Impact of 2-child benefit cap on abortion decisions

LittlePosh that makes zero seen sense.

There is no point in disclosing it to any old person.

They need to disclose it to someone in a certain role, they need to complete a form which has to be countersigned. Here is the guidance and the form.

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.gov.uk/government/publications/support-for-a-child-conceived-without-your-consent&ved=2ahUKEwjTloOwrrLtAhWjoXEKHeOCAIAQFjAFegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw1FpuqB-Hcfuj63IyJTrtMh" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.gov.uk/government/publications/support-for-a-child-conceived-without-your-consent&ved=2ahUKEwjTloOwrrLtAhWjoXEKHeOCAIAQFjAFegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw1FpuqB-Hcfuj63IyJTrtMh

It's in feminism. Most pester avoid FWR like the plague!

NiceGerbil why do you think everyone posting on this thread is a feminist? That is clearly not the case. There certainly aren't many FWR regulars.

This thread title came up in Active Convos and, since it's about benefits, and abortions, it will have attracted many different posters from far and wide, not just feminists.

Equally, why should the rest of us pay for other people's choices?

You sound like you've done rather well for yourself. But where do you think your money came from, and society's money generally? The wealth of the rich is dependent on the labour of the poor. Literally the only place that wealth can come from is the extraction of surplus value from workers. So I bet you'd be the first to complain if we the working class stopped having kids, because the middle classes would starve first when the world ran out of workers.

NiceGerbil I really hope that most posters have seen this on active threads and are not regular posters on this board.

The majority of the thread reads as though it was written by Katie Hopkins.

Christ almighty.

I'm really shocked by this thread.

When the cap was coming in MN in general was fairly evenly split. The feminist board was against it.

The change in view since then is mind boggling.

As for the having to prove rape, well shit happens post upthread.

If women who consider themselves feminists are ok with children paying for the actions of their parents, with women having to prove rape to government officials, with what from the % looks like large numbers of women being essentially coerced into abortion by the state,

Then wtf is the point?

I'm genuinely shocked.

It's not a question of whether it's a right or not. It's a reality, those children have been born and they deserve not to go hungry because some in society believe the mother has done something wrong.

Likewise if one of us dies, it pays out to support the other.

We also have illness and redundancy cover.

It was one of the costs we factored in when planning number 3.

I am uncomfortable with the idea that only those that can afford can have 3 kids. Equally, why should the rest of us pay for other people's choices?

The Government doesn't hold a bottomless pit of money. How can you say this is a rich country when our national debt is over £1.8 billion??!

It's not a right to bring children into the world.

MsTSwift people who are capable and willing to think through the consequences and mitigate against them or decide accordingly do limit family size or ensure they have finances in place (many very wealthy people have large numbers of children, and the wealthy use vastly more planetary resources than the very poor statistically).
Many people have children they can't afford anyway, because they can't or won't risk assess especially for possible eventualities in a decade's time or for a million other reasons. Millions of people just don't think very much at all, about next month let alone what might happen in five or fifteen years. Millions of people career from one minor crisis to another.

Should their children suffer for it, increasing the odds of them repeating the cycle and ultimately costing society? Or do you advocate mass sterilisation of women on benefits with two children? Or forced removal of 3rd and subsequent newborns based on parental employment / financial status?

We need to make men pay for their careless seed-spreading. No more dodging child maintenance, or letting them pay less than the actual financial burden of raising the child. It's not fair that women have to shoulder this.

Of course fathers should pay but this completely ignores the reality of the situation. Firstly many of those affected by the benefit cap were couples, although the cap was a strong incentive for families to split up. But even if they aren't, what if the father has disappeared, or is in jail, or sick, or just refuses. What if the father s abusive and uses his finances as a form of control? Or isn't even known, or perhaps its best he doesnt know. Or what if most commonly the father is as broke as the mother and despite best intentions could no way afford to completely cover the costs on £70 a week universal credit or the minimum wage? It's a simplistic solution, which completely ignores the complexities of these situations. Yes there should be pressure on fathers to pay, with money taken at source if necessary, but this must never be used as an excuse to deny support for lone parents on the basis the father will pick up the slack. Sadly some won't, some can't, and in some cases it's the last thing that the mother should be made dependent on. And we can afford it. This is a rich country, we should not be letting children and their mums go hungry or homeless under any circumstances, no matter what bad decisions she is judged to have made or how useless the father is.

