It’s because we have had laws like that in the past… and (big surprise) they were used, unilaterally, to sterilize minorities, lawbreakers, and the disabled. (Raise your hand if you’re surprised.)
And I don’t mean, like, in Victorian England either. Sweden stopped their eugenics in 2013. The US would often sterilize women criminals in prisons, deeming them ‘unfit’.
So it’s really more of a case of ‘we can’t have nice things’ when people object to it.
Yeah, I can definitely see how this opens the door to abuse if leveraged for evil purposes. It’s the problem with all these “think of the children” laws.
I do believe however that there’s a middle point somewhere between “no system in place at all” and eugenics.
Taking kids away from their parents through CPS should be a last resort on a long path that starts with mandatory education on how to raise your kids using pedagogically approved methods.
Of course that also requires a system of support services and funding for various social programs, so this will probably go nowhere in today’s political landscape.
But who decides what are ‘pedagogically approved methods’? Keeping an approval body independent of government would be nigh-impossible, and even in well-intentioned groups the best ideas of how to care for a child change.
After all, it wasn’t so long ago that ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ was thought to be the best method; in many places, it still is. In Nazi Germany the approved method was to ignore your baby. Let them cry, force them into a schedule, deny them human contact (holding and cuddling were very frowned upon).
Mothers eager to do their best for their country followed those rules to a T, believing their government that claimed it was for the best. And the disastrous results are still being felt almost a century later.
What we need really is to all be taught critical thinking skills (hmm, denying contact to the child of a social species might be a bad idea hmmm…) and how to apply them across all parts of life, I think.
My Jimmies remain unruffled. This is the way.
Glad they are. Back over on Reddit this opinion nearly got me banned, which I think is pretty wild in hindsight.
It’s because we have had laws like that in the past… and (big surprise) they were used, unilaterally, to sterilize minorities, lawbreakers, and the disabled. (Raise your hand if you’re surprised.)
And I don’t mean, like, in Victorian England either. Sweden stopped their eugenics in 2013. The US would often sterilize women criminals in prisons, deeming them ‘unfit’.
So it’s really more of a case of ‘we can’t have nice things’ when people object to it.
Yeah, I can definitely see how this opens the door to abuse if leveraged for evil purposes. It’s the problem with all these “think of the children” laws.
I do believe however that there’s a middle point somewhere between “no system in place at all” and eugenics.
Taking kids away from their parents through CPS should be a last resort on a long path that starts with mandatory education on how to raise your kids using pedagogically approved methods.
Of course that also requires a system of support services and funding for various social programs, so this will probably go nowhere in today’s political landscape.
But who decides what are ‘pedagogically approved methods’? Keeping an approval body independent of government would be nigh-impossible, and even in well-intentioned groups the best ideas of how to care for a child change.
After all, it wasn’t so long ago that ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ was thought to be the best method; in many places, it still is. In Nazi Germany the approved method was to ignore your baby. Let them cry, force them into a schedule, deny them human contact (holding and cuddling were very frowned upon).
Mothers eager to do their best for their country followed those rules to a T, believing their government that claimed it was for the best. And the disastrous results are still being felt almost a century later.
What we need really is to all be taught critical thinking skills (hmm, denying contact to the child of a social species might be a bad idea hmmm…) and how to apply them across all parts of life, I think.