Impact of 2-child benefit cap on abortion decisions

Actually, even though overpopulation is an issue worldwide, we are actually in this country having a birth rate below replacement level and have had for some time. we do need to take family planning seriously of course but, we also do not need a massive ageing population to have not enough young people following.

You also realise the top tax bracket people pay the most tax in this country

Of course they do, they've got all the money.

If you overtax people move with their money to countries that don't

Are rich people leaving France and Sweden in droves then?

@jj1968 people are often worse off because you take in account someone on total benefits also gets free prescriptions , eye tests , dental care , etc doesn't have to pay transport to go to work
No one should get £30000 or 40000 in state benefits to not work , even if they have 6 children.
Where is the incentive to work if you can get work
Like I said have you ever claimed benefits or actually know someone who has , who has say 4 kids and know how much they got before any caps ?

[quote timeforanewstart]@jj1968 I don't know many working people who drive a 4x4 though either
I know plenty of working people who actually can't afford to buy there child a playstation as well
Benefits were introduced as a stop gap not a way of life
And if you actually think some people didn't do well on old system then I would say you don't know many people
I know people who were worse off when they went to work all things considered.
I know people on benefits who have gone abroad as well on old style system.
Have you ever actually claimed benefits?
The ones who take more than they should then means there is less for the geniune disabled person who is really struggling or the single guy who is entitled to hardly anything
Some people were getting £30000 in benefits , 2 people working full time min wage don't bring home that much [/quote]
If they were getting that much in benefits than they either had loads of kids, which means per person they weren't actually getting that much, or they lived in a high rent area. A huge proportion of spending on benefits, including Universal Credit, Housing Benefits and Child Tax Credits goes towards people who are working. And if people in work are worse off than some people on benefits that is an argument for raising wages not cutting benefits.

The ones who take more than they should then means there is less for the geniune disabled person who is really struggling or the single guy who is entitled to hardly anything

No, the ones who dodge taxes, or don't want to pay enough to sustain the society that generated their wealth means there is less for the genuine disabled person or the single guy hardly getting anything.

I am absolutely against child poverty. That’s why I think it’s a good thing that parents are being asked to think about whether they can afford more than 2 kids.

Abuse and coercive control are separate issues that need dealing with and properly funding and resourcing.

@timeforanewstart nobody said it wasn't. That doesn't mean that some people don't have 3 or more children and need help. Just that its not the norm or as common a problem as some people seem to believe

@jj1968 why do you think benefits should pay for people to have a 4x4 or a long haul holiday .
Surely those are luxuries that rightly so going to work gets you
You also realise the top tax bracket people pay the most tax in this country
If you overtax people move with their money to countries that don't
Yes larger companies and some very rich should pay more tax or the likes of philip green be responsible for running companies properly when taking huge dividends but the average 40% tax payer won't be super rich

I think there's a bit of a "why don't you?" argument going on in this thread where it's easy to think of logical solutions to problems, but the logical solutions goes amiss when you're actually faced with this situation and the emotions accumulated in your own life.

I'm on a low income, I do what I can to avoid pregnancy but there's no way I would be able to make myself abort my child if I fell pregnant. I'm very much pro-choice, and I also very much believe in the rights to not make the choice to have an abortion. I would probably have a hellishly low income existence if I fell pregnant right now rather than have an abortion, which may cost the government more in other contexts.

There needs to be improved education and accessibility in relation to sexual health, and we need to work on building the economy back up. Saying "nobody should be having more than two kids" or anything along those lines is unrealistic.

