The matter of defining what constitutes “qualified” is why we have the mess we do.

As a parent – I know that nobody is truly prepared for the job… I have 3 adult children and I vivdly remember leaving the hospital with my oldest and thinking “Are they CRAZY! They are letting me take this child home!”

And as a child, I also know that even children who grow up in homes where at least one parent is a disaster [read practicing alcoholic] can turn out pretty good.

As far as forced contraception goes – that’s scary for all of the reasons mentioned by other commentors before me. But also because is goes against our very nature. All living things are driven at some level to procreate – otherwise, the species dies out.

And, as a person and a Christian, I also have learned that humans aren’t always the best judge of how a person will turn out.As a whole, we’re just not qualified. We don’t see the big picture and we are way to enthralled with money.

I’ve seen families, generation upon generation, struggling to stay alive in unadulterated filth and squalor – of which isn’t, for the most part, entirely their own fault. Money has a vicious bite to it and the perpetual lack of it more so. I’ve seen wealth in the most ostentatious forms and the tangible detachment, emptiness that seemingly cripples those who attempt to reside – survive – in this wondrous shiny environment and unquestionably fail.

The lack of wealth isn”t the catchall to this issue. The adoption policies as they stand – in my own country at least – are based, I believe, on the traditional and archaic views of those who were once “Social Reformers”. The idealistic assumption that “money” is the ultimate – indeed, the only – factor in safe guarding a child”s life is ridiculous as it is absurd.

Wealth doesn”t automatically propagate better parents – it just promotes more choices in life. Likewise, the assumption that those of lesser means are innately bad, awful and abusive is preposterous, as too the hypothesis that wealthier families are infinitely caring, loving and considerate.

While I agree for the most part that a person”s “age” is generally systemic in the ability to rear children properly, I don”t agree that one”s age should be deemed essential criteria when it comes to the rights of reproduction and nurturing children.

I”ve seen many underage parents – 12, 13 & 14 year olds – care for their children with far greater emphasis on love, cleanliness and protection than a fifty year old financial broker whose primary motivation in life is crawling out of bed was so he can score another hit.

Oh wait, that”s what happening now.

~Grauw

In contrast, you can’t buy your way through a state adoption. HOWEVER, and not a lot of people know this, if you adopt a kid through the foster care (state) system, the state will pay you a stipend every month until the kid reaches majority. How much of a stipend depends on you and the kid. Title IV-E funds. Federal. All states participate. Some states also guarantee free college tuition to children adopted through foster care, presuming they ever become college material, and damn few do.

its happened

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/10/04/bizarre_proposed_ind.html

john

Well, I know what you’re talking about. I am a 2 time adoptive parent. All the gov’t red tape is worth it in the end, and you’ll always know you worked and suffered for something that your nextdoor neighbor may have done without thinking at all.

Push through it toward the goal.

The benefits mandatory contraception, licensing and oversight in child-rearing are something society could benefit greatly from. This is true not just from a social standpoint, but from an environmental standpoint as well. Our rapidly expanding population is the main factor in problems like global warming and the exhaustion of the world’s resources.

However,there is a problem:

Who makes the rules? Who decides how safe a parent’s house is? The way our society works now, the rich make the rules, often to the detriment of the average citizen. If we lived in a truly democratic society, and those rules could be arrived at by consensus, with the common good in mind, perhaps such a policy would be feasable. Of course that would depend on common people making rational decisions, which clearly doesn’t happen very often, at least in the political sphere (Bush elected to a second term???)

Anyway, these are complicated questions, with no easy anwers.