I have long joked with some friends about the idea that people should have to pass a test in order to raise children, but it's starting to look like a better and better idea each day. Here's a for instance.

There's a certain post-doctorate researcher in the lab next door to mine who is only about one or two months pregnant. She works in a lab which, like mine, uses copious amounts of hazardous solvents. Many of these solvents, like methylene chloride, pass instantly through skin and into your bloodstream, and gloves offer only splash protection as these solvents will dissolve the glove material as well. Here's a list of its hazards according to the MSDS:



What's worse is anything that is dissolved in this stuff passes right through your skin as well, and this is a solvent so it's used in pretty large amounts, liters or so sometimes. And speaking from experience, it is impossible to avoid skin contact with these solvents when you work with them this often, not to mention the vapors. It sounds nasty, but it's the dose that makes the poison. These are the effects of prolonged contact, but a tiny bit won't do too much damage. So yeah, I've gotten a small dose of it and I'm not seriously worried about my health.

But she is pregnant. Her child is in the stage of development where the chemical to cell ratio is pretty darn high. I mean there are only a few cells now that will eventually become the baby's whole brain. A dose which would be fine for her can seriously harm her unborn child. Yet she continues to work knowing that she is pregnant.

What's more, there is plenty for her to do outside of the lab. She has a Ph.D. She could be writing proposals or working with the theory, doing lots of stuff that's productive but not dangerous to her child. But she doesn't.

Here's are my questions:

Why is having children considered a right?

Should it be?

What would the costs and benefits be of making reproduction a privilege and not a right?

Why is having children considered a right?

Well, I don't think of it as a right, anymore than I think of urinating as a "right." We are animals, and within all animals (in a general sense - individuals can sometimes have no procreative urges) there is a procreative drive. Free speech is a "right," having children is just something we do.

This is not to say that procreation can't be dealt with as a right in certain ways. For example, it may be permissible for someone to lose their right to procreate; perhaps a serial rapist or child-molester could be chemically castrated.

Should it be?

I don't think it needs to be enumerated as a political right.

What would the costs and benefits be of making reproduction a privilege and not a right?

I don't think that's a good idea. What would be the requirements? Who would make them? There are many stupid people, for example, who might be great parents. There are many smart people, who might be horrible parents. What should the requirements be?

I think your reaction is a common one; I have certainly had it myself. You see some example of idiocy in parenting, and think, "Geez, you need a license to drive a car, but anyone can have a baby." But when you take the issue down "to brass tacks," I don't think it's actually viable - or desirable.

My sentiments also. I think you can make a very good argument that in fact it should be a privelege. However, I don't see any feasible way of implementing it. I can see where it could be defined as a privelege, and therefore revoked in certain circumstances (just as driver's licenses can be taken away, but without the need to qualify for one in the first place).

I will add another point--I would have to think that almost all of us who are parents have done something sometime that, if seen by others, could appear to be a demonstration of unfitness as parents. It is very difficult to few these things in context--as an outsider you haven't been able to view the entire series of events. There are certainly extreme cases where it might be more obvious than in others, but who would make this distinction? So, while in general I don't like the 'slippery slope' argument, I think this is one area where it might apply.

Why is having children considered a right? It isn't. However, preventing a person from having a child would violate their fundamental rights over their own bodily integrity. Either that, or the state would usurp the responsibility for the children and take them away from the parents after they were produced...not for neglect, but because they didn't pass some sort of predetermined test? I don't see much compatibility with either measure and a free society.

What would the costs and benefits be of making reproduction a privilege and not a right?

As Quarkhead mentioned, what would be the requirements and who would make them? The benefits would depend on that criteria. We could eliminate a large percent of the underclass in a couple of generations by not allowing them to reproduce. Allow only the strongest, smartest, ect. to reproduce? Bad idea. Whatever the benefits, the cost is too high. I share your frustration with bad parents, though.

It is considered a right because most everyone is capable
of procreating. It happens by accident in many cases.
Since we have the ability (most of us) to have kids, we
feel it is our right to do so, if we wish.

It should be a societal right, to expect those who enter
parenthood to take it very seriously, and not just do it, on
a whim, or for lack of something else.

