For example the white middle/upper class man who downloaded 300,000 images of pornography, there is solid evidence that voyeurs of his ilk will escalate, and usually move on to real life children. If we sterilised him, would we be preventing child abuse? In fact we gave him a slap on the hand and name suppression. Can you imagine the kind of fevered obsession that needs 300,000 images?

Can you imagine the numbers of children abused and lives wrecked amongst those 300,000 images.

Sterilisation isn’t the answer because its question is wrong.

I suspect that some people are using child abuser as a synonym for some profile of a portion of the underclass

Are we really not debating the presumption that certain people fit the profile of perps and there should be some way of rpeventing them from breeding? Which is of course, a form of class warfare.

also its being suggested it be voluntary…

What is wrong with this country that good, common sense ideas are vilified?

It is debated because the only way to change the world view of those who treat it as a serious solution, is to lead them, gently, to other ways of viewing their world.

George

“Turning the issue into yet another battleground on which to fight the class war, or the gender conflict, doesn’t help to address the problem in the short term. Initiatives to get boys to wear condoms won’t address this particular problem, I fear. The responsible have been encouraged to do this since I was at school (I’m now in my 50s).”

You may see it as turning it into a gender issue, whereas I see it as looking at ways to solve a problem. Exactly what efforts have been made to get boys wearing condoms? How have you impressed on your boy/s their responsibility and consequences in this regard?

I’m sick of people throwing up their hands and saying it wont/didnt work with boys, so we then abdicate, on their behalf, responsibility for their part in all this, put it in the too hard basket and get to work on changing women. Thats’ BS.

For example, 75% of murderers (give or take) in our prisons are men. Violent offenses are dominated by Men. Ergo, we have a male violence problem. It’s not about creating gender conflict its about isolating the problem area to effectively address it.

You might be very surprised what picture people have of reasonable parenting. The anti smacking debate illustrated perfectly that most parents believe the way they do it is the right way the best way for their children… including those doing it the allegedly bad/wrong way.

If we look at a problem in a shallow way, surface only, we will keep addressing it in simple surface ways. This is what politicians do.

people ahve to be prepared to look deeper and that includes sociological, behavioural, economic, opportunity, culture (yes some cultures revere family and have large families).

One could argue that the ever decreasing number of children being born tot he middle classes is because of a corrolating increas ein greed and obsession with material possessions… if I have children I wont have as much stuff, trips, cars, nights out, fun, so I’ll delay or not bother.

Many pacific peoples do not understand the apparent reluctance of pakeha to have and honour family for families sake.

I think some people would be shocked to see how well many families in this country, with well in excess of 2.5 children, are run, served and catered for on bugger all income compared to some.

If you removed the means they enable them to breed, ie welfare, then perhaps these children would not be bought into the world. Recognizing that will never happen, then this is the next best option. Paying people not to have children, or at least less children.”

Sweetd, To describe this as a cynical view is so inadequate. People have babies for a whole bunch of reasons. This might shock you, but disadvantaged people have feelings just like richer folk. I know this might be dazzling news…but poor folk aren’t entirely driven by simple economics. They have babies because they want to or they had unprotected sex or they want a family or…pick one of a million motivations. The suggestion that people have babies as some sort of money making venture is such a deeply misguided view that it’s hard to respond. If you can’t see that people’s motivations for having families are varied – regardless of wealth – then I guess you’re not in a space for argument. You’re simply asserting prejudice.

Anyway, back to the core concept: I still can’t get over that most discussions end up focusing on the merits of this proposal rather than simply moving on to discussing more effective and less offensive ways of stopping inter-generational crime – which is, I think, what Garrett was getting at.

Putting aside the moral arguments, sterilisation is just dumb policy. There are a 1000 better ideas-in fact, I’d say almost any other proposal is likely to be a better idea than this silly nonsense. So, I am struggling to understand why people are debating it as if it were a sensible notion. Let’s be clear: This idea of Garrett’s is just misguided stupidity. If he’s interested in stopping inter-generational crime and disadvantage then let’s talk about sensible policy proposals and stop pretending like this bigoted dribble is a worthy concept.

I think that we all have an image in our minds of what an adequate parent is. (And mercifully a huge majority of parents fall into this category).

I’m sure most of us also have a horror image in our heads of what a totally inadequate and unsuitable parent is.

The problem is how to voice this in a meaninful way, and drawing the line at an appropriate place along the continuum. Yes, we are dealing with extremes and exceptions here, but as the result of our current failure is death and misery I think it’s a nettle we have to grasp. Whilst we ring our hands for fear of offending some sensibility or other kids die or exist in the worst possible conditions. For those of us who are parents and who know the utter dependence little ones have on us, and the absolute trust they give us, this is heartbreaking.

Turning the issue into yet another battleground on which to fight the class war, or the gender conflict, doesn’t help to address the problem in the short term. Initiatives to get boys to wear condoms won’t address this particular problem, I fear. The responsible have been encouraged to do this since I was at school (I’m now in my 50s).

Chris Kahui was found not guilty and not the sole caregiver of his children. Sterlisation?

I guess the issue can be seen as, and this is the nerve Garrett is touching, It might be a human right to have children, it’s not a human right to have others take care of them.

Then we have to seperate the issue even further;

What about a family of two adults and 4 children, conceived and initially raised in an income receiving home. Job is lost… how do we support that scenario but not the “baby farm” scenario.

I think the problem (one of them) with Garrett’s proposal is that it presupposes the main reason people are NOT getting sterilised is they cannot afford it. I suspect this is an incredibly over-simplified and flawed view.

For example, sterilisation is totally unnecessary if a man engaged in sexual intercourse wears a condom. Perhaps, rather than focusing on women having children to get on benefits and sterilising them we could focus on the far cheaper option of getting all men who dont want children or to have to bring them up to wear condoms. For some reason our society steers away from this kind of accountability and tends to focus on the women.

The man who stands with his placard every week in Greenlane or Dominion Road, retirement aged gentleman. Thanks mum for not murdering me type thing… could he not equally be standing outside schools preaching responsibility and accountability to our young, soon to be fertile men?

This is a multi facetted issue, we have, historically dealt with it, almost exclusively by focusing on women and womens actions.

Yes they are left holding the baby… but just because the alternatives are more difficult to change doesnt mean we oughtn’t try. more of the same will get us more of the same.

Sterlising women is major surgery,pretty invasive and hard to reverse. let’s also sterilise men (15 minutes at the mens clinic) and so on, let’s think more broadly than Mr Garrett

I certainly don’t intend to suggest that this is a poor vs rich issue. I grew up in a very poor environment myself and the vast majority of parents on our council estate were decent enough at the job (even if Sue Bradford might have disagreed with how they chose to keep us out of bother).

BUT – I did hope to stimulate some exchange of ideas on whether society should encourage some people to raise children and discourage others.

The awful statistics we see of kids abused to the point of death mask a reality that many others who don’t make the headlines are still forced to exist in the most appalling of conditions. Whilst our middle class sensibilities might lead us to be morally agnostic when looking over the fence I’d like to know whether contributors to this blog think that there’s ever a point where the ability to produce children should stop being seen as a human right.

When this sort of topic makes the headlines there’s always a great deal of philosophical posturing (’we don’t have the right to do this’, etc), but whilst this ‘feel good’ stance by the cosy and safe pontificators is adopted children are being forced to live in the most dreadful of situations. Is there ever a situation where it’s right to infringe the rights of some in order to protect those of others? Or do we have to just wait and see and hope?