By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Desmond Hatchett is petitioning the court for entry of an order reducing his child support. In tough economic times that is not uncommon. What is uncommon is that Hatchett has fathered 30 children by 11 different women. The children range in age from toddlers to 14-years-old. Hatchett earns minimum wage and half of his check is apportioned among the children. That means some mothers receive as little as $1.49 per month for one child. The prolific father has previously appeared in court in 2009 to answer charges of failing to pay any support. Then he had 21 children and promised to stop procreating. Hatchett explains the current situation this way, ” [W]ell you know what we mean, I had four kids in the same year. Twice.”
The law regards procreation as a fundamental right. Most religions support the ideal of large families with the Catholic Church banning all but the most fundamental type of birth control. Americans have long recoiled from China’s “One Child” policy to combat population explosion. Given that backdrop how does society deal with such irresponsibility? Do children have to suffer poverty or becoming wards of the state simply because some people can’t suppress their urges or behave irresponsibly? Do conservatives have a point when they argue that welfare benefits based on the number of children to be supported breeds this type of behavior?
The state has no right to order Hatchett or his “Baby Mamas” to stop making babies. Should it in such an extreme case? If not for Hatchett, for the children that he obviously cannot support?
Source: WREG (via Yahoo)
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Zusanne, an anecdore is not proof of a commonality.
I agree it is a failure (I had to be on assistance while I waited to be accepted on ss disability so I have seen it up close and personal). There needs to be more programs like wekfare to work, etc.
Yes, they get checks and can use ot for whatever they want. Would you prefer they have to wear some kind of chip so they use it for only what you think they should? It is ridiculous that people say food stamps, for instance, should only be used for ‘healthy’ foods: a vegetarian would object to someone eating meat. If you use it for chips and then run out of money before the end of the month and you are hungry that is how you may change your behavior. But if you always eat chips and donuts, should the state be forcing you to eat what it thinks you should be eating?
And what you saw on TV, you need to remember TV and news tells the unusual, the old cliche, dog bites man is not news, man bites dog is.
You would not watch if they ran an article – most folks on welfare are white and most use it for clothing, food, shelter that tellos the common, and therefore boring, truth. (Or today millions of americans were not victims of crime, most people drove today and did not get into an accident, etc.)
i worked in a hospital and was flat out told by a lady who came in to give birth every year that her husband made her stay pregant because of welfare checks and all the medical we as a nation pay these nuts to have all the children and then their kids follow same ways our wefare system is a failure. they can get welfare checks to gamble travel saw on tv where 1 man sent his friend to atm machine to use his welfare card to get cash to get him out of jail stand up american and forse a change
I’m no historian, but from what I’m able to discern, when it comes to societal norms, the big, bad ‘tolerance’ plumb bob swings from one extreme to the other from era to era, always seeking dead-center.
Pockets of humans invariably seem to create their own distinct environments, by actively and passively, carving out their rules based on what the rulers are willing to tolerate. Then, when the envelop gets pushed to the breaking point, equilibrium is sought once again.
If this is accurate, then we can anticipate that at some unseen point in our future, this country will almost certainly morph once again into a highly conservative period, as tightly would as anything we might have seen in our early Puritan years.
And I’d surmise that in just such an era, males like Desmond Hatchett would be executed in the town square.
The pendulum swings.
Arthurerb, one thing you do is make it easier to adopt, still doing all the necessary checks and balances but my understanding is thebureaucracy is so layered and onerous people just walk away (well, fly away – to Russia, China, etc.)
Bettykath:
“A woman gets a good job or marries a man with a good job, no longer on welfare, wants more children…oops, can’t do it.”
An obstetrician recently told me cutting and tying fallopian tubes are reversible and he also said that tubal ligations are only good for about 10 years, the body can reverse them. At least I am pretty sure that is what he said, I remember because I thought they were permanent and asked, he said no they are not.
Here is what a short Internet search came up with:
“Is tubal ligation 100% effective?
No. The only 100% effective sterilization surgeries are male castration (removal of the testicles) and female castration (removal of the ovaries); these surgeries are simply not performed for birth control purposes.
Tubal ligation has a failure rate of .1% (one-tenth of one percent)1 This is about the same overall failure rate as vasectomy. Pregnancies can occur due to surgical error, equipment failure, or the natural processes in which the body reestablishes a connection from the uterus to the abdominal cavity.” 2
2. Robert A. Hatcher, et al., Contraceptive Technology (New York: Irvington, 1990) 404.
http://healthread.net/tubal-ligation.htm
Arthur:
“Both partners know that the state will take care of them and their kids at a minimum level so that they have no incentive to act responsibly.”
