What determines "unfit" status?

This is something out of Nazi German law!

This is insane and scares the crap out of me

I'm sorry, but this is downright scary. I get the point, yes, but the problem of children being abused is a problem that goes far deeper than just eliminating the right to have those children. This is called treating the symptom and ignoring the disease. Yeah, scary!

wow.. this is crazy.. there's no mention in here about the fathers, about how they should do something to stop them too, this is just sick. like if its only the mom's fault what about all those children who's fathers abuse them? theres no mention here about the fathers, only the mothers. this is just going to bring more kids into the system instead of helping, its just going to make things worst. they should really sit down and think about it, and prehaps have a women's opinion in there...

First, people, please go read the article before commenting! Whether cut down for word count by Momaroo or whatever, the above does not give all the info. (For instance: "...Dutch parliament recommending that unfit mothers should be forced by law into two years of contraception. Any babies wilfully conceived in that period should be confiscated at birth. Unfit mothers would mean those who have already been in serious trouble because of their bad parenting.")

"The draft bill does not include any provisions that would place similar restrictions on males.  So basically the men are allowed to go around making babies and abusing babies without any restrictions being placed on them."

That, IMO, is crap. Personally, I can look at some of the child abuse cases that we hear about here and the truly unfathomably horrorible things that some of the children out there suffer at the hands of their parents and agree with the thought. (I also think it's crap here when parents have their children taken away from them, get pregnant again, have the next kid and just walk out of the hospital with it like somehow it will be different this time. What is that? Does it work? Is the 6th time the charm?)

I'm for just about anything that prevents the abuse of children. If it's allowing women that aren't strong enough to go through the process of adoption the option of abortion so that they don't have the kid and end up abusing it? Great. I'd rather they terminate the pregnancy before there's any brainwaves than become one of those people that snaps and beats in a 2 year old's skull. If it's limiting the "rights" of some people that have already demonstrated that they can't handle the privilage of having kids? Well, don't the children that are brought into this world have the 'right' not to be abused?

Unfortunately, mere counseling doesn't work for everyone. If that were the case, we wouldn't have so many sex offenders repeating their crimes after having done jail time and mandatory counseling sessions. Anyone with a quarter of a brain can figure out what the counselors want them to say in order to declare them ready to be released from treatment.

If we're so concerned about stepping on people's "basic human rights" to have children, why don't we just do away with CPS all together? By this logic, it's their right to have those children. No matter how poorly they're going to take care of them.

Isn't it more so 'talking out of both sides of one's mouth' to say, "It's bad to have abortions! All life is sacred! But we should let people who are going to abuse life continue have and keep those children until they get caught abusing them again."? I must be missing something here...

I'm a bit war of applying the United States' views of civil liberties and such on other nations, but I do see your point. They should be looking at why these people are unfit parents in the first place, and perhaps they wouldn't need to go back to eugenics.

Maybe someone should propose chemical castration for any male siring a child out of wedlock, just to make them take a second look at this?

I'm pretty much okay with that. I mean, it's intrusive, but the government already intrudes on my life in plenty of ways. So, I say, have at it.

@filtered_sunlight@xanga - (hanging head in shame) I admit, I didn't read the article prior to commenting. Having done so, I see more clearly the point of the measure.

My biggest concern was how the mother was deemed unfit. I now see how that would occur. Next time I shall read first comment last.

I'm probably going to get flamed for part of what I'm going to say here, but...so be it.  What's an open discussion forum if people can't discuss what they think openly? 

I agree that something like this proposed law could be applied too broadly, and without very strict definitions of who would be affected by the law and how they would be specifically affected, it could be abused.  That said, our own American court system already does take children away from mothers at birth when those mothers' other children have already been removed from their care because of abuse, neglect, or the mother's drug or alcohol addiction. 

And you know what?  I think that's fine.  I think it's great, in fact, because children have rights, too!  So while I don't think any government has the right to prevent people from becoming pregnant or bearing children, it DOES have a right and an obligation to protect its citizenry from having their human rights violated.  That includes protecting children from being violated by unfit parents who will abuse them, neglect them, or be so strung-out on drugs or alcohol during gestation or after the child is born to be any kind of loving, nurturing parent. 

As for the question of why we don't do this to the men, too, it's simple biology.  If a government mandates that certain women, because of their crimes against children, must be prevented from conceiving additional children whom they will also likely abuse, then a doctor can administer injections (like Depo-Provera) to or place implants (like Mirena) in these women, and be reasonably assured that she will not be able to conceive for a proscribed amount of time.  She will still be able to have sex; she just won't be able to conceive.  Such procedures are not permanent, and as such, if a woman was found to be reformed at some later point, she could simply stop receiving the injections or have her implant removed, restoring her fertility.  With a man, however, the only thing that could be done short of permanent surgical sterilization to make sure he doesn't get someone pregnant is to give him Depo-Provera, which will render him unable to achieve an erection, and therefore, unable to have sex--clearly overkill unless a man is a child molester or a rapist, but a procedure that is, in fact, used in America to "de-sex" paroled child molesters and rapists and is a condition of parole for many such offenders. 

One final note: It's easy to scream about "human rights" for these convicted criminals, but until you've looked into the eyes of someone you love and realize how messed-up their childhood was because of one or both of their parents being an abuser or an addict, you're just talking out of your ass.  Someone very precious to me grew up in a house where mother and father both were alcoholic drug addicts.  He can remember plenty of times when there was a full case of beer in the fridge, but no food.  He can remember years when there was no Christmas because his parents were too fucked-up to be bothered to do anything.  He can remember not going on school field trips because his parents drank up all the money, and couldn't even afford to give him three dollars--and that's if they could even sober up enough to sign the damn permission slip.  He can remember being hungry a lot.  I see how now, even as a grown man, he's afraid to let the fridge get empty, or to get too excited about the holidays because he might be disappointed again.  Others may have sympathy for miserable excuses for parents and human beings having their "rights" infringed upon, but as far as I'm concerned, they should consider themselves lucky that their government doesn't imprison them, or just execute them outright.  In many cases, it's no less than they deserve. 

Best.Plan. Ever. I don't see it any different as a self destructive moron with suicidal tendencies. People who can't help themselves must have the freedom stripped from them. I can understand why there isn't a provision for men - let me add that I do NOT agree that men should go around shooting their seed everywhere - but let's face it, the court system is horrible bias for women and ten times out of eleven, they'd get custody.