To think the abortion rate will increase after April this year?

[RocketQueenP]

When the new rules on tax credits / universal credit come in ie when no one can claim benefit be it top up or otherwise for any more than 2 children

Sadly I am helping a good friend cope who has just had an early abortion, she did not plan the pregnancy and one of the main reasons is she and her DH are low earners/ They already have 2 at school, and won't be able to afford to have this baby. She is devastated and has admitted they could have squeezed another DC in if it wasn't for the new rules. I think this will happen a lot. :(

In times gone by people would adopt out children that were unplanned that they couldn't afford and I really feel that this is what we are headed back to. Not adoption but, you get my drift

I also think the government fully know this and its one of the reasons they have brought it in. Simple population control

Completely private for healthcare i should have said

On the Rose and £3k of that "welfare" will be pensions not tax credits. So don't worry you will get your money back soon enough.

The trouble with this move is I agree in principle with the idea of not providing state help to have more than 2 children. However I don't agree at all with the structure of society atm with so few people earning shedloads and so many barely scraping by. So I might think I agree with the move but I would never want someone like Whip to get their benefits reduced.

I totally agree with you (apart from voting for CORBYN!) but I look at this as an imbalance in power between employers and employees, i.e. what factors are causing labour to be undervalued, rather than an inadequate welfare state.

I'm sure I read on another thread that you don't get any benefits for your large family andnowitsseven due to being a high earner. It's so refreshing to see a higher warner who doesn't get any welfare benefits still supporting adequate support for lower income families .

At the end of the day, some poorer families will still have more than 2 children and this policy will make the children suffer. We can blame he parents and call them feckless all we like but it is the children that will be going without.

I think the last thing we need is another layer of complication added to an already stupidly complex system.

Well said Splendide.

Weird how MN has this liberal, and guardian reading reputation but if you start a thread like this you'll end up with a bunch of replies more at home in the Daily Mail.

Erm, some people had more than two children when they could afford to have more than two. Then their circumstances changed. That's life. They can't undo their kids, and their kids shouldn't have to suffer because the banks left the economy in ruins a decade ago, and continue to drain the public purse of billions each year and well paying jobs are like Hen's teeth.

It seems to come as a huge shock to many that if they lose their job or their partner leaves, they will still have the children's costs to contend with
Of course it's often a huge shock when a partner leaves, or drops down dead on the door step. We can't cater to every eventuality, ergo a safety net is required so that the children can eat, be clothed etc. even when one parent has been feckless enough to die.

Oh, and if you're going to bang on about insurance, it doesn't always pay out. There are a million and one hidden caveats in most insurance deals.

"Erm, some people had more than two children when they could afford to have more than two. Then their circumstances changed."

I could have chosen to have more than 2 children but decided against it, one of the may reasons being you never know what is round the corner so stick to two which is very manageable. As I said up thread, the vast majority of my friends and family have stuck to one or two children.
What is wrong with everyone making that decision?

Insurance generally pays out of someone does. And there are no "hidden" clauses just pages and pages of small print that has to be waded through. There is a lot of guidance out there about common pitfalls, things to look out for etc You just have to spend some time and get some expert advice if needed.

Ffs

When someone dies

Also - I was a child of an abusive household. There was always money for alcohol even when 'D'M was going begging round the butchers for scraps and offcuts. In fact when there was more money it went on my parents. Looking back there were definite periods of being really quite far from the breadline - but their relative well-off-ness made no difference to the unremitting gloominess of my existence. So the children suffer when parents are selfish however much money you throw (or don't) at the parents.

Six , I grew up in the care system and can easily see how my life could have taken another path through no fault of my own.
I was fortunate enough to attend university and to marry someone with a good earning potential.
I have friends from my childhood that are really struggling in life.
People situations are very often simply due to circumstances they have very little control over.

You restore my faith in humans andnowitsseven. There are people who come from backgrounds like your own who have done well In life and can't understand why everyone can't be like them. Life would be great if we could all be high earners, be educated to a high standard, had good natural academic ability, never have disabled children, never face redundancy, never meet feckless partners who leave and don't provide and never be unfortunate enough to have a partner die. But unfortunately life isn't like that and as you say people's situations are often due to circumstances that they have no control over.

Who decided that two was a reasonable number?

Maybe it should be three

And yes i know that the government has decided it but where did it come from

Two seems sensible to me. Not none. Not an only (which is fine as well but many people would simply not be happy with. China went this direction though and people coped, or didn't) but a sibling set. I don't see a compelling argument for three compared to the ones for one or two. If anything, three is a sudden jump into overpopulation.

I have three. Oops.

jax

Dont think we should change to three as such i just thought it was interesting that the uk seems to think 2 is perfect (and has done for years)

Is that because most of us have two hands? Potentially a child for each parent? The traditional one of each?

I go for third time lucky myself

I had decided on three, I got a bogof deal! It happens, and whilst the government has said they'll cover twins, it won't stop any of you harpies judging.

Who decided that two was a reasonable number?

Maybe it should be three

Maybe it should be five?

As you're probably aware, two hovers just under the replacement rate so under this arrangement the population would slightly contract. Are you one of these people who thinks 11 billion people on the planet isn't quite enough?

You restore my faith in humans andnowitsseven. There are people who come from backgrounds like your own who have done well In life and can't understand why everyone can't be like them. Life would be great if we could all be high earners, be educated to a high standard, had good natural academic ability, never have disabled children, never face redundancy, never meet feckless partners who leave and don't provide and never be unfortunate enough to have a partner die. But unfortunately life isn't like that and as you say people's situations are often due to circumstances that they have no control over.

I agree with every single world. In my case, it translates into a world view that large families are inherently risky. When we were younger and having babies and had less money I couldn't have lived with the risk, it would have stressed me out way too much.

The 2012 birth rate according to google was 1.9. I think it's gone down slightly since then. So 2 is the birth rate rounded up.

I don't think the number is a moral judgement in itself it's just an attempt to stay in line with your average woman. Obviously the policy in general has an element of moral judgement to it (as it would if the limit was 5, or 1).

1.83 in 2014, so yep it's trending down.

On both sides of my family the family size was about 12 - 14 around 1900 which is a baby every year or two from age about 16 to 40 (presumably with no contraception other than deaths in wars - my great grandmother's first and then her second husband died).. It is never easy to know what is the right number but there seems to be a general consensus that for state support about 2 seems fair enough. Obviously we do have a welfare state for anyone in dire need too.

I think most of us on the thread support the welfare state. We are just arguing over what level of support there should be. No child will starve in the UK. Even with parents who cannot look after their children at all we pay for them to be cared for

I don't think the number is a moral judgement in itself it's just an attempt to stay in line with your average woman.

Good point.

Its just a question museum

i dont actually give a shit, just wonder where 2 came from

Years ago pre contraception we had large families, some countries still do (and not only ones where you need lots to cover the children who will die)