I know UK child benefit isn't universal. In Germany the logic is twofold: that children should not suffer poverty, and that an aging population is a time bomb for the country.

The birth rate in Germany is significantly lower than the UK, indicating that punitive financial measures by the state do not cause women to have fewer children at a population level.

Sorry but with the planet the way it is I don’t think it’s justifiable for anyone to have more than 2 children let alone the state supporting this choice. Know it’s unpopular view but I’m not shifting.

@UntilYourNextHairBrainedScheme child benefit in Britain is not universal, even for the first two children, let alone subsequent. Why does Germany need to encourage births more than Britain?
I would have thought Germans are fairly big on eco-credentials and limiting population growth.

timeforanewstart child benefit in Germany is universal and uncapped for number of children. You get more, not less, for third and subsequent children. Its significantly more than UK child benefit. There is extra for children under 3, and an additional payment for children who don't use nursery before age 3. There was also a 200€ per child Corona payment recently, for extra expenses incurred due to homeschooling or Kindergarten being closed/ children home in lockdown - universal.

Unemployment benefit is linked to what you've paid in. "Herz 4" is a minimum basic available to those who haven't ever worked or haven't worked for ling enough, recently enough. However those with two full years or more of work and all relevant tax and state unemployment insurance payments get full salary for up to two years under certain conditions. After that Herz 4.

This thread is shockingly right wing and let them eat cake though - clearly most posters are utterly clueless and live in a tiny bubble. As an ex teacher and current learning disabilities and mental health support professional Im astounded at the ignorance displayed.

Insurance ffs.

We have all the insurance discussed here - so on a personal level yes, great, of course its the responsible choice.

Do so many people not grasp, however, that vast numbers of people have below average intelligence and no chance at all of understanding long term finances properly, or grasping the complexities of long term financial risk assessment?

Many people's lives are chaotic and lived in the moment. Not an exceptional tiny minority but millions.

Its the children in those families who suffer hunger and cold and lack of properly fitting clothes and school supplies etc etc when the family is in poverty.

What do the personal responsibility advocates propose for the millions of women who fall above the threshhold of learning disabilities qualifying for full support, but well below the level of intelligence (or mental health) to properly financially risk asses whether to terminate an unplanned pregnancy or not? Eugenics? Tough - let the children pay for the sins of the fathers so its "fair" for those of us privileged to have the capacity to think through and plan for our children's long term future?

I'm horrified by this. It was absolutely always going to happen though. I completely support abortion where a woman wants one. However, I cannot get behind any government policy aimed squarely at pushing women to undergo a medical procedure they don't want.

We need to make men pay for their careless seed-spreading. No more dodging child maintenance, or letting them pay less than the actual financial burden of raising the child. It's not fair that women have to shoulder this.

This is an important point. It happens far too frequently whilst the mothers of those children are criticised no matter how they try to make ends meet.

Are you sure you're not just on this thread to try and draw yet another parallel between feminists and the right wing? You've made some good posts and I'd hate to think the reasons behind them were disingenuous.

No I've spent the last two decades involved in fighting against cuts to social housing and lone parent's benefits.

All mumsnet users are allowed to post on the threads on this board, they don't have to be bona fide radical feminist women. You're here, after all. Also, the thread title will attract many more people than the usual thread titles would, hence the wider range of commentators.

Paraphrasing here, but I agree with a PP that said that it is society that will suffer in the end. In the next few years these children are going to start coming of age who have (in increasing numbers) been raised in poverty, in overcrowded housing, in violent households that their parents couldn't afford to leave. That's without the cuts to mental health services. I feel really worried about the future.

Are you sure you're not just on this thread to try and draw yet another parallel between feminists and the right wing? You've made some good posts and I'd hate to think the reasons behind them were disingenuous.

Yes. This is happening in the U.K. as well. SO many women pushed into sterilisation by partners and sadly very often doctors

Void-would