There would be no way to enforce reproduction as a
privilege rather than a right. One idea might be to
offer a financial incentive to those individuals who can
refrain from procreating until a certain age:

If you can make it to, say, age 24 without having a
child you will be given huge tax breaks and/or a check
from the state. I would endorse something like that.

To prevent people from bearing children would require a totalitarian form of government which we would all oppose. Certainly, I would say that people have the right to bear children, if they are able to do so. (I wouldn't say that people have the right to be provided with infertility treatment.)

I also think that people may lose the right to raise children if there is strong evidence of neglect or abuse.

Instead of restricting the right to bear children, I would suggest educating people to understand that parenthood is an immense responsibility. Educating young people to understand that being sexually active carries many risks and responsibilities is also important. Of course, it is important to provide information about contraception.

The researcher who is exposing herself to these chemicals is being foolish. I suggest that this be pointed out to her as strongly as possible.

I don't think that anyone has the right to have children, I think (like others here) that the only right is the one not to be prevented from reproducing if one is capable of doing so.

By extension, someone who is incapable of doing so does not have the right to be "cured" of their incapability, they only have the right to try appropriate treatment.

In the same way, I do not have the right to play professional basketball (at 5'9"). I do have the right to try and fail, but I have no right to succeed.

In fact, I think all "rights" (including the inalienable ones) are better expressed as their negatives - I do not have the right to life, I just have the right not to be killed by the action or omission of a third party (which may or may not be the government). I do not have a right to liberty, I just have the right not to be deprived of my liberty without reason (that reason being that I have been found to have committed some crime deemed worthy of imprisonment according to the law and due process of it). I do not have the right to untrammelled free speech with no consequences, I simply have the right not to be silenced before I speak, and the right to say what I like and then face any consequences of what I may say. And so on.

In this, I think the only part of the Declaration of Independence that holds real weight is the pursuit of happiness - it doesn't say anyone has the right to be happy, they only have the right to try.

Julian Posted: Mar 13 2004, 03:11 PM
and so forth.

I think Julian mixes up the notion of 'rights' and 'guarantees' -- A right is the thing to be protected, it is always the positive case (Right to life; Right to Liberty, etc), the negative is merely the preservative of that right (The right not to be killed; the right not to have your freedom abridged. Whether it can be protected, whether there are natural or human forces that will abridge that right is not carried in the negative expression but in the simple fact that Rights are not guarantees.

That said, the 'right' to reproduce does not derive from any notion about having/not-having children, but from the IV Amendment - the right to be secure in your person...against unreasonable search and seizure... That is, though it is not guaranteed that you can or will have children, the right is preserved by the injunction (negative case) against any person or public/private entity from preventing you from attempting to have children. It is from that right, the right to be secure in our persons, that the right of privacy emenates. And, it is from that right that ones jurisdiction over their body should be recognized and that the preservative (negative) case should operate, i.e. all reproductive right (birth, abortion, contraception. By the fourth amendment, these are matters of maintaining one's person, the integrity of the body, and should not be subject to 'unreasonable' search or seizure (i.e. is a private matter wholly within the jurisdiction of the person).

If one elects to have a child, of course, that right no longer applies because the 'thing in the body' is now external and, under law, has a new definition, a 'person' on its own and entitled to its own set of protections. That is why a baby may be taken at birth if a mother is deemed unfit.

However, the only get-around for the right of people to be secure in their persons, which should include the right to give birth (as well as the right to abort) and any other procedure one wishes to visit on their body is iff the state can show a 'compelling interest' in abridging the right secured through the IV Amendment.

As I have written elsewhere, the only two arguments I can think of that establish that compulsion are 1) the compelling interest to prevent abortions (or even compel people to have children) if the population of the country drops so low as to represent an immediate danger to preserving the country; or, 2) the population became so great as to represent and immediate threat and danger to preserving the nation. In that case they might compel things sterilization and abortion as a means of lowering that rate.

These may be 'unthinkable' conditions. But I can think of no other circumstance it which it is really anybody's business but the person who owns the body at issue. Jurisdiction decides the matter long before any questions of practicality or morals or parenting or anything else enters the picture.