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[novapsyche]

Judge orders couple not to have children

A couple has been ordered not to conceive any more children until the ones they already have are no longer in foster care.

A civil liberties advocate said the court ruling unsealed Friday was "blatantly unconstitutional."

[...] "I don't know of any precedent that would permit a judge to do this," Anna Schissel, staff attorney for the Reproductive Rights Project of the New York Civil Liberties Union, told the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester. "And even if there were a precedent, it would be blatantly unconstitutional because it violates the United States Constitution and the New York Constitution."

Neither parent attended the proceeding or secured legal representation. The mother waived her right to a lawyer, and the father never showed up in court.

Comments

[kyril.livejournal.com]

There are people I think shouldn't be allowed to breed. Unfortunately, there's no entity I trust (certainly not our government, nor our justice system) to actually implement that correctly. The level of problems we've had with the death penalty and reversals just underscore that--and if we had more labs doing DNA testing, we'd probably have more reversals of lesser sentences too.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

It's my belief that all people have fundamental rights. One is the right to marry. Another is the right to have children.

I don't think Lynndie England and her spiffy fiance should have children--I think the child she's carrying has a high likelihood of being really messed up as an adult. But it's not my right to keep them from procreating.

There needs to be more tools in society to help parents learn how to be better parents. Some people come from very stable homes and had good role models; some of us have not and would benefit from external social services and counseling/training. (But I'm a Democrat and a social scientist who believes in structuralism, so I'm a bit biased.)

Did the judge rule against the right entity? Perhaps an overhaul of the foster care system is needed, too. But she didn't seem to indict them in any way.

[quility.livejournal.com]

I think there should be a test that you have to pass before being allowed to have children. Something that protects the right of the child about to be born - the right to having access to a certain minimum amount of food and resources and love. But I agree that there is no one I trust to implement such a system.
Commitment to raising out children to be productive adults has got to be a higher priority than it is now.
I just realized that this sounds like anti-abortion, but it isn't. It's more like - you gotta prove that you are committed enough to raising the child that you should be allowed to not abort it.
I hope I don't get anyone too mad!

[kyril.livejournal.com]

I agree: your rights end at the point they impinge on my rights, and vice versa. In a normal family, that would mean the right of the mother to reproduce should be balanced against the rights of the unborn and the existing children. In this example, the parents basically won't care for their spawn and therefore should be kept from spawning any more until they do.

Ideally, they just shouldn't be allowed to conceive. I don't know what should be done if they do manage to conceive anyway, but it should've been done as punishment for screwing up with the first four in addition to being re-imposed if they spawn again.