Dear Robert TerreBlanch,

Thank you for your incisive comments about this article. I'm not the one hiding under the bridge. In fact, I'm a regular writer for OLO, so I'm 'out' where as your thinking, well, I don't know because you haven't written anything.

Most people think the John's article is a prank or similar rhyme and helps explain why, along with Kelvin Thompson, the ALP committed suicide in government.

"I need your ideas! SPA has obtained around $5K to fund a project in Australia with the aim of reducing unwanted pregnancies. Ideally the idea would achieve this goal and also raise awareness of the population issue. Please let me know any ideas you may have and I will present them to the next SPA Brisbane meeting mid July." SPA Facebook page June 2014.

That's from a Queensland SPA member. .... no drama there until we hot 'and also raise awareness of the population issue'

I'll leave you and Divergence alone to work out how you'll carve up Poland.

Hear hear Big Nana!
Thank heaven someone is prepared to tell it like it is, rather than dress it up with fanatical/parochial victimization; or start singing, they took the children away. (same diff)

Maybe so, but just how many of those patently rescued children, were already rejected by their own communities, and for being the WRONG COLOR; or unusually bright or questioning!?

And how many of them, even today, see no other way out than suicide?
Ever see the truly shocking statistics of youth suicide in indigenous communities and wonder why?
Perhaps we should have kept taking the children away?

Even today, most communities (community sport) endlessly bully kids/make their little lives a perpetual living hell! (violence as entertainment) Who unfortunately don't have a dad around to protect them!
Or just a sober one capable of actually getting up off of the lard ass.

And for who more kids just equates to a larger government handout or more drinking money, for him and his eternally complaining and blame shifting drinking buddies?

Go you good thing Big Nana, we need more community members and elders, with the rare courage to speak up and expose the miscreants and their myths and or mischief for what it really is?

Rather than endlessly cover it up or excuse/minimize it, as being too culturally sensitive to expose for the rank bastardy/buggery/humbug it really is!
Rhrosty.

Quite a few interesting comments, with the usual off the-mark and ad hominem contributions.

But my friend Gary might be onto something: that the incidence of neglected children rises dramatically:

* if their mothers are single or deserted,

* if their mothers are addicted to alcohol or drugs, and

* if they are born later in a stream of neglected children.

Remember that the more children a single mother has, the more disposable income she can enjoy, and the longer she can enjoy it: 'don't worry too much about the kids' needs, kids are property afterall, not responsibilities, she can do whatever she likes withthem.'

So how about this:

(1) if a single mother applies for welfare payments, and presumably for a constant stream of many years' welfare payments, then - for the duration of those payments - she agrees to have a contraceptive implant. If she removes it, and gets pregnant again, she is committing an offence, and on its birth, the child is given up for adoption - she should sign statements to that effect when she initiates the welfare payments.

In other words, while she is reliant on the public purse, she will have no more than the one child. Also, any charges of drunkenness or drug use will be taken extremely seriously, as evidence of incapability to parent, with disastrous consequences to her payments.

(2) she is given free child care for that first child, from three years old to primary school; and

(3) once the child is in pre-school, she is required to undertake vocational education in a genuine course that actually will get her somewhere, ideally one which is identified as leading straight to a job.

In short, since it is impossible to identify fathers, the burden falls on the single mother, to do the best for her child by training for reasonably certain employment, and by thus providing a role-model of work, self-reliance and positivity.

Of course, once she is off welfare, she can have, and support, as many children as she likes.

A bit rough ? Just putting it out there.

Joe

Loudmouth,

Someone on this thread or the previous one on this topic suggested dealing with the problem by giving the mother a government or government subsidized minimum wage job rather than the dole, as well as childcare for the children while she works. Your idea of a full-time course leading to a job is another possibility. I would give the new mother perhaps six months off first for breastfeeding and recovery from the birth. She could be offered free contraception with the failure rates of the different methods explained, but not forced to use it. If she has still more children, then she can be offered more hours of work. More children just mean more work. The childcare centre or family daycare mother could be keeping an eye on the welfare of the children as well. Yes, this would cost more initially, but could end up saving money if it encouraged responsible parenthood. This also answers the objection from Belloc's Daughter about couples who want to work and support their children, but can't find a job in the present economy.

Like Killarney, I don't have a problem with court ordered sterilization in cases of extreme neglect or abuse. People who have abused animals are often banned from keeping them. Why aren't children equally deserving of protection?

Malcolm,

You must have overlooked the words "unwanted pregnancies" in your supposedly damaging quote. I am amazed that someone in this day and age would come out in favour of forced pregnancy or compulsory fatherhood.

Unfortunately I don't think any programs that require more than minimum cooperation from the parents has much chance of success as it will be difficult to enforce. Up here we can't even get a high percentage school attendance from these multigenerational welfare homes, , let alone anything more complex.
But do something we must. The Kimberley has the highest youth suicide rate in the world, all kids from dysfunctional homes. Foetal alcohol Syndrome is at epidemic proportions in some sectors of the community. Child abuse figures increase every year. Some parents are so detached from their kids they have to be drug tested before they can have even a supervised visit with them.
Part of the problem is the refusal of males to take any responsibility for the support of children they produce. For those on welfare, even if they are named as the father, only $10/ fortnight gets taken from their Centrelink money. Perhaps the government needs to enforce more responsibility onto these men. It they lose $50/pay or even more, for every child, they may think twice about trying to impregnate every female they have sex with.
Combined with removal of some of the incentives given for every child, that may, just may, have some effect.

Control of women's bodies is, and always has been an obsession of patriarchal cultures including that of the Jews as described in the "Old" Testament - the punishment for any transgressions was execution.

The countless thousands of women that were murdered during the European "witch"-burning psychosis was another in-your-face example of such control. Much of the hysteria was justified by the book The Hammer of Witches written by two "catholic" priests.

And of course the "catholic" church always has been, and is now in the business of controlling women's bodies and sexuality. Which of course is the illogical extension of their totally irrational opposition to women being priests.
This is now being dramatized via their hysterical opposition to birth control, which some/most of the usual right-wing zealots equating birth-control with murder.
Unfortunately in the USA this malignant attitude has now also been taken up with fervent zeal by right-wing protestant "evangelicals". Even to the degree that via the now extremely right-wing REPUGNANT party they are systematically introducing legislation in many States to outlaw all forms of contraception. And even laws which make mandatory invasive examination of the bodies of women who (for whatever reason) are seeking to have an abortion.
They are of course also ideologically opposed to the dissemination of any form of birth-control and even sex-education. As such one of their primary agendas is the total shut-down of Planned Parenthood and similar essentially feminist inspired organizations that provide comprehensive information and education on the ins-and-outs of female reproductive plumbing.

Such people were of course also hysterically opposed to the original ground-breaking 1970 FEMINIST book Our Bodies Our Selves.