about a judge ordering someone onto birth control until she has proven fit to reclaim the four children she has in state custody. I can't argue the sense of that. But that's also a very specific series of circumstances: a couple living on the streets, refusing treatment for a number of manifest ills, and having already been found incompetent to provide for the children they already have. Not something that makes a good case for extrapolating general public policy from. Of course, last I recall of that story, it was being appealed by the ACLU, among others.

I'm far less sanguine about the idea of requiring long term birth control for people on welfare. For one reason, ISTR that the majority of people who recieve public assistance are there only for a relatively short time, and the long term controls that I'm aware of require expensive treatments to remove. Which would often be out of the financial range of someone just getting off public assistance. If you choose to argue that if finances are that tight it's not time to be having a child, we're starting to get back to a general eugenics board, with the state controlling when people may reproduce - which I think can only end in abuses.


ETA: Here's a couple of links to stories about Family Court Judge Marilyn O'Connor's orders: Link one, link two, link three. I can't find anything about how the appeals have gone with a quick Googling.

[silenus]

This would be a very, very bad idea as a Public Policy if for no other reason than my first response to the OP was to immediately start making a list of people I think shouldn't be allowed to breed. Quis cust?diet ips?s cust?d?s?, and all that. I don't trust me with that kind of power, why should I trust someone else with it?

[Cluricaun]

My best friend firmly and deeply believes that chemical sterlization should be a mandatory requirement for recieving welfare benefits, especially those designed to help single mothers.

I have tried many long nights to attempt to explain why that's not even remotely a good idea but he will not budge. The oddest thing is that he's a hard core dyed in the wool hippie type too.

[Taumpy]

There's part of me that wishes ALL of us could have our reproductive functions switched to "off". And then, to have children, a person would have to prove a certain amount of income, and take classes and get liscensed. But even that probably isn't workable without ending in the system being abused. And I'm not convinced even that's ethically acceptable either.

So I guess, yeah, bad idea all around.

[featherlou]

I think someone setting limits on reproductive freedoms is a fantastic idea that breaks down when you actually try to implement it (for all the reasons already given). Someone like the octomom is obviously a candidate for having her baby factory shut down, but then we start talking about drawing lines, and I don't know where they should go, and who should decide, and what the criteria should be.