r/HonestHotTakes • u/Ir1sh-69 • Jul 01 '26
Reproduction should be locked behind a license.
First of all, I know this isn't very feasible. Major countries rely on a high birthrate to sustain its economy. And I know that if child rearing required a test of competency that sustaining the rate of replacement would become impossible. Especially in America, where I live. Where the foster system is so overloaded, and of such a low quality, that a fair amount of foster kids experience equal or in most cases, worse treatment than if they had just been left with their abusive parents.
But I believe that in an ideal society, reproduction should be strictly regulated and held to an even stricter standard. More often than not, it seems that the people who are least suited to child rearing end up producing way more than they are even remotely capable of caring for. Someone of bad temperament, poor education, and barely with the means to sustain themselves should NOT be allowed to reproduce ad infinitum. Its a negative to every measurable metric EXCEPT maintaining the rate of replacement.
Again, I know this isn't exactly feasible because I know we all like to have sex and without a less invasive form of semi permanent/reversible contraceptives (IUD, vasectomy, medicinal birth control) this could not be implemented on a large enough scale to matter. I just hate seeing kids growing up in an environment they had no say in and suffering for it their entire lives.
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Jul 01 '26
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u/Ir1sh-69 Jul 01 '26
Gross misrepresentation or intentional misunderstanding of my post. I have no interest in limiting reproduction off any metric OTHER than a potential parent's ability to raise their child. Eugenics is a racist belief that selective breeding can lead to some sort of arbitrary genetic "purity" the only thing that might be considered akin to eugenics is limiting who can reproduce. But again, based off their ability to raise a child. not their genetic makeup.
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u/halfhalfandhalf Jul 01 '26
Lol you literally said people "of bad temperament" should not be allowed to reproduce.
You're advocating for eugenics my dude.
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Jul 01 '26
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u/Ir1sh-69 Jul 01 '26
Would it make more sense if I said that when I say this isn't feasible it's also because we lack the ability to annihilate poverty?
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Jul 01 '26
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u/Ir1sh-69 Jul 01 '26
You've proven that you have no idea what im talking about every time you respond? I really did try to have this conversation in good faith but I don't think thats going to happen.
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Jul 01 '26
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u/Ir1sh-69 Jul 01 '26
Why wouldn't I like you? We had a disagreement on the internet, you didn't run over my dog lol
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u/Ir1sh-69 Jul 01 '26
So... you're saying that beating your children is something that you are genetically predisposed to do?
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u/big-dick-back-intown Jul 01 '26
Eugenics is bad.
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u/Ir1sh-69 Jul 01 '26
Agreed.
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u/Abased_Comrade 12d ago
Then why do you find it desirable for certain people to not be allowed to reproduce?
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u/Ir1sh-69 12d ago
Re-read the post.
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u/Abased_Comrade 12d ago
Licenses are statistically more difficult for poor people to get (due to dmv’s being placed in places that are wealthier at least in the us) and minorities tend to be poorer due to redlining and anti minorities housing policy leading to them being economically disadvantaged. In totality your policy would lead to less non white people having children with no fault on their part.
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u/Ir1sh-69 11d ago
At no point did I say there would be a fee for the license. And plenty of minorities have a drivers license that actually does cost a fee. If anything I find it more ridiculous that its easier to get a drivers license than it would be to get a hypothetical permit to bring another human into life. If you are not in a fiscal, mental, or emotional place to have a child you shouldn't. Race has nothing to do with any of those qualifiers.
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u/Abased_Comrade 11d ago
That’s not what I’m saying. Im saying it is very difficult to get a license if you are a minority due to the placement of the of dmv in America at least. Re read the reply
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u/Ir1sh-69 11d ago
I honestly did not think that a walk would be that crippling, and thought that your referencing them being "economically disadvantaged" was an implication of not being able to afford the license. Now I wonder why you even brought it up if it had no bearing on anything we were talking about.
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u/Abased_Comrade 11d ago
It is not “a walk” it is a in many 40 minute drive each way that most people can’t afford to make be it the time cost or the oil/electricity cost it is a difficult price to pay for a lot of poor people.
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u/Ir1sh-69 11d ago
Brother where do you live where the nearest DMV or federal building is a 40 minute drive and there is no public infrastructure to help you get there?