What you say is true but isnt the solution to reduce or eliminate the payments for each additional child, after say 2, to create a negative incentive rather than tubal ligation? That way the person makes a deliberate choice and understands the consequences and their individual rights are not violated.
This story is terrible but what are you going to do? It is too bad dopes like this even get press.
Arthur,
At least I’m not a narcissistic ass.
Matt, I did not realize that they allowed computers and the internet in your institution. You seem to be so well versed in such things. I guess you are against electro shock therapy too? I did not know that you fancied yourself a psychiatrist to make such judgements. You are such a fount of ignorance in your posts, at least you got one thing right about the Kennedys and the lobotomy. The Kennedys did not get their money from bootleggers. Joe made his money on Wall Street before the SEC was founded. As President of his bank in Boston, Joe undoubtedly made loans to bootleggers, but he hardly ran the stuff.
Arthur,
“What I proposed involves no coercion, just giving incentives for people to behave responsibly.”
You don’t think it is coercive to tell a woman that you will cut off her income and/or take away her kids if she doesn’t pick your option?
Bet you like that enhanced interrogation bit too.
adoption, foster or state homes, ArthurErb, don;t pay the woman anymore after 2 kids.
If you truly think that that most children in the patter 2 get love and good upbringings y9ou are living in a fantasy land. Most kids are not fostered but kept in ‘state homes’ which can be hell on earth. Sadly it is mainly white kids who get adopted, and babies. (more so white), the bureaucracy makes adoption very difficult here which is why os many people go abroad. So, at the end of the day, you have no problem with the chikldren paying the bill.
Arthur,
“Today [eugenics] is widely regarded as a brutal movement which inflicted massive human rights violations on millions of people. The “interventions” advocated and practiced by eugenicists involved prominently the identification and classification of individuals and their families, including the poor, mentally ill, blind, deaf, developmentally disabled, promiscuous women, homosexuals and entire racial groups — such as the Roma and Jews — as “degenerate” or “unfit”; the segregation or institutionalisation of such individuals and groups, their sterilization, euthanasia, and in the extreme case of Nazi Germany, their mass extermination.”
Arthur,
Do you know that Joe Kennedy Sr. had his own daughter lobotomized? Do you want to go in for shock treatments? Perhaps you’d like some brain surgery.
Do you know how the Kennedy family got their money? Prohibition.
For all those who are opposed to any sterilization program, I am waiting to hear your solutions for people on welfare who have children with no limit. What we are doing is rewarding irresponsible behavior and I would like to see some of my critics propose a solution. From most of the comments, I see that it will be near impossible since most lack the wit to do so.
So, at the end of the day, you have no problem with the chikldren paying the bill.
The children of those on welfare are already paying the price as do the children of the poor and even middle class that is fast shrinking. If you are serious about making it possible for all kids to have a great life, then we will have to have a revolution which will take the money from those who have it and give it to those who do not. WE can start with the 1% and work our way down, so that lawyers, and stock brokers get hit the hardest.
If you don’t think that is in the cards for the near term, then you have to come up with some other plan. The proposals for sterilizing those who are incompetent would still have to be done for those in institutions under any government. Unless of course, you think that pregnant mentally incompetents is a good thing. Those people have no legal rights in any case.
Arthur,
For those who been declared mentally incompetent, or deficient and are institutionalized, they have lost their rights in any case, and they should not be able to reproduce. I can think of no rational reason not to do that. In the past, this was done and abused. Just because some cops are abusive and misuse their power, hardly means we should get rid of them. It is hardly eugenics since that applied only to specific races and backgrounds. We deny their FREEDOM when they are put in institutions, so this is hardly a new or draconian thing.
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Welcome to the institution.
Arthur,
Your proposal does speak eugenics. In the past eugenics was based on race. You’ve expanded its scope by identify a specific group of people, poor women who have 2 children, as the ones to be sterilized. Being on welfare is frequently a temporary thing. A woman gets a good job or marries a man with a good job, no longer on welfare, wants more children…oops, can’t do it. Arthur was there to stomp on her when she was down. btw, NC may end up paying $50,000 to each person involuntarily sterilized (est. 7,600). Not sure how much money you’d save.
I guess you’ve added institutionalized people as well.
Bruce I think we can use common sense in this kind of thing. What I proposed involves no coercion, just giving incentives for people to behave responsibly. For those who been declared mentally incompetent, or deficient and are institutionalized, they have lost their rights in any case, and they should not be able to reproduce. I can think of no rational reason not to do that. In the past, this was done and abused. Just because some cops are abusive and misuse their power, hardly means we should get rid of them. It is hardly eugenics since that applied only to specific races and backgrounds. We deny their FREEDOM when they are put in institutions, so this is hardly a new or draconian thing.