Monday, March 05, 2007

Reproductive rights

This business of fathering children from prison raises a number of questions;

In the absence of the father, is the taxpayer expected to support the child on welfare?

Can the father afford to pay child support out of his prison income?

If not, will he be granted an exemption despite having actively created a child knowing he couldn't contribute financially to its upbringing?

Does today's call from civil libertarians for conjugal rights for all prisoners extend to women in prison?

Do conjugal rights apply only to married people?

Does the granting of rights have a good track record of aiding rehabilitation?

Have we completely abandoned the notion that rights command responsibilities?

Would adhering to that principle sort out these ethical dilemmas?

Have we gone completely nuts?





5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have we gone completely nuts?

Collectively we do insist on letting the lunatics run the asylum.

Anonymous said...

Funny how the Council for Civil Liberties always have a say.
"no show without Punch"

Lindsay Mitchell said...

I heard Michael Bott interviewed on two different radio stations today. He says the introduction of conjugal rights is "inevitable". I don't think so. Only a very few countries grant them.
In a somewhat heated interview he finished by calling Paul Henry "narrow-minded".

Unknown said...

Got a simple answer to this: say to the Civil Liberties mob: OK, you can have conjugual visits - but in return we'll abolish "reasonable doubt" for criminal trials and have "balance of probabilities" as a standard of proof.

More on that on my blog....

Anonymous said...

In the absence of the father, is the taxpayer expected to support the child on welfare?

Of course! Legally speaking, fathers are all but despised in this country, and are certainly not wanted. Go see how they get treated by the secret Family Courts.

Have we completely abandoned the notion that rights command responsibilities?

Abandoned is not the right word. It should be "legislated away" or "transferred to government".

But if you care to look into the fraudulent, so-called "Care of Children Act 2004" (in reality, more like the Homosexual Rights to Children Act), you'll see he's probably only been exercising his legal rights. Look how many dyke couples there are pushchairing babies around the place these days. No doubt, conceived with sperm from some homosexual donor friend. A double dose of homosexual genes!

Let's just hope that HomoF+HomoM = Straight!