PRO-CHOICE IS PRO-LIFE.

[nolawitch58]

Happy Roe v. Wade day. We're better off because of it as a country. We're less overpopulated than we would have been without it. Fewer people are having children they don't want and creating whole generations of criminals. Anybody remember the big dip crime took roughly two decades after abortion was legalized? Some people have no business having children; if only the worst of them could admit it to themselves.

If you love the planet, you don't add to the burden and suffering for some selfish concept that your genes are superior or that your parenting skills are all that. People who have three or more children really hate the planet, hate their children and hate the generations to come because they can't overcome their own selfish need to prove they can get laid. That's why so many produce offspring. They need to show that somebody somewhere has deigned to fuck them. The lower the self-esteem and more miserable the person, the more offspring he or she thinks he or she has to produce in order to pass the misery onto another batch of neurotics. Those who have severe congenital diseases are the most obnoxiously selfish of all. What kind of decent person wants to pass on horrible diseases? Doesn't sound like someone who loves children to me. Sounds like someone who wants to ensure that their misery is compounded. Want a kid? Adopt.

A great big THANK YOU to everyone on my flist who has chosen not to add to the human burden on the planet. And thanks to those who may have produced only one child. Quality is superior to quantity. Anyone who thinks otherwise probably shops at Wal*Mart and wouldn't know quality if it bit them on the ass.

Comments

[mysticknyght.livejournal.com]

well, we made two, but I agree totally with you otherwise :-)

Agreement!

[dianahowe.livejournal.com]

I agree, I wouldn't want to pass on my twisted stew of genetics to anyone! I'd rather adopt a needy child and reduce the burden that way.
Diana

[real-skeptic.livejournal.com]

Isn't that just a little bit extreme? People have many more emotional reasons to have children, other than to show that they can get laid. I mean, nowadays, you don't really have to advertise that. People usually assume that you get laid.

In some people, the basic hormones speak. In some people, there's peer pressure. Some people just like to have dolls to play with. Whether such reasons are justifiable is a different question, but just dismissing everybody as "wanting to show off being fucked" is like accusing all people who donate to charities that they are doing it only to show off having money.

[voxwoman.livejournal.com]

And some of it is due to the frelling "doctors" in the clinic who play the fetal heartbeat right before the morons parents-to-be make the decision not to abort the accident.

as the soon-to-be stepgrandparent to a baby whose parents aren't even mature enough to hold jobs that can feed/clothe/house THEMSELVES much less their offspring, I really wish that people needed to pass a series of tests both emotional and financial before they are permitted to bring new life into the world.

[real-skeptic.livejournal.com]

Sounds more like an issue of sex education than an issue of a "License to birth". I usually have the "they should get a license" feeling when I see all those parents who throw their 3-year-old out the window, or forget him in a closed car when it's 35°C outside. Or just forget or shy away from giving their kids good sex education.

Minors and uneducated people who make baby should first and foremost be educated.

[voxwoman.livejournal.com]

Wasn't an issue of sex education... I rememeber taking the boy to get condoms during an earlier pregnancy scare about 2 years ago. It's stupidity and laziness. I'm still unclear about whether the girl was ever on the pill (and if so, if she got knocked up becuase she got sick and was on antibiotics which make the pill ineffective - but her doctor should have told her that), or if they were practicing the form of birth control known as "wishful thinking and denial". They aren't 'minors' per se; he's 22, she's 20, I think. They are just immature. He won't throw the baby out the window, but he's going to terrorize that poor kid, just like his mother did to him. Because he has a bad temper, a very short fuse and a drinking problem. Just what you want in a father.

[real-skeptic.livejournal.com]

Ouch. Sounds like tragedy in the making. Definitely should get a license. No hope of sending them to some parenting course, I guess?

[voxwoman.livejournal.com]

go read my LJ for the details of our last interaction. I don't think he's going to be taking any advice from me for a while.

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

I cannot think of a single unselfish reason to produce offspring. Most of them are along the lines of wanting their own genetic material/family name carried on, both selfish reasons. That's why people are insane enough to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and endure horrible medical procedures for in vitro fertilization. If they really just wanted to raise a child, they'd adopt one that's already here. And those idiot who think their kid will cure cancer are delusional. If they are so concerned about cancer, why the hell don't they forgo producing offspring and find the cure for cancer themselves? Probably because they're not all that smart, which means their kids won't be all that smart either and thus won't cure cancer. Let's see...what are other reasons for having kids? To take care of them in their old age? Why? That's so selfish to give birth to those you expect to be your slave in your dotage. Tell me some that aren't selfish.