@PodgeBod well then if thats the case you could argue that the cap is in line ( infact just over ) what the average amount of children people have is

@jj1968 I don't know many working people who drive a 4x4 though either
I know plenty of working people who actually can't afford to buy there child a playstation as well
Benefits were introduced as a stop gap not a way of life
And if you actually think some people didn't do well on old system then I would say you don't know many people
I know people who were worse off when they went to work all things considered.
I know people on benefits who have gone abroad as well on old style system.
Have you ever actually claimed benefits?
The ones who take more than they should then means there is less for the geniune disabled person who is really struggling or the single guy who is entitled to hardly anything
Some people were getting £30000 in benefits , 2 people working full time min wage don't bring home that much

It is though. I don’t disagree with your ideas but I do hold firm that no one rich or poor should be having more than 2 children in this environment. I don’t really understand your analogy you can’t choose to be disabled but usually you can choose whether to have a child or continue a pregnancy. There are rare exceptions but in this country for the majority that is the case.

@timeforanewstart that still means that its not the norm to have 3 or more children. We aren't even averaging 2 per women. We are below replacement level.

@Prestel contraceptives are pretty reliable yes they sometimes fail but if you use the pill and a condom you would be very unlucky.
Morning after pill is for when people know protection has failed etc
Of all my friends I do not know anyone who's contraception has failed, I know many who forgot to take a pill etc but most are like 98/99 % effective . So thats not that many people really its failing for .

The environmental problems we face are not caused by poor people having too many babies, they are caused by the rich and the affuent middle classes, who of course would far rather fruitlessly punish the poor than curb their own lifestyles. And if you genunely believe overpopulation is the problem then perhaps it's time to stop incentivising the rich to have kids with their elite schools and trust funds and second homes and taxes that clearly aren't high enough to disincentivise the rich from having kids. Let's tax all inheritence over the cost of an average house at 100% and put the money into developing renewables and creating a sustainable infrastructure.

@PodgeBod but that is because a lot of people choose to have no children or just one so they bring average down

@NiceGerbil 6% of the uk is developed is a poor argument
You can't build on a river or a lake or a flood plain
Or somewhere like exmoor or the new forest or should all the animals just be killed off in favour of more humans
We are a very heavily populated country that is a facf .

As I said before, it seems common now to have 3 children at least where 2 used to be the norm. Why?

Its not the fertility rate in the UK is 1.79. 3 kids or more is not the norm.

It's is frightening to think how the planet and, in particular, the UK are going to be in the future.

I am thankful every day that me and DH chose not to have children. The worry about their future would be unbearable

We are destroying everything. Animals have hardly any natural habitat left here which is why foxes etc are so common in built up areas.

No it's not fair that some children will suffer but we can't keep rewarding people for having children. I don't understand why we do. We should be rewarding people for choosing not to have children.

As I said before, it seems common now to have 3 children at least where 2 used to be the norm. Why?

No contraceptive is 100% effective. People talking about the morning after pill are overlooking the fact that a woman will only know a contraceptive failed when they realise they are pregnant - long after it's too late for that. We're talking regular families on modest incomes aborting accidental pregnancies because they will be denied child benefits, something previous generations have been paid in similar circumstances at various amounts going back to the seventies. Child benefits for all children bar the first child go back to the forties. In the Blair years income-related child tax credits were introduced to specifically tackle child poverty, a policy that proved to be very successful. Unfortunately the subsequent Tory governments have sought to effectively reverse this success by freezing the universal child benefit and reducing the value of child tax credits. Alongside the two child limit, a brutally blunt tool to save money (birth rates naturally fall as living standards rise, there's no need for this policy to reduce the birth rate, it was actually going down as benefits rose) and the benefit cap, the result has been to push an extra 1 million children into poverty since 2010.

I feel nothing but shame for a country that votes for and celebrates such widespread misery and deprivation. What happened to the country of Attlee, the welfare state and the NHS? What happened to "there but for the grace of God, go I"?t

You really think the answer is more building more development more roads etc? I wish it wasn’t true either but there are too many of us it’s not sustainable. I spent a lot of time in rivers this summer they are so polluted barely any wildlife 🙁. A policy to encourage large families is madness.

I really don't think some of these mothers are in a position to have life assurance or be likely to use contraception.

There's at least 3 downtrodden mums in my estate with psycho partners (fights, prison etc) who are on baby no.4, the younger kids born after the cap .I don't think they have much choice.