Impact of 2-child benefit cap on abortion decisions

Would you not want to have fewer children and given them more opportunities?

As campaigners for women's rights and improved access to family planning have found, time after time, women want exactly this, if they have control over their lives.

Low-income women of the UK aren't mindless, feckless milch cows, any more than women all over the rest of the world.

When women have the power to control their fertility, they do. Increase funding to women's health clinics, increase the opening hours, set them up so everyone has one within easily travelling distance, and hey presto! The birth rate drops.

Surely a responsible and loving mother doesn't WANT to bring loads of kids into a squalid, miserable home where nobody works and she knows she is not going to be able to feed them all properly.
Why would you?
Would you not want to have fewer children and given them more opportunities?

raskolnikova

Yes, Spain has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, there's real concern there about the impact of an aging population as, of course, you need working age people on decent wages to pay the taxes needed to look after all those pensioners.....and Spain has, as well as a low birth rate, high youth unemployment and low pay for younger workers. It's not sustainable. Yet the UK seems intent on deliberately pursuing the same unsustainable path and feeling smug about it to boot. I think there's just this general difficulty in grasping how much people living longer is contributing to current population growth but how that's a temporary situation and if you overeact and suppress the birth rate too much in response you risk toppling the economic model that supports us all.

Most of them don't need to do that catlady.

The gingerbread stats are interesting.

AFAIK Spain was and maybe still is a very religious Catholic country.

Not leaving home until marriage is a part of that.

Transferring that culture wholesale, the whole attitudes, faith etc is a big deal and. Unrealistic.

Why isn't it mens responsibility not to get women pregnant, even if they have two or more kids they don't pay for?

Because men like this don't give a shit. I am the daughter of a "sperm donor" smooth talker and have never seen him, never received a birthday or a christmas card from him and he doesn't care if I'm alive or dead. Its all too easy for them to disapear, mine did a flit to europe to escape cma and was never seen of or heard of again.

Depends on your definition of 'shitter'.

It's different.

That's an interesting reaction.

Spain and the UK are totally different cultures. It's a pointless comparison.

EG not being able to leave home till you get married. That's a massive change to society. There's also the religious aspect.

Isn't Spain facing an increasingly aging population and associated problems? Maybe they should be a bit more generous

There's still no child benefits in Spain, I think I read somewhere that it offers the least support to parents in the EU.

I'm sure if Rishi gave all low paid families a post Covid holiday in the Caribbean for free, Polly Toynbee would be complaining that their hotel and flights weren't good enough. Good idea to ignore her click baiting columns.

I used to live in Spain 20 years ago where there were no child benefits and very little welfare. There was little teen pregnancy as you would have to either live with your parents or have an abortion. The State wouldn't provide you with a flat. It obviously affects behaviour and there's a low birth rate in Spain as children will not be subsidised and work has always been precarious, even more so now.

A tory government is in my best interests, and yet I've voted labour my whole life for those less fortunate than myself, and i am far from alone. There was a workingclass wave of Tory voters, and now they have the audacity to bitch about benefit cuts?

"You shouldn't have children you can't afford" is what the Tories tell the voters who can no longer afford to have a family on stagnating wages living in overpriced homes that they've brought about with their policies that promote corporate profits and exorbitant rents over decent wages and affordable homes for ordinary families. These warped priorities don't just affect the poorest, even those on higher incomes are seeing most of their wages disappear into mortgages or into landlords pockets and struggle to cover spiralling childcare costs but none of this is inevitable, unless people keep voting for it.

@Prestel

But isn't that the grown up decision ... I can't afford another child and I have free and available contraception to try and help avoid falling pregnant. Having children isn't a right, it is a privilege/ blessing etc.

I agree with having a universal basic wage and living wage, reasonable rents etc to help those already on this planet.

But tax payers need to pay for the benefits, (yes, government could stop the big companies dodging their tax responsibilities) and even if you gave everyone £2k a month, some would have £1k left every month and others would be £1k in debt through their own spending habits, that is human personalities.

@PearPickingPorky men have the ability to take zero responsibility for a pregnancy if they feel like it. women do not. that is a fact of life. It's not particularly fair, but there's nothing we can do about it. You would not rely on even the most responsible, morally upstanding man on the planet to protect you from pregnancy all by himself, unless you were stupid.

@itispersonal

I'm genuinely sorry you didn't feel able to afford all the children you wanted. It's precisely because I don't want anyone to have to choose not to have children they want solely for financial reasons that I'm against this policy and support generous and universal child benefits for all families. It's why I campaign for affordable childcare and affordable housing. It's why I'm aghast at the cuts to child tax credits and child benefit that have crippled families while pensions were protected. Why shouldn't children be protected every bit as much older people? Global studies show that as living standards rise, the birth rate goes down so there is no need to attack the people who still wish for a bigger family in this way.

Then use inconvenient methods, plus a condom, like many of us did for decades

Like back in the 50's and 60's when women had an average 2.5 children compared to the 1.7 they have now?

'why we cap at two and only consider a third if she has been raped. It’s a fair and reasonable policy.''

Who is 'we'. It's not me.

I don't think it's fair and reasonable at all.

So we've got this magic wand to detect which women were raped then? Every single woman who was raped will get what she's legally entitled to, yes?

Could someone please take the magic wand to the courts, because I think it's needed.

Police recorded 55,130 rapes but there were only 2,102 prosecutions and 1,439 convictions in England and Wales in 2019-20. Three years earlier, 41,616 rapes were recorded, a third less than currently, and there were 5,190 prosecutions and 2,991 convictions.

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/30/convictions-fall-record-low-england-wales-prosecutions

PearPickingPorky

but I think people should have some responsibility for ensuring they don’t get pregnant if they can’t afford to raise a child by them self and we cannot consider every possible circumstance for why they haven’t been able to do this

"People" need to ensure they don't get pregnant. People who get pregnant. And those people who get pregnant need to be able to raise the child by themself.

Wonder what people these are who have to take all the responsibility.

So what you’re saying is only women should have to take responsibility for not creating a baby? That’s ridiculous.

And I wasn’t talking about rape when I said special circumstances. I’m referring to the posters who say benefits should be paid when contraception has failed or they have felt pressured to get pregnant by their partner etc. We cannot consider every possibility for why and how a woman has gotten pregnant which is why we cap at two and only consider a third if she has been raped. It’s a fair and reasonable policy.

Couple of thoughts.

Should women on third or subsequent pregnancy get looked after by the NHS?

Logic says no.

Did the philpotts do the right thing?

Survey says. Yes I would say.