When Should Giving Birth Be a Crime?

First of all, skim this sad story on child laborers in Kenya.

I read this recently and it got me thinking about our priorities in birth, sustaining life, education, and general health. Why, for example, do some conservatives care so much about the life of a "child" (better known by its actual name: Mr. Fetus) before it is born, and then cease to care about it the moment it emerges from the birth canal? We will force you to have that thing, lady! But, oh, you wanted some health care for it now that it's breathing on its own? Um, sorry, that's socialist.

Why do doctors spend dozens of hours separating conjoined twins while half a world away children die because they can't get clean drinking water?  We know the answer: prestige.  But cast that aside and the operation seems like a strange way to prioritize.

And let's say we do bring those poor third-world children clean drinking water. We'd be hailed as heroes. Look at all the lives we're saving! But that begs the question: are they "lives"? So the children with the swollen bellies live to see another day. That's a start.  Can we give them an education? Or will they--like the kids in the article--end up slave laborers and selling goats for a penny. Is that a life?  Even if you answer "yes," is that a life worth living?

Rationing Uteruses

So how do we address the problem? Do we institute a "one child per family" rule like China? That seems unthinkable in fiercely independently minded America. But when world overpopulation starts to ration even our Big Macs and drinking water (used to make fatty fat soda, obviously), someone is going to have to start limiting childbirths.

Can we expect people to do it on their own? Doubtful. Even if the Kenyan parents in the article had an unlimited supply of condoms and exquisite sex education, one suspects they still would have reproduced. And why not? It's natural. It's instinctual. And, heck, people get horny. Not to mention that in many cultures, couples have children because they know the kids may be the only ones who will take care of them when they're old.  Should the Kenyan parents sit down, take a look around, and say, "Honey, we can't bring a child into this world. It's not kind. It's not right."? One could argue that they should... but that's asking too much, particularly without other governmental or social support systems in place to ensure the elders' care when they become frail.

Perhaps we turn to the government.  Is it fair to impose an across-the-board "one child" policy like China? Perhaps. But imagine a world stuffed full of people and only needing enough new births to sustain an already overloaded planet. Shouldn't we make good choices? Should the smart people be allowed to reproduce? The attractive people? The athletic people? Will there be a quota for all the above in order to sustain industry, Hollywood, and sports?  Won't the lower classes mount a fierce defense that even an Einstein or a Michael Jordan could come from their midst?

Eugenics is an awfully dangerous road to go down. Even before Hitler taught us the unthinkable depths of its horrors, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the forced sterilization of a poor woman on the grounds that she was an "imbecile," though researchers later showed that she was--if anything--a quite average student in school. (See Buck v. Bell.) Perhaps the mere suggestion that it might be legal to keep certain people from reproducing is far too great of a temptation for bureaucrats to administer the challenge without prejudice.

Life... at Any Cost

The end of life presents the same problem. I read once that one-third of all Medicare payments go toward sustaining patients in their last year of life, barely prolonging the inevitable. Recently, I've begun to see articles in the mainstream media about how doctors may encourage patients too hard to fight, fight, fight against their cancer rather than accept palliative care and slip away in peace and comfort. As one doctor aptly put it: through medical advancements, we've expanded our ability to prolong life but not our ability to make life more livable.

For the present, a majority of people are opposed to euthanasia. Though I could find no statistics, I strongly suspect a majority would likewise be opposed to any law that would prohibit most people's right to reproduce.  We comfort ourselves by thinking morality is largely static.  Indeed, it has a way of bending and even breaking when times get tough.  It will be interesting to see what the general consensus becomes on limiting childbirths and pulling the plug on grandma when overpopulation and fiscal pressures are brought to bear in the not-so-distant future.