Impact of 2-child benefit cap on abortion decisions

In my village almost all the families with children have 3 or more. Where I used to live 3 or more was the norm.

Look at how many famous people have 3 or more.

I strongly doubt this is a representative sample. Many of my colleagues only have one child. Although, those with adult children tend to have two.

I agree. As a woman the choice has always been up to me. 100 percent.

What's the alternative? "Oh dear, you don't have a condom? I guess I'll just risk having an unplanned offspring then; let's go to it." Really???

PinkPlantCase yes, you keep saying "it shouldn't be this way". It won't change if we keep perpetuating this notion that women get themselves pregnant, and decide to have lots of children, by themselves, that they cannot support by themselves, and so the only way to fix this is to punish the women and children by making them live in poverty.

Tend to agree with this.

Two thirds of the u.k. population are obese, including children, so it bemuses me to hear the claim that everyone is starving. It may be, in some cases, that people are chaotic in managing finance, but giving them shovel-fulls of cash, extra cash, round -the-year free school meals and free food may or may not be the best use of time, effort, attention, or solving the true problems.

More probably, the greater majority of the people choosing between Heat or Eat will be old people, hidden behind doors, managing meagre finance as best as humanly possible, not gambling, drinking or taking drugs, nor squandering in any way.

199 (15) Puerto Rico (US) 1.0
200 South Korea 1.0
197 Singapore 1.1
198 (14) Hong Kong (China) 1.1
195 Malta 1.2
196 (13) Macau (China) 1.2

If you look at the countries with the lowest birth rates, they do not have disincentives for people to have fewer children. In fact, its often the opposite!

There are 4 East Asian countries on the list. In these countries, poorer people do not tend to have more than 2 children.

The reason for the low birth rate In Korea/HK/Singapore is:

1. High cost of living/property
2. Female emancipation in the workplace + Extremely conservative social views on the role of women- this means that many women do not wish to marry when they have fulfilling careers and can support themselves as marriage inevitably means becoming the subservient dogsbody of your husband's family
3. When women do marry, they want to marry a guy with an established career/house/car and who earns more.
4. Very long working hours which discourage people having more children.

None of these countries had an enforced 1 child policy. It is lifestyle/cultural factors that determine the number of children, not financial incentives/disincentives, unless we are talking about authoritarian governments.

And I am from one of the countries on the list, which is probably one of the reasons why I want an only child as i grew up in a country with small families.

Look at how many famous people have 3 or more.

^the mum

Mums have children they can't support.

Immaculate conception, innit.^

@PearPickingPorky most of this thread has focused on the impact of the benefits cap on single mothers and abortions. Particularly the impact on housing benefit and single mothers.

In many of these scenarios it is the mum making the choices, they might be making them in the context of an unfair system but ultimately the decision to have an abortion comes down to the mums choice.

Though it shouldn’t be this way, women also currently carry much more responsibility for finding and using reliable contraception. Probably even more so in a context where they aren’t supported by a loving, caring partner.

So yes it is the mum who has the child they can’t support and the mum who cares for them. This isn’t fair and it shouldn’t be that way but that is the context of this discussion.

Yes there will be people in abusive relationships who have absolutely no choice about any of this and benefit caps must hit those mums and their children the hardest. I use mums again here because we could include their abusers but I don’t think they’re the ones getting the raw end of the deal.

Just because the wider users of MN have spotted a benefits thread and jumped right in to complain about careless, lazy women conceiving children by themselves that they can't guarantee they can financially support for life by themselves doesn't mean that this is what "FWR say".

There is pretty much zero feminist analysis is any of these posts. This thread is just full of Jo Public, not people who have any understanding of feminism. Most people posting won't even have noticed it's in FWR because they've just seen a 'benefits' thread in Active and dived right in.

[quote PinkPlantCase]@Ohalrightthen I completely agree with you, though the other side is that it isn’t fair for the state to allow the child to suffer if the mum has another child that she knows she can’t support. This is not the child’s fault.[/quote]
"the mum"

Mums have children they can't support.

Immaculate conception, innit.

