Any person who is not statistically likely to become a good, adequate, competent, or fitting parent or member of society should be encouraged, but not forced, to become sterilized in exchange for a significant amount of money. The amount of money offered would depend upon the degree of undesirability of the individual being considered, their age and other specifically relevant facts. This program should generally be limited to criminals who are drug addicts, alcoholics, gang members, violent people, sexual criminals, etc. Repeat offenders would be offered the highest amount of money. Also, people who are addicted to any type of substance or activity that may pose a relatively high risk of injury to a child (whether born or unborn) should be eligible for this program.
Not everybody would be eligible to participate in this program. The amount of money offered to each eligible individual should range between the thousands and up to the high tens of thousands of dollars depending upon their degree of undesirability. The amount of compensation offered would decrease as the person’s age increases. In other words, younger people would be compensated far more than older people. The rate of decrease would be steeper for women than for men, and it would perhaps be eliminated for women beyond menopause while men would continue to be offered some relatively small compensation if they decided at a relatively old age that they wanted (and qualified) for sterilization. (General idea from Barbara Harris 10-24-97)
Other people with a high risk of reproductive harm should also be encouraged to avoid reproduction due. Such people could include workers with hazardous occupations leading to exposure to harmful chemical with high risk of reproductive harm.
Johanna: March 7, 2018 at 12:48 pm
This is not a bad idea, although a bit controversial. Taking the population growth into account, a good idea would be to prevent “bad” people from becoming parents to innocent babies. But dont you think there is a big risk to misuse this policy? Rules are getting misused everyday and sterilization is a permanent operation in a humans life. It would require a real strong protection system to make sure the decision is 100% voluntary.
Policy Proposals Moderator: March 10, 2018 at 10:16 pm
True, almost anything taken to an undesirable extreme would be bad. However, the core idea, as intended, would be positive. Measures need to be taken to prevent such a policy as this from evolving into something bad. Yes, human beings are responsible for implementation and enforcement, so there is always a tendency for corruption. Nevertheless, it is possible to institute effective checks and balances into the implementation that would allow there to be enough self-correction away from abuses, that such a policy could be fairly implemented.