Should people need a licence to have children?

A license.

How would you stop people from breaking the "law" - force them into an abortion?

Better yet WHO would decide who can and cannot have children? The Government? Hell they can't even balance their own budget, let alone be smart enough to decide who does and doesn't deserve the right to have children.

Besides... if it's the Government deciding, that means politicians. And politicians come with political bias.. not to mention kick backs & scandals on how they do business.

Protecting kids is important, but a "reversable vasectomy" at birth seems a bit cruel. Is it even possible? It would be fantastic if there was a system by which rates of birth could be restricted and a greater proportion of kids born into stable, "good" households though. I don't think that there is a realistic way of doing this at the moment; I imagine that it would be very unpopular politically as well.

Where I live (Canada), in order to adopt or become a foster parent, you have to go through almost a year's worth of INVASIVE questionnaires and interviews to protect the children from bad parents.

But, if I get pregnant on my own, no one gives a shit.

It does seem like there's something wrong with that scenario/system, but forced sterilization is not the way to solve it. A licensing system would probably be a little more appropriate and controllable.

Either way, the way we're doing it NOW needs some improvement. And just because we haven't done anything about it in the past, does not mean that the current way we do it is the best way. Today, we have more knowledge about child development than we have ever had in the past. We've discovered that a lot of traditional parenting skills that were condoned in the past, are actually quite detrimental to a child's development. Allowing uninformed people to ruin the lives of our future generations should be avoided, but in a way that lifts people up, instead of oppressing them with sterilization.

While I agree that there are a lot of people out there that don't "qualify" to be a parent, I don't think regulation to the extent you speak of would solve much. Like Angel said, as soon as you get the government involved and "enforce" a system where you have to be licensed to breed, everything can and will go wrong.

What I wouldn't mind seeing is widely available and encouraged parenting education. We teach sex education in school nowadays. We are taught how the anatomy works and how to use birth control. However I don't see a lot push for what happens if you DO have a child afterwards. Maybe we should have programs that teach people proper parenting and encourage people to either do it right or wait until conditions are favorable. There are some programs like this in place already but so little exist and the message isn't promoted anywhere near to the extent that I think it should be.

I say we start creating more classes that educate people on proper parenting and encourage people to take these classes before making the, oh so important, decision of becoming a parent.

I don't think we will ever be able to regulate breeding but the very least we should be doing is teaching people what it takes to be a parent and whether or not they should even become one.

So if you had an accident, say the condom broke or the pill didn't take effect, would you be fined for that?

Why discriminate against boys specifically. Why should not girls get the "reversible vasectomies" too?

I agree that children should be born into a environment capable of supporting them, but the reality of it is not very probable.

We don't even have legal abortions in Ireland.

And the part that we must pay some person x amount of money to investigate and spend who knows how much time with the person to find out if he is a good candidate to be eligible to have children. The fuck is this esti. Might as well call all the males and shoot them all. Some money off MY paycheck goes to people on welfare who can fucking work but choose not to, I don't need another money collector that's gonna be a waste to me.

People should be smart enough to control themselves. If they can't, well it isn't my problem.

and my husband is a so called criminal, and hes a very loving father, just because someone made some mistakes and broke the law does not mean they should lose their right to have children

Yeah, more government control!

The amount of people who are willing to give up their freedom shocks me.

You cant do that at birth, but they should have laws, due to bad parents and overpopulation. 2 babies a women. A 3rd baby will be put up for adoption, a forth will result in forced sterilization.

Develop a virus that makes all humans infertile. Kids are made in labs. Invent the Parent Pass.

The Spartan's had a system where all children were brought up by the state from birth. That could work.

i thought vasectomies were reversible.

Thats what CPS is for, protecting children. Trying to control peoples write to have children is pointless. people can lie on test, or become bad parent later on