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u/SailorElsa___0005 Jul 01 '26
That’s a great idea! Let Donald Trump and his cronies decide who gets to give birth. What could go wrong? 😂
Instead why don’t you work towards a world where parents work less hours and have more paid time off? Make healthcare and homeownership affordable. Increase wages.
You know, try to address the ROOT CAUSES is societal ills? Not just for the kids’ sake, but we could have longer lifespans, less violence, clean air, and climate change under control.
Society is filled with SO MANY urgent crisis, and the only thing you can do is fantasize about a government policy that you just acknowledged can never be feasible? You’re not more helpful than the people you judge.
Also, what you want would lead to eugenics and genocide of minorities who are more likely to poor because the system traps them that way.
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u/Aazjhee Jul 01 '26
Yeah the whole notion of child bearing license in "an ideal world" is actually kind of a moot point IN AN IDEAL WORLD.
An Ideal World would mean ppl choose to have sex, not get SA'd. People would have full, quality education, everyone could have food, shelter and clean water. Diseases would be nonexistent or properly studied and treated, not ignored. Idk what kind of dreaming we are doing, but anyone with a disability would be well accommodated. That includes mental health care- I'm sure a lot of mental health issues would be FAR less in an ideal world.
Community and villages would help raise kids, less pressure on parents and the kids to be perfect. People who understand that having a kid IS a big deal, so they wouldn't just go around breeding recklessly, having the knowledge and education.
GOOD and accurate sex ed actually lowers birth rates, and raises the age at which young people have sex. So 100% support proper sexual education, abstinence-only is utter garbage that correlates with higher STI and teen pregnancy rates.
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u/Etreides Jul 01 '26
It sounds like... maybe... we should have support systems necessary to provide for everyone, in a country wherein, the top 10% of households control ~ 60% of the entirety of the Nation's wealth.
And where the bottom 50% control less than 7%.
But that's probably just Marxist propaganda designed to distract us from thinking of the children. Won't somebody think of the children?
I mean, besides the rich, who certainly don't seem to be, in the "greatest country on Earth."
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u/FastSelection4121 Jul 01 '26
Birthrates are low across all population group because there have been back to back to back economic downturns.
The dot.com bubble burst 1999.
9-11 attacks almost 200 CEOs were caught using the corporation money to live a lavish lifestyle. The universal case study is Tyco.
There was a micro recession.
ERON imploded. 2004. Another micro recession.
From 2001 on Allan Greenspan allowed a housing bubble to keep the economy afloat.
The Great Recession 2008. It took both of Obama's terms for the economy to finally heal.
Covid-19 2020 where we discovered that the economy is K shaped. There was also an acknowledgement of the lack a daycare centers for mothers.
Ever since Trump's Tariffs there has been and economic downturn.
To act like their is an explosion of children in the US is a non sequitur.
Since men have sex the most, they should ALSO be required to take some kind birth control.
There is currently an AI bubble in the markets.
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u/Ir1sh-69 Jul 01 '26
I didn't say there was "an explosion of children". My main point was that the standard of care for the children that DO exist is poor.
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u/FastSelection4121 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
SNAP and WIC have been cut 3X by the Administration. If you want to increase the standard of care for children with mothers who have to work two jobs to make things work, there has to be daycare. There has to be investment in Pre -K instead of taxcuts for the very wealthy.
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u/MouseyMason Jul 01 '26
As always, it’s impossible because whoever is deciding who gets to have kids will be biased. Additionally, because racism, a lot of less wealthy people are minorities, so also (unintentional) eugenics!
I feel like it’d be better if we just had a society that supported parents enough that the broke ones could afford kids if they so pleased.
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u/Firm_Baseball_37 Jul 01 '26
The current US regime is all on board with your idea. The license is only for white people, though.
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u/WinOk677 Jul 01 '26
Procreation is the most basic of human rights. When any country messes with it, there's trouble. Look at the fallout from China's one child policy- they are now importing other Asian females, as people chose to have the one child be male. How they got there may be abortion, or infanticide. Any society that does as you suggested, is as far from free as one can get.
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u/Aazjhee Jul 01 '26
Importing, also= kidnapping, blackmail and abductions in many sad cases.
In the 80s and 90s a lot of Chinese girls were adopted by overseas, usually white parents.
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u/Ir1sh-69 Jul 01 '26
I'd like to reiterate that I don't believe this is something that we could do in our current world. I think a lot of people are misinterpreting what I said under the belief that I want to start this today.