Most importantly a comparison of the birth rate in countries with diametrically opposing child benefit policies shows that the UK policy IS punitive and does not work as a disincentive.

Child poverty and the birthrate are both significantly higher in the UK than Germany, even though Germany has universal child benefit for unlimited number of children, and the benefit is significantly more generous than in the UK.

All the UK caps do is put children into poverty. They don't stop people having babies.

There are a lot of deliberately obtuse posts on this thread.

Do posters seriously believe that the entire population has the capacity to risk assess for the next 18 years before making a decision? Are people posting so lacking in emotional intelligence and so willfully ignorant and blinkered that they choose to believe that everyone is intellectually and psychologically identical and capable of the same fairly complex in depth thought processes? That women who have grown up in chotic homes with parents living from week to werk, paycheck to pay check, are universally capable of planning for theoretical financial or health disasters which might happen in ten year's time?

Many posters on this thread are deliberately pretending to believe that everyone is of above average intelligence, whilse themselves displaying a massive disconnect which looks a lot like willful ignorance.

Yikes at this thread, still.

This is FWR, right?

And the consensus is that children should pay for the decisions of their parents.

Ok that's good that's fine.

I'm very surprised to see this on FWR.

When this policy was suggested it was about 50/50 on mn and no way on FWR.

Now FWR says yay.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this.

I see all the posts about they should have planned better what about insurance blah etc. Ok fine let's say that people have been reckless in not being expensively insured to the hilt and also not anticipating Corona etc etc.

Why do the children need to be punished for the actions of the parents though?

That's the bit I don't get.

These children are in existence. There's no going back from that. What does this cap actually do then?

It's a bit odd to me.

The rape exemption is just grim as well.

So many people red hot keen. What has changed? In just a few years.

Factoring in potential "disaster " IS part of the planning precess.

If you agree with the benefit cap, what about education, another taxpayer funded benefit? Should all parents have to pay for this for their third and subsequent children? Perhaps parents could take a student loan for that if they can’t pay the £4500 a year or so it costs.

*DidoLamentingsame
As in london you will see a council block next to a private block all the time

In Edinburgh? Where?

@PotholeParadies good for you but funny enough reading the packet told me how they worked too, it clearly stated if I missed one or was ill etc , to use another form
Yes mistakes happen but if having another child would really impact you then you have to be extra careful , or plan how you would manage as many do

I always find that those who are most judgemental of contraceptive mistakes are those who know least about how they work.

I can recite ranges of typical use versus perfect use, along with common reasons for failure for multiple methods, down to individual brands of oral contraceptive. The more I learned, for the sake of keeping myself safe, the more easily I understood how it happens. It's almost like humans are humans, not robots.

@jj1968 can you post link to say how much it cost to implement cap and how much if has saved ?

@jj1968 you really just suggested to someone they could of had a third child and gave up work and gone on benefits ? That in itself is morally wrong , benefits should not be a choice.
Benefits should cover food , rent , heat etc but no not foreign holidays etc as many people working cannot afford these either
Luxuries are just that
We live in a society where everyone thinks they should have the latest phone , newest car etc its not how people were years ago
People who work have to make sacrifices as well
At moment I am robbing peter to pay paul as I have lost my job and we are just over the amount to claim, we have cAr loan that we took out with 2 jobs , so I have had to try and pay that as dh has no job without a car , so we have to cut back and be careful , but I know we are lucky because at least one of has a job for now ,not sure how long dh will have so trying to also plan incase

@DidoLamenting same
As in london you will see a council block next to a private block all the time
The only thing i agree with is the rent part of the cap should be reviewed and based on rent in area and paid direct to landlord or a better solution build more social / cheaper rent places , that saying if you have 6 kids , I don't think a 7 bedroom place should be rented.
But you can't have unlimited benefits with no cap at all , where is the incentive to work or change things otherwise

Secondly it cleansed the poorest from central London and other cities like Edinburgh ensuring the new residents of the mutli million pound new built flats didn't have poor people living next door

Have you ever been in Edinburgh? Because what you've said sounds nothing like the housing demographics of that city.