Random ponderings...

[annwfyn]

This case, and a conversation with ksirafai over the weekend has got me pondering.

There are a series of Science Fiction novels by Lois McMaster Bujold about an assortment of futuristic societies. One society - Beta Colony - has a series of laws about child rearing. Everyone is compulsorarily fitted with a contraceptive implant at puberty, and should they wish to produce children they are required to prove to the government that they are financially able to support a child, have a support structure about them, and pass a parenting test before the implant may be removed. The same procedure has to be gone through for every child a person wishes to have.

Is this a utopia or a dystopia?

Comments

I support laws...

[sentina.livejournal.com]

"Parenting is the easiest job to get -- you just have to screw up once and it's yours."
----- Dennis Miller

I think he also went on to say that you have to get permits for driving, gun posession, and marrige. All three of these things carry potentially dangerous consequences. Why don't we have "proof of capability" laws for having children?

I think the global population would head toward zero or no population growth. The effect on the environment would be more than benificial. I also think it would reduce abuse, especially if the people set to monitor victems of abuse were freed of that responcibility and started preventing the abuse that was missed in the verification process.

Then again, any laws made by man inevitably go wrong...