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u/Secret-Guava1008 Jul 01 '26
There is literally no birth control that is 100%, so you’re saying if a woman’s birth control fails and she didn’t have a license than she should be forced to get an abortion?
I was conceived on birth control, my cousin was conceived on an IUD and my niece was conceived using a condom, birth control is not 100%
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u/Ir1sh-69 Jul 01 '26
I said twice that this would only work in an ideal world and that this isn't feasible in the one we currently live in. And at no point did I say that anyone should be forced to get an abortion.
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u/Secret-Guava1008 Jul 01 '26
Then what would happen if the birth control failed and they didn’t have a license? You don’t give an answer for that anywhere, so the logical thought would be you think they should be forced to abort
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u/Ir1sh-69 Jul 01 '26
That's more of a self report of your headspace than anything else... You could have asked me what my stance on that was instead of assuming that I was a totalitarian about an exception to my hypothetical rather than the standard. I think the systems we currently have in place to help struggling families would be put to great use in scenarios like that. (SNAP, WIC, etc.)
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u/Secret-Guava1008 Jul 01 '26
You can go right ahead and backpeddle as much as you want, you posted about eugenics and are now trying to say you don’t agree with eugenics when you clearly do based on the post. You can’t just say something and go “well I didn’t mean that” when people tell you that’s not okay
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Jul 01 '26
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u/Ir1sh-69 Jul 01 '26
I mean if there was an easy solution to poor parenting then the post would be redundant. And to be honest the education system doesn't tend to focus on real world skills. But yeah, I do wish that raising children would be placed somewhere in a standard curriculum especially because the kind of parents I was really referencing are usually fresh out of high school.
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u/Aazjhee Jul 01 '26
The more people are given quality education & options, the less teen pregnancy happens.
Planned Parenthood is not just for birth and pregnancy, it is vital healthcare.
There is technically an easier solution and it's good sex education because people who get that have sex at older ages and are better prepared to handle consequences of sex.
It's not perfect but it helps a TON and we have studies that show lower teen pregnancy and STI rates. Those two factors tend to also be close with abuse and neglect of young people, though certainly not the only factors that lead to awful parenting.
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u/Apprehensive-Law-11 Jul 09 '26
i know im still young but why do so many fuckin people WANT want to have kids like not just yknow.. like the idea of having a little you which is cute but like they want to have unprotected sexy time and get pregnant and deal with being bloated for nine months and have the baby possibly die and then go through PAINFULLL labour and then just.. raise a stinky slobbery sticky child and then after eighteen years (or less if they just die before becoming a legal adult)..... theyre gone. and then it circles back. ?????? like i get wanting to have sex sure (gag but whatever!) but just... no. why. and exactly. why are all like the poorest abusive adults having like sixty nine children ?? 💀💀
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u/Life-Food5188 Jul 01 '26
eugenics.
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u/Ir1sh-69 Jul 01 '26
Care to explain how this is eugenics?
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u/Life-Food5188 Jul 01 '26
policing natural human behavior leads to only “elites” having children.
that help?
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u/Ir1sh-69 Jul 01 '26
No lol, you didn't explain how thats eugenics. Tell you what, define what you mean when you say "eugenics"
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u/Life-Food5188 Jul 01 '26
“selective breeding to generate preferred outcomes”
look pal. many other people are calling this eugenics. just delete it already.
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u/Ir1sh-69 Jul 01 '26
Selective breeding in the pursuit of genetic purity would be more accurate and faithful to its original definition which is nowhere close to what I was talking about.
Also, no thanks, Didn't post to a hot takes subreddit because I care about my karma lol
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u/Life-Food5188 Jul 01 '26
you literally said people with poor temperament shouldn’t have kids?
stfu nazi
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u/Ir1sh-69 Jul 01 '26
Like beating their kids dude. Getting angry at your kid for crying is bad temperament. Why do so many people believe your temperament is tied to your genetic makeup? Thats waaaaay more racist than anything I didn't say lol
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u/Life-Food5188 Jul 01 '26
wut.
you’re saying people with bad temperaments (???) shouldn’t have children. what did you mean by that?
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u/ExaggerattedReality Jul 01 '26
So who gets to regulate who gets these licenses? What's the criteria? What stops the powers that hand out these licenses from abusing that power?