I felt that this well-argued post deserved a response from me, and mine is almost as long, so it's on my website (www.donaitkin.com).

This is a very difficult social issue, and like jails and road safety, we mostly don't want to know about it. I don't agree with everything the author has said, but hers is a thoughtful and poignant essay that needs to be taken seriously.

I agree with one commenter that we need a reliable and reversible male contraceptive, which men universally take unless they are in a relationship that is prepared for a baby, and will welcome it lovingly and resourcefully.

Yuyutsu,

Shame is right - regarding Hasbeen's recent sentiment.

However, it's keeping in line with his equally grotesque sentiment of locking asylum seekers in a room with a knife.

One would hope his views aren't representative of a changing society...because if they are then civilisation as we know it is going straight down the gurgler.

It seems the only things that escape from him which aren't resident of the dank depths of his special brand of "morality" are the myriad tales of his own renown and the discordant tones of him blowing his own trumpet.

Yuyutsu I'm all in favor of people teaching those wonderful things to their kids. I am not however in favor of them assuming some god given right to expect someone else to pay for them to do it. We are not yet in a position to pay people to breed.

I am also in favor of people teaching their kids to be independent, self-supporting members of society, not bludgers. How you people can justify, even in your own minds, the idea that some single parents, working to support themselves & their kids, should be poorer by paying the taxes to support the bludger single parents, I really can’t understand.

Dear Hasbeen,

<<I am not however in favor of them assuming some god given right to expect someone else to pay for them to do it. We are not yet in a position to pay people to breed.>>

They do have the right to expect because they were so promised.
Was it right to promise them money for breeding? of course not, but it was already done and those ladies (and a few gentlemen too) acted on that promise, which must not be dishonoured retroactively.

In the future, for sure, there should be no incentive whatsoever to populate this planet with more humans.

<<I am also in favor of people teaching their kids to be independent, self-supporting members of society,>>

There's a bit of a contradiction here: either one is truly independent and self-supporting or one is a member of society (or as many do, juggle uncomfortably between the two).

<<the idea that some single parents, working to support themselves & their kids, should be poorer by paying the taxes to support the bludger single parents, I really can’t understand.>>

The root of the problem is using the money which the government prints/issues.
If you kept your wealth in gold or in cattle and the like, then nobody should have a right to tax you, but those who found it convenient to deal with the devil and use their currency, should not complain that it has strings attached, including the requirement to pay tax as they see fit.

We do pay people to breed - its called the baby bonus and anyone can see that the lure of a $5000 handout has been a huge inducement to breed for those on welfare and with few prospects of employment. If we ditched the baby bonus that money could be redirected into helping single parents return to the workforce so they and their children can get of the welfare treadmill.

Yuyutsu, "The root of the problem is using the money which the government prints/issues.
If you kept your wealth in gold or in cattle and the like, then nobody should have a right to tax you, but those who found it convenient to deal with the devil and use their currency, should not complain that it has strings attached, including the requirement to pay tax as they see fit".

I am afraid, not being an arts graduate, & wanting to split hairs, I can not see how a moral argument is altered by whether or not one uses the coin of the realm. Either you approve of some single parents being poorer so some can sit on their butts, & grow fat, or you don't.

In the case in point, of our author, dozens of check out chicks, many supporting mothers, were made poorer, so she could indulge herself in obtaining a degree. She is now much better off than those check out chicks can ever hope to be.

If she was now required to repay the full cost of her education, there may be some justice in the transaction. However that is not the case. Those same check out chicks had to spring for most of that cost, while funding her child child rearing time as well.

I do find it amazing that some lefties consider me hard. All I can see is a totally immoral hand out/entitlement system, reinforced by some strange cumforting belief that it is only the rich paying.