3 ms·

The risks of pregnancy are much worse! Pregnancy is really tough and can lead to eleventy zillion health complications

toomuchtodo 3y ago
Also, ~40% of children born into poverty remain in poverty [1], and it costs $310k per child from 0-18 (excluding daycare and college costs) [2]. Broadly accessible reproductive healthcare is about as impactful as vaccines from a value delivered for the cost perspective. You want to avoid as many both unintended and unwanted pregnancies as possible (which ["unintended"] stands at about half of all US [3] and global [4] pregnancies annually). EDIT (hn throttling, can't reply): People who don't want children should be enabled and empowered to not have them. I am surprised that is a controversial opinion. [1] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-poverty-can-follow-children-into-adulthood/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-poverty-can-f... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33991744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33991744 [3] https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/factsheet/fb-unintended-pregnancy-us.pdf https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/factsheet/fb-... [4] https://www.unfpa.org/press/nearly-half-all-pregnancies-are-unintended-global-crisis-says-new-unfpa-report https://www.unfpa.org/press/nearly-half-all-pregnancies-are-...
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    Helping poor people who do not WANT kids not HAVE kids is not Eugenics but rather their basic human rights in a world that invented birth control.
    - ToValueFunfetti 3y ago
      When you're doing it explicitly because 40% of their offspring will be poor, I think you've at least entered a gray area. Aligning with the interests of eugenicists is hardly an argument against a policy though.
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        The point is that an individual CHOOSING to not have a child because they don't want that child to stay poor is NOT EUGENICS, and this policy will not force birth control on anyone who doesn't want it. In fact, all this does is make it easier for people who DON'T WANT KIDS to NOT HAVE KIDS. Enabling personal family planning like that is basically the opposite of eugenics?
        ToValueFunfetti 3y ago
        Eugenics and choice are not exclusive; eugenics does not have to be administered through force. Singapore subsidized sterilization of poor and uneducated people and that was eugenics, even though people were still able to choose whether they wanted kids. And, to get ahead of 'poor people don't have a choice because they need money to live', Singapore changed tracks and started incentivizing reproduction for educated women, and that is also eugenics. If I don't reproduce because I have a genetic disease that I don't want to pass down, I'm practicing eugenics. Eugenics doesn't by definition mean all of the horrible abuses that have arisen from it in practice. It's just about 'improving' the human gene pool, and any method of achieving that goal qualifies.

Also, ~40% of children born into poverty remain in poverty [1], and it costs $310k per child from 0-18 (excluding daycare and college costs) [2]. Broadly accessible reproductive healthcare is about as impactful as vaccines from a value delivered for the cost perspective. You want to avoid as many both unintended and unwanted pregnancies as possible (which ["unintended"] stands at about half of all US [3] and global [4] pregnancies annually). EDIT (hn throttling, can't reply): People who don't want children should be enabled and empowered to not have them. I am surprised that is a controversial opinion. [1] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-poverty-can-follow-children-into-adulthood/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-poverty-can-f... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33991744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33991744 [3] https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/factsheet/fb-unintended-pregnancy-us.pdf https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/factsheet/fb-... [4] https://www.unfpa.org/press/nearly-half-all-pregnancies-are-unintended-global-crisis-says-new-unfpa-report https://www.unfpa.org/press/nearly-half-all-pregnancies-are-...

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
[flagged]
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  Helping poor people who do not WANT kids not HAVE kids is not Eugenics but rather their basic human rights in a world that invented birth control.
  - ToValueFunfetti 3y ago
    When you're doing it explicitly because 40% of their offspring will be poor, I think you've at least entered a gray area. Aligning with the interests of eugenicists is hardly an argument against a policy though.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      The point is that an individual CHOOSING to not have a child because they don't want that child to stay poor is NOT EUGENICS, and this policy will not force birth control on anyone who doesn't want it. In fact, all this does is make it easier for people who DON'T WANT KIDS to NOT HAVE KIDS. Enabling personal family planning like that is basically the opposite of eugenics?
      - ToValueFunfetti 3y ago
        Eugenics and choice are not exclusive; eugenics does not have to be administered through force. Singapore subsidized sterilization of poor and uneducated people and that was eugenics, even though people were still able to choose whether they wanted kids. And, to get ahead of 'poor people don't have a choice because they need money to live', Singapore changed tracks and started incentivizing reproduction for educated women, and that is also eugenics. If I don't reproduce because I have a genetic disease that I don't want to pass down, I'm practicing eugenics. Eugenics doesn't by definition mean all of the horrible abuses that have arisen from it in practice. It's just about 'improving' the human gene pool, and any method of achieving that goal qualifies.