[ben_w]

> The suggestion falls apart under any scrutiny, you can't force anyone to take care of their kids, if they want to, they will, and if they don't, they won't.

I can easily imagine a punishment of forced sterilisation for non-compliance. It wouldn't be the first time human society had that as a punishment.

[satvikpendem]

I mean, if we're talking about totalitarian rather than democratic regimes, then sure, you can sterilize people who don't comply.

[ben_w]

> democratic regimes

UK, 2015, due to the mother not being capable of looking after her kids: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-31128969

Also, one of the main things that made it stop wasn't specifically democracy, but that eugenics became unacceptable, otherwise you'd have to explain why you think the US wasn't democratic until 1942: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinner_v._Oklahoma

[satvikpendem]

Once you start getting into forced sterilization, that is when you will start losing many people on so called reforms, it is simply untenable, regardless of whether the government is truly democratic or not (and by democratic earlier I meant non-totalitarian, I should've been more accurate). That ruling by the UK is also not something I'd support, even if the courts ruled so.

[ben_w]

You recon that forced sterilization for being unable to look after all your kids would be unpopular? Even for a maximum limit that's significantly higher than the number that most people would be capable of?

You have a higher regard for pubic opinion than me, if you think public opinion would prevent it — in the UK it's fairly easy to run into support for this as a penalty for various things that were already crimes, along with various other things that the speaker thought ought to be.

This was even (jokingly) suggested as a thing to be done to former prime minister Boris Johnson, due to his frequent affairs and unknown number of children.

[satvikpendem]

I don't know about the UK but people would definitely be against it in the US, as it encroaches on what people perceive to be able to have as many kids as possible, regardless of whether they can support them or not. That's part of the big deal with the abortion debate as well.

[trhway]

>people would definitely be against it in the US

https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/unwanted-sterilizat...

"More recently, California prisons are said to have authorized sterilizations of nearly 150 female inmates between 2006 and 2010. The Center for Investigative Reporting reveals how the state paid doctors $147,460 to perform tubal ligations that former inmates say were done under coercion."

To the response below: if something happens in the open and systematically, and nobody punished for it that means people are supporting it. They may clutch their pearls and turn their noses away for show, yet they support it nevertheless.

[gnfargbl]

Ah come on: she wasn't sterilised for being unable to take care of her children, she was sterilised because both (a) pregnancy would endanger her health and (b) she lacked the capacity to rationally understand that (the article references her belief that she became pregnant because she ate a health food supplement). That's not the same thing at all.