>>The working class, by and large, waits until they can afford to have children. The non-working class may not. The best way to have the non-working class mimic the working class is to have them practice contraception.<<
What an idiotic claim!

The best way would be to employ them, help them find someone else willing to employ them, or help them start their own businesses.

>>The best time to intervene is at the time someone decides whether to take a benefit. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of intervention.<<
RUBBISH! Taking out a benefit does not mean they'll still be on that benefit a couple of years from now.

>>It may be a human right to procreate, but it also a glorious inanity in the context of what to do about those who have children on a public benefit. It is not a human right to raise a family at someone else's expense.<<
Not specifically, but to the extent you're whinging about it it is: see articles 16, 22 and 25 of the UDHR
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

>>Some of the Left are outraged. They are happy, however, to argue for restricting childbirth in the name of saving the world from theoretical damage from climate change in 100 years, but worry not about the child to be born in nine months.<<
ITYF you're conflating the views of two very different groups.

>>The welfare state is here to stay, but it has a downside. It creates the next generation of dependent citizens. What is your solution?<<
Stop treating welfare recipients as a class of undesirables and instead give everyone the assistance they need, including ensuring that appropriate work is available everywhere.

We discussed this last week and my opinion hasn't changed since reading follow up articles on the topic. Forget the rights of women! Consider the rights of children instead.
Children have the right to be safe, to be fed, to be educated, to be loved, to be cared for. If any woman cannot do that for her children then she certainly shouldn't be having any more. And no single woman can provide all those necessities for a large number of children, even with a lot of outside support.
And where are the fathers in all this? If they cannot provide the financially, physical and emotional support for the mother and children then they certainly shouldn't be bringing more children into such dysfunctional circumstances.
Children are the victims here. They have no say, or control over their conception or early life. If adults cannot be responsible about parenthood then they shouldn't be parents.

Satire has been much in the news of late, and at first I thought this article might be in the noble tradition of Swift’s Modest Proposal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

But no, this peanut is serious.

The State has no role in the bedrooms of its citizens

Strangely enough, Rhian, when Johns' "great idea" first did the rounds on OLO, I raised Swift's Modest Proposal - and reading Birmingham's article, I note he has too.

My other points were the challenges of legislation targeting only one gender - and how to legislate to force "women" to medicate in order to receive welfare?

Poirot
My apologies, the plagiarism was inadvertent.

You’re right, the problems are huge: legislation, gender-specific targeting, enforcement, what happens if someone becomes pregnant (forced abortions a la one child policy, perhaps?). If someone on welfare gets a job, how long before she is permitted to procreate?

The ghastly absurdity of the challenges of implementation pale, though, compared to the ghastly absurdity of the proposition itself.

The most practical solution is also the most simple and ethical: everyone who agrees with the sole parents pension should be forced to pay for it and everyone who doesn't, should not. In fact, no need to even force them. If they agree they pay, and if they don't, they don't. Problem solved. In a worst-case scenario, sole parent pensioners can always work for a living like everyone else, including all other sole parents.