To think they should never have been allowed more children ?

[JellieEllie]

This couple have lost 3 children to death in a period of 16 months.
The father has now separated from the children's mother and has gone on to have a further child with his new partner.

Why oh why are these types of irresponsible parents allowed to keep on breeding?
Should laws be put in place where parents who are the direct cause of a child's death be forcibly sterilised to prevent further incidents in the future ?

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/parents-whose-baby-died-boozed-13209349

What about the case of men who have repeatedly abused their own children? Raped babies? Such men exist.

Prison usually helps prevent someone having more children.

No one is suggesting this. However, I do think that in some cases it should be the responsibility of parents not to reproduce. For example, I know someone with a disability that is passed from mother to daughter and each generation it seems to get worse. This person spends 75% of their time in extreme pain. In her shoes, I'd be seriously wondering about the ethics of bringing a girl-child into the world.

Oh, so voluntary eugenics then. Just a bit of social pressure. Nice.

Has anyone suggested cutting benefits for these people yet? I mean it could be just the nudge that we of tainted stock need to do everyone a favour and not sully the world with our young.

Done very politely of course.

Oh, so voluntary eugenics then. Just a bit of social pressure. Nice

But what about the best interests of the child? Is it the right thing to do to bring a child into the world who will live a life of pain and suffering? Why should such conversations not be had with parents?

Prison usually helps prevent someone having more children

Then (is there) an argument here for life sentences that mean life then?

Challenor (tortured and raped a 10 year old girl amongst other crimes against children) only got 19 years.

What about men whose crimes have been less horrific but who have still harmed children and even their own children?

But there is nothing that can be done to address the child’s rights/best interests.
The child has no rights until birth. By then it’s too late. If you sterilised there are no rights to protect anyway. So sterilisation doesn’t address a child’s right to anything. It simply prevents a child in the first place

Sometimes in life we just have to accept that we don’t live in utopia and you can’t prevent every negative outcome. It’s just life. What we can do is put in place as many safety nets/ support services as possible to deal with the situation when it arises

Best interests and rights are not the same thing. We can still consider a (potential) child's best interests without assuming it has 'rights' as such.

Sometimes in life we just have to accept that we don’t live in utopia and you can’t prevent every negative outcome. It’s just life. What we can do is put in place as many safety nets/ support services as possible to deal with the situation when it arises

Those poor babies then! FASD is just part of life. Suck it up kiddies.

But there is no alternative is there? There will always be children with FAS. There is always a first baby born to an unknown alcoholic. And FAS takes so long to show in some babies that there is a good chance that same mother would’ve had more children before anyone even realised.

So even if we used your sterilisation idea it would only prevent FAS in known alcoholic women who already had given birth to children suffering FAS. It’s no answer. You’re not solving FAS.

Those poor babies then! FASD is just part of life. Suck it up kiddies.

Nobody is saying do nothing. Helping women to make the right choice regarding alcohol in pregnancy is really important. Is it worse for a child not to be born at all than born with FASD? Are their lives so bad that it justifies dragging off a woman against her will, strapping her down and operating on her?

Is it worse for a child not to be born at all than born with FASD? This and your other questions are ones that I think are and should be debatable. I don't think we should assume an answer either way.

Perhaps we should imprison pregnant alcoholic women so that we can restrict their alcohol intake until the baby is born*

Not suggesting this, but I'm hoping we can agree that babies should not be born with FASD? There seems to be surprisingly little concern for children and babies here and rather more concern for the rights of adults - even if they are abusing said babies and children.

government stopped subsidising parenthood through child benefit, state schools, NHS births etc. these kinds of people wouldnt be able to have children in the first place and those who managed to save enough money to have them would value them more.

I find this comment genuinely ASTOUNDING

Remove the NHS for natal care and women will DIE. Children will DIE because people who are prone to fecklessness will still procreate regardless and there are PLENTY of people who are not feckless but can not afford the estimated 80k cost of giving birth, they can also give birth in agony and potentially die

Remove the state education system and a large percentage of the population would be unfit for basic employment within 20 years. Crime would rise.

What you are advocating is a return to Dickensian slums and workhouses and crippling poverty and children being put to work.

Consider me flabbergasted

I think that comment can be put down to stupidity tbh pawnee. I seriously doubt the poster thought about any of the things you’ve detailed

FAS is most likely if a woman is drinking in the first trimester. Someone who is heavy drinking and not ttc wouldn't necessarily know they are pregnant. Sadly children can still be born with FAS even if a woman has successfully stopped drinking after finding out she's pregnant. Its also not simple for heavy drinkers to stop, given that alcohol withdrawal can actually kill you.

I know a couple who lost 2 babies due to complications relating to prematurity. One shortly after birth and one at around a year. The only difference is that they're niace and didn't go off the rails after the first loss. With this couple, although all three kids died of natural causes, there was an element of blame for the last. What about the other two? One died at 3 days old so almost certainly in hospital after birth. Do we just sterilise all bereaved parents or do they also have to be a bit scummy?

Sometimes in life we just have to accept that we don’t live in utopia and you can’t prevent every negative outcome. It’s just life. What we can do is put in place as many safety nets/ support services as possible to deal with the situation when it arises

Alternatively sometimes you need to look at the situation as a whole and determine what is the best, or least worst, option. I maintain that in a limited and highly regulated set of circumstances, sterilisation is the least worst option.

In my opinion it would be far more humane to restrict someone’s ability to reproduce (someone who would never be allowed to have any contact with their children after birth anyway) than to allow many children to be born, wrenched away from the poor mother at birth, who potentially have profound disabilities with a fair chance of never finding adoptive parents.

Do we just sterilise all bereaved parents or do they also have to be a bit scummy?

??

I’d only advocate sterilisation in the most extreme circumstances where the mother had shown she was entirely incapable or unwilling, over an extended period, to look after her children without abusing them.... and she repeatedly got pregnant with babies that were taken away from birth.

yet no precautions were put in place to prevent them having further children

You can't forcibly prevent pregnancy and birth (well you can, but it is a hideous thing to do). But you can remove children from inadequate parents. The former would be a gross abuse of human rights. The latter is necessary.

Sometimes in life we just have to accept that we don’t live in utopia and you can’t prevent every negative outcome. It’s just life

We can’t prevent every negative outcome.... but where we can, we should.... sterilisation in extreme circumstances would prevent many such outcomes!

@BarnabyBungle but that's not what the op was discussing. The OP has posted a link to a story where three children have died due to natural causes and there's only an indication that one of those deaths were linked to the parents actions. They lead a chaotic lifestyle but there's nothing to indicate they meet the threshold for having kids removed. The op is asking why they were allowed to have more kids when two had died.

For my twopence worth obviously we can't forcibly sterilise anyone, it's a practice that's not in force anywhere in the world and is viewed as abhorrent and inextricably linked to the Nazis

I agree @zzzzz

It sends a shudder down the spine how many see nothing wrong with it

So, we sterilise women who have had one baby born with FAS or a baby removed

What about the men? Or are just punishing women?

So we decide we're going to sterilise anyone with LD

Do we then go on to sterilise anyone over 40 who has a higher risk of a child with LD

Then do we sterilise anyone with a disability or MH issue regardless of how well it's managed

Then do we sterilise anyone carrying a gene which means their child might be disabled, including people with cancer genes

Then do we sterilise anyone who is on benefits?

Then do we sterilise people without the "right values" whatever Big Brother determines those to be, be it believing in Allah or being an atheist

Who is left ?

It's Fascism 101 and I find it mind blowing that some people can't follow their supposition through to its destination

First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up, because I was not a Jew