Just when you think people can be any more stupid....

[Henry]

Ladies and Gents, while this a good topic for some spirited discussion, I'm seeing some occasionaly slips into politics and personal insults. let's try and navigate in between any political arguments and any fightin' words, if we can.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Despite the tragedy involved here, I am appalled by the casual disregard of the value of a human being because he or she is not up to your personal standards.

I can understand where you're coming from, but, man, that's just inhuman of you.

Unfortunatly, the death of an infant like this infuriates me. I can see someone using a folk remedy to quiet a child because that's what their parents did, and their grandparents, etc (not that it is right, but I can understand why they might do so). But the amount of alcohol involved here is so excessive that there is know way they could not see that they were harming their child, yet they continued to do so until the child died. Then they disappeared. That's not the type of behavior that deserves anything less than the harshest penalty available. Child abuse of this type is unforgivable.

 

[Henry]

Even smart people do dumb things...I think that would rule out 99% of all humans.

Excerpted for truth.

While I'd like to see a higher caliber of people raising our next generation of youth (y'know, so they'll actually SURVIVE) but there's no way to test for what WILL happen. Some people say that leaving your child in a mall or forgetting to pick them up after school is an indicator, but over this world, actual otherwise-good parents do this kind of stuff accidentally at least once in the rearing of a child.

 

[Jonny Nexus]

We had a debate about this in my ethics class yesterday. Most people were of the opinion that you should have to meet certain standards to have children, such as a suitable income and environment to support them, and a certain intelligence level to not do idiotic things like the above.

Aside from the ethics, I think this would only be feasible if you had 100% effective, reversable sterilisation.

i.e. Everyone would be sterilised at age 10, and it wouldn't be removed until you had got your "parenting licence" (with the sterilisation being reapplied if you lost said license).

Otherwise, what do you do when either a woman who doesn't have a license gets pregnant, or a woman gets pregant by a man who doesn't have a license?

Force her to have an abortion?

Force her to have the baby adopted? (Presumably by a couple who do have a license).

Of course, my huge ethical problem with it is that:

a) This is a massive intrusion by society (a.k.a. the government) into something (family life) that has hiterto been regarded as something that should be left to individuals. (For example, what if society/the government decided that membership of a particular religion disqualified you from having children?)

b) It smacks of being guilty until proven innocent.

 

[Jonny Nexus]

i.e. Everyone would be sterilised at age 10, and it wouldn't be removed until you had got your "parenting licence" (with the sterilisation being reapplied if you lost said license).

Mind you, that's a hell of a setting for an SF story... The back street clinics who provide illegal unsteralising operations. The fertility police who monitor unlicensed couples for signs of pregnancy, and who swoop in with compulsory abortions when necessary. The judges who rule on applications for parenting licenses, and the boards who determine what the criteria they should use are (i.e. whether people of a certain religion should be disqualified from child-rearing).

You could do a story that was hugely dark and gritty, but had a soppy romance core at its heart.

Well if I do it, you heard it here first!

 

[Xath]

We agreed it wasn't ethical. And I also realize it's not feasable. But too many things happen like this, and it really yanks my chain. All I ask of humanity is that if you're going to be a parent, be a responsible parent. Everyone makes mistakes, but crap like this goes beyond that.

 

[Jonny Nexus]

We agreed it wasn't ethical. And I also realize it's not feasable. But too many things happen like this, and it really yanks my chain. All I ask of humanity is that if you're going to be a parent, be a responsible parent. Everyone makes mistakes, but crap like this goes beyond that.

In which case I misread you. I assumed that your use of the word "should" in "Most people were of the opinion that you should have to" implied rightness. (i.e. that it was an ethically correct position to hold).

Although I know people often define a difference between ethics and morality, and perhaps this is the case here: that your group were saying that it's immoral for such people to have children, but it would be unethical to stop them.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Well, you can't accidentally drive a car.

I dunno about that one....

 

[Warrior Poet]

Well, you can't accidentally drive a car.

Come drive any of the expressways around Chicago some time. Seems to me there's quite a few people accidentally driving.

On the larger issue, it seems one of the problems is there's no self-selection. I don't want governments or officials stepping in and telling people they can or can't reproduce, but I wish more people could do a little honest self-analysis and say, "Should I be a parent? Do I recognize that copious alcohol consumption will kill an infant? No? Then I shouldn't be a parent." But, obviously, I'm deeply in circular paradox here.

I was trying to find the angle that I'm not seeing (huh?) on this story, but in the end I think I'm siding more with Cthulhu's Librarian. I'm not an advocate of sterilization or systematic testing for "good parenthood," but it's hard to see how this was an "honest mistake." There are adult alcoholics on benders that don't have a .47 blood alcohol level. How could they not know? Pure stupidity? Possible. Willful sociopathy? Also possible. God, what an awful tragedy. I'm calling my folks tonight and thanking them for being good parents.

Warrior Poet

 

[jonesy]

Well, you can't accidentally drive a car.

I dunno about that one....

"Highwaypolice reported that the man in question had accidentally fallen into the car. Trying to regain his balance he had taken hold of the door, inadvertently pulling it shut. In his panic he had pressed the pedal to the metal, and hand't lifted his feet until after being found in a ditch 45 kilometers from the original location. Not being familiar with motorvehicles of any kind he had first attempted to open the door by lowering the handbrake, switching the gear to one, turning the ignition key, and then continuing with switching gears, leading ultimately to the high speed he exited the highway with."