Anyone with an milligram of knowledge about the current woes of the planet who adds to the pollution by bringing more people into the world is obnoxious. Anyone who claims to be an environmentalist and has a brood of kids is just plain mental.

That's all very well-said, and I agree with it, but...

[kelli217.livejournal.com]

...at what point do the intelligent people of the planet get fucking OVERWHELMED by the dunderhead baby factories because the smart people aren't breeding and the dumb ones are?

Re: That's all very well-said, and I agree with it, but...

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

The smart:not-so-smart ratio will always be weighted in the favor of the nots, but that is the way of things. Remember, one intelligent person who is a good communicator and teacher is worth several dozen dunderheads, and cream will always rise to the top.

[willow-dragon.livejournal.com]

And you're welcome! I feel sorry for all these people who are going to have to live in an even more overpopulated world.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

I never wanted kids. Hell, I never wanted a spouse, either. My biological clock is apparently non-operative, and that is fine with me.

As for the whole abortion rights thing- I see it as a human rights thing, and in my view, the living should always take precedence over the non-born. Always. And any motion to remove a woman's soveriegn rights over her own body and destiny will be met with great resistance by me. I will use the intelligence I was given and the time I have won to fight any attempt to remove these rights.

[kitten-goddess.livejournal.com]

Anyone who blocks/bombs/tries to shut down abortion clinics should be forced to pay child support for the next 18 years for EVERY woman forced to carry her unwanted offspring to term.

[kitten-goddess.livejournal.com]

"If you love the planet, you don't add to the burden and suffering for some selfish concept that your genes are superior or that your parenting skills are all that. People who have three or more children really hate the planet, hate their children and hate the generations to come because they can't overcome their own selfish need to prove they can get laid. That's why so many produce offspring. They need to show that somebody somewhere has deigned to fuck them. The lower the self-esteem and more miserable the person, the more offspring he or she thinks he or she has to produce in order to pass the misery onto another batch of neurotics. Those who have severe congenital diseases are the most obnoxiously selfish of all. What kind of decent person wants to pass on horrible diseases? Doesn't sound like someone who loves children to me. Sounds like someone who wants to ensure that their misery is compounded. Want a kid? Adopt."

Sometimes people are raped and get pregnant that way. Sometimes people have triplets or more. Sometimes birth control doesn't work and people can't get abortions in time. Or at all. Sometimes people have lots of kids and actually do have the wherewithal to care for them all properly (which is probably pretty damned rare).

Would you condemn those people as selfish?

On the other hand, I am in complete agreement with you on folks that have too many kids for their parenting skills and/or pocketbooks to cope with. They're completely stupid and should be sterilized before they inflict more misery upon everyone.

I am happily child-free and choose to remain that way.

Would you condemn those people as selfish?

[tomo2k.livejournal.com]

No, just unlucky. In the case of rape, extremely unlucky.

Also, unlucky enough to live in a society that won't let them get rid of the balls of cells that they didn't want at the point where it's still a ball of cells.

Disallowing abortion after rape is an extreme form of idiocy - that woman is already going to have a whole load of issues and need counselling to figure out how to cope with what happened and move on, without having the double whammy of a kid!
And how is she going to feel towards a child that came out of what was probably the most terrifying event in her life?

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

Yes, those people are selfish. If you're raped, get to the ER and get some emergency birth control pills. The ones who have multiple births are usually the idiots who use IVF. Multiple births are rare when occurring naturally for a good reason. Those fuckwits with the huge litters in the news the past decade or so have been on fertility treatments. They are selfissh and idiots. Even if you have the wherewithal to support them, adopt a bunch of kids instead of creating more of a burden on the planet. If you stubbornly insist on producing as many kids as your fortune can support, then you're just as selfish as the rest regardless of how much money you have. In fact, you're more selfish because you could easily lift some miserable kid out of that misery and you don't.

Mark my words, eventually there will be forced birth control, sterilizations, abortions and draconian measures in even so-called free countries. We (and by we I mean all the breeders) will continue to flout nature, resource availability and common sense until the governments will have to step in. China has the right idea. It's too bad it's not severe enough and they're still doomed by overwhelming hordes of people.

