The New Zealand Medical Association deputy chairman, Don Simmers, today said that too many women are contemplating pregnancy on a benefit.
Statistics show that thousands of babies are born onto benefits each year. At July last year 26,126 children had been added to a current benefit.
This isn't just a matter of contraception failure. Anecdotal evidence says many of these babies have been planned. It is encouraging to hear Dr Simmers confirming his. With contraception highly accessible there can be no other explanation for this high rate of child-bearing on a benefit.
Too many women with tobacco, alcohol and drug habits which lead to benefit dependency are busy planning their next meal ticket. It is a crazy welfare system that encourages this by paying more cash with each child produced.
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It's not just people on benefits - those on low incomes will be getting more tax relief for each extra child they produce.
You make it sound like the poor haven't earned the right to reproduce.
sam, I reckon the "right" to reproduce is just fine--just so long as I don't have my hard-earned money stolen from me to pay for it.
If I can't afford a family, why the hell should the state force me to pay for people without employment to have one?
Where did you get your 26,126 number from Lindsay?
From March 2005 until March 2006 58,440 children were born in NZ.
In that context your number is almost terrifying.
26,126 children growing up not with positive role models of self sufficient parents but the negative one of the 'entitlement mentality'.
Andrei, That is the cumulative number at that time but it was the most recent I could find (PQ 8745, 2005) Typically around 5,000 babies are added to an existing benefit at birth on a yearly basis - around 8 percent of all births. But many will go onto benefits at a later stage. One study found that of all the children born in 1994 half had contact with the benefit system by age three.
Sam, I don't think anyone has the "right to reproduce" at somebody else's cost.
I would like to add Sam that with rights come responsibilities.
If everybody expects their 'rights' but doesn't meet their responsibilites then the whole thing falls over.
Which it will sooner or later. Given Lindsay's numbers later might be sooner than you think.
Andrei - you beat me to the punch there a bit; too frequently in *all* aspects of our society people seem to fall back on demanding their *rights*. However for the future functioning of society it must start being recognised that a person can only get to keep their rights if they uphold the resposibilities with their rights.
I put up a strawman around this and parental responsibility back in April:
http://iiq374.blogspot.com/2006/04/parental-responsibility.html
Thanks Brian, There is a lot of anecdotal evidence, some I can't write about for reasons of confidentiality. So I wanted to publicise what this doctor is saying. I rang talkback, read out his words and made the same points this morning but the media report about it has disappeared already.
Easy way to tell if something is a legitimate right...
Simply ask.."Will someone else have to act or pay to provide me with this "right" ?...
If the answer is an honest yes then the claimed "right" is a falsehood, its instead a privilage, granted at someones else's expense.
The only thing that needs to be done to protect a persons rights is to just leave them be.Don't intrude onto their property or their person without their consent.
Genuine rights make no claims on any other person other than to have them simply leave you alone.
A young mother needs support. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the woman who have children on the DPB are in a long-term relationship with the father of the child but they just don't live together full-time. Maybe more money should be spent investigating these cases.
Gloria
"A young mother needs support."
Undoubtedly. But it isn't some bureaucrat or politician's job to substitute my money for the father's.
" I wouldn't be surprised if many of the woman who have children on the DPB are in a long-term relationship with the father of the child but they just don't live together full-time."
Hmm..some "relationship" where the child is deprived of the father and the woman is being paid by the taxpayer instead of that father.
"Maybe more money should be spent investigating these cases."
Your money, of course? Or do you mean that yet more money from the productive members of society should be wasted by social workers and other bureaucrats, compiling yet another report that will blame everything but the real culprits here--irresponsible, selfish people who think the rest of society owes them a living?
KG I didn't say the state should pay for these children or that fathers should op out of their responsiblities. I was pointing out that the fathers of these children are probably supporting these women even though they are claiming the DPB.
Gloria
". I was pointing out that the fathers of these children are probably supporting these women even though they are claiming the DPB. "
Then perhaps you should have said that, Gloria. Saying that the women are in a "long-term relationship" with the father of the child isn't the same thing at all, given the way many fathers simply ignore their financial obligations and leave the taxpayer to pick up the tab for them.
Gloria, The mother refuses to name the father on the birth certificate. Then the state cannot extract child support from him. In return for her not fingering him he then pays her a lesser amount than the state would have assessed him at. She gets that on top of the DPB instead of the state getting it to offset the cost of the DPB to the taxpayer. Just one of the many "scams".
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