[ms-issicran.livejournal.com]

God wants them to have babies. If they don't have babies without questioning, the world will never come to the brink of disaster. If the world does not reach a point where it no longer supports life, he can't come back and save them all. He really wants all his favorite critters near him. Hmmm, I wonder why he just doesn't keep them there and leave the rest of us alone then? Perhaps I'll have an epiphany about that tonight.

Well,

[jpaganel.livejournal.com]

I don't think overpopulation is as big of a problem as they say. We can always have another war or three and get rid of some people that way.

Legal abortion is a good thing, for a number of reasons. Now, with that out of the way, there are some things I'd like to point out.

Connecting unwanted children and crime is quite a stretch. Granted, being unwanted isn't that great, but how do you make that connection with any degree of certainty? And then you state that people that should not reproduce by and large do so. That completely contradicts the theory of abortions affecting crime rates.

Crime rates are tricky things. I've heard this drop ascribed to anything from religion to guns, and now abortions. I don't buy it.

Pretending to know other people's motivations is kitchen table psychoanalysis. I'd leave that to TV shrinks. People have children for all sorts of reasons. Primarily, it's a survival mechanism. In the old days, you had 8 children so that 3 lived and fed you when you got too decrepit to work. Granted, it isn't an absolute necessity now, but the drive is there, nonetheless.

Adoption can be selfish as hell. A case of a local woman comes to mind. She adopted a physically and mentally disabled crack baby. This child had such terrible behavioral problems, she could not be placed in foster care. The county wouldn't take her. She quit her job, went on public assistance, lost her house, and her husband left her, taking their kid with him. But she adopted. And now, having royally screwed up the lives of two other people, she publicly pats herself on the back for unselfishly adopting.

Quality and quantity are not necessarily mutually exclusive. See Toyota for proof.

You seem to be letting emotions overrun logic on this one.


Personally, I think having children is one path to world domination. But that may be because I am likely a distant relative of Genghis Khan.

Re: Well,

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

So we should thank all the fecund fuckwits for providing a new crop of cannon fodder? Yeah, life sure is cheap when it's so plentiful.

You might not think overpopulation is a problem, but that doesn't mean it isn't. With the current level of human bloat, we've managed to fuck up huge expanses of the planet. Resources are dwindling. Recently, scientists predicted that in fifty years there won't be edible fish left in the ocean. Pollution by burgeoning populations and overfishing due to overdemand will take their toll. All due to too damned many people.

Quality and quantity are mutally exclusive with such a disparate "product" as humanity. Many studies have proven that population pressures make people's lives worse. The more children in a family, the less successful those children are because they have to compete for the limited resources of their parents.

You simply cannot see past your pro-natalist bias. Who the hell wants to dominate a world that is nothing more than a cesspit of humanity all scraping and miserable? Would you rather be the mayor of Calcutta, India with its throngs of poor people or a pleasant, Midwestern small town with a comfortable number of people and breathing room?

I don't think I've ever been called that...

[jpaganel.livejournal.com]

Pro-natalist. Hm.

"I've had a hard childhood. Other kids would taunt me and call me names, like 'dickface', and 'neo-calvinist'. They're lucky the chain kept snapping me back..."

Scientists have been predicting doom for years. We're still here. Now, I will not deny that overuse of resource X is a bad thing. However, 9 out of 10 times it is due to us being inefficient in our use. The demand isn't necessarily high because the population numbers demand it.

Population density truly is a bad thing. I used to live in Brooklyn, it got to me, so I went West and wound up in Minneapolis. However, the density is high only in a few spots around the continent. We're a long way from running out of room. We're also a long way from running out of food. Farmers are still getting paid not to grow too much to keep the prices up.

With regard to quality vs. quantity, it is not a direct relationship. Lowering quantity will get you smaller numbers, but not a change in proportions.

I think that one of the things that contributes to lowering quality of an average human is the amount of "protection from self" that we have. Doing stupid shit still kills, but nowhere near as often as it used to. We even have this interesting reward mechanism for stupidity, in the form of liability suits. We try real hard to remove dangerous stuff from people. Can't buy dynamite at the hardware store anymore. Can't buy lawn darts. It's getting harder and harder for morons to darwinate. Should we really put that much effort into keeping idiots around? Why don't we just legalize all recreational drugs, and let anyone stupid enough to smoke their brain into a little brown walnut go ahead and do it?

Some safeguards should exist, but only where stupid shit impacts anyone other than the perpetrator. That's when they need to be smacked down hard.

On the other hand, maybe we should start with definition of quality. What exactly is a quality human?