Infertility Redux

[KroLazuxy_87]

With as much help as the foster care system needs, and with health care infrastructure already being over taxed, my opinion is to not fund fertility treatments.

China already has laws in place to limit production.

Stupid people breed faster... (see the movie: Idiocracy)

We as a species are already using up this planet's resources far too fast. (we are over fishing our seas while destroying it with chemicals.)

We don't need any more people on TLC with 8+ kids.

Split your necro from here. Next time, read the rules and start a new thread.

[Samuel]

Stupid people breed faster... (see the movie: Idiocracy)

Fiction is not a source. Not even TBO. And stupid people don't breed faster- poor people do, as well as people who have ideological reasons (fundies).

[dragon]

Stupid people breed faster... (see the movie: Idiocracy)

Fiction is not a source. Not even TBO. And stupid people don't breed faster- poor people do, as well as people who have ideological reasons (fundies).

And uneducated, poor people breed even faster it seems. Can't count the number of times I've seen lower ranking enlisted with little education with 4 and 5 kids. And then when they get in trouble for finacial trouble they say they don't know why they make ends meet. These of course are the same ones you saw in the store last pay day blowing his entire pay check on frivalites.

[Solauren]

In my mind, it depends on the root cause of the infertility.

Was it caused by your own carelessness or stupidity? (i.e overweight people have trouble concieving). If so, the public should not have to clean up your mistakes.

Was it caused by someone elses carelessness or stupidity? The public should only pick up the tab if the person that caused the stupidity can't. i.e If you are left unable to have children without medical aid as a result being hit by a car, the offending driver should have to pay (or at least, his insurance should). (Obviously, this is where the other driver is clearly at fault.)

Is it caused by a genetic factor that could be passed onto your children? Now that's a tricky one. If the couple was willing to undergo genetic screening of the offspring to prevent the problem from passing on, I don't have a problem with that. In fact, it might be a good idea with any reproductive technology, but that's another issue.

Is your infertility caused by a harmful product that is now recognized as such (i.e BPA chemical ingestion)? Then yes. That falls into the 'carelessness of others category', but showing and proving which producer of the chemical is most responsible, in most cases, would be a logistical nightmare, if not outright impossible.

Really, it's a case-type by case-type basis with me.

In most cases, however, probably not. There are enough kids in 'the system' that need loving parents Fertility treatments as a publicly funded medical treatment are not required at this time.

[Dave]

Stupid people breed faster...

stupid people don't breed faster- poor people do

Therein lies the difference. It can be easy to confuse the breeding rates of poor people with the breeding rates of stupid people because stupid people tend to be poor, due to their stupidity. (Either they don't make much money, or they fail to hang on to their money.)

That being said, you will see a correlation between stupidity, "poorness" and breeding rates, again, because stupidity and poorness are closely related, and thus will show similar trends when mapped to number of children.

I would have argued that stupid people do not breed as fast, using Down Syndrome as an example, but then I remembered that people with Down Syndrome have significantly decreased fertility rates.

[Junghalli]

Therein lies the difference. It can be easy to confuse the breeding rates of poor people with the breeding rates of stupid people because stupid people tend to be poor, due to their stupidity. (Either they don't make much money, or they fail to hang on to their money.)

And it works the other way around too. Poor people tend to be stupid (or at least ignorant) because of lack of education. The anti-intellectual cultures that uneducated portions of society tend to foster probably doesn't help either.

[Samuel]

There is a differnece between low IQ and mentally retarded or otherwise handicapped- people who are handicapped tend to have less kids in general.

[Dave]

And it works the other way around too. Poor people tend to be stupid (or at least ignorant) because of lack of education.

Hmm... I'm wondering how far (free) public education and a good library would go to remedy that.

I mean, ignoring (for the sake of argument, not because it's a good idea to do so) all the handicaps that come with being poor, and assuming the availability of free public education and a free public library with adequate content, I would think that one could bootstrap themselves into a higher tax bracket to the education level required for a better job...

But I guess that's a lot of wishful thinking on my part.

There is a differnece between low IQ and mentally retarded or otherwise handicapped- people who are handicapped tend to have less kids in general.

Yeah, that was a bad argument.

[Vehrec]

Fertility levels are influenced by a lot of things-but Education's impact among both men and women is huge. This partial data set from India for instance, may give you all some idea of what I'm talking about, and I've seen a similar study that also tracked the husbands education level. The total fertility rate varies from 3.09 for illiterate women, to 1.35 for women who have completed graduate or higher level education. Part of this is directly attributeable to delaying the onset of childbearing so that these women can complete their studies, but equally important is employment and the availablility of contraceptives. It might be obvious, but how many highly career driven women do you know of with more than three kids? All these antecdotes about the uneducated poor might have something behind them.

[Lusankya]

And it works the other way around too. Poor people tend to be stupid (or at least ignorant) because of lack of education.

Hmm... I'm wondering how far (free) public education and a good library would go to remedy that.

It won't go all the way, because you still have to deal with the culture of the poor, as well as the family situation. My sisters and I got a head start over pretty much all of the other kids in the town where I grew up, because they actually gave a shit about our education. It's all very well and good to have a good education system available, but unless they're actually aware that education is important (and let's face it - almost no kid is aware of that), they're not going to take advantage of it.

[Stark]

Yeah, the near-total abdication of responsibility for early development is pretty terrible.

[Samuel]

Fertility levels are influenced by a lot of things-but Education's impact among both men and women is huge. This partial data set from India for instance, may give you all some idea of what I'm talking about, and I've seen a similar study that also tracked the husbands education level. The total fertility rate varies from 3.09 for illiterate women, to 1.35 for women who have completed graduate or higher level education. Part of this is directly attributeable to delaying the onset of childbearing so that these women can complete their studies, but equally important is employment and the availablility of contraceptives. It might be obvious, but how many highly career driven women do you know of with more than three kids? All these antecdotes about the uneducated poor might have something behind them.

India isn't a great example. It had a caste system, has low status for its women, is third world- do we have data for first worlds, discounting immigrants?

[Lusankya]

India isn't a great example. It had a caste system, has low status for its women, is third world- do we have data for first worlds, discounting immigrants?

Well, I got the 1992 data for Australia (old, I know, but whatever) from the ABS. It's probably changed a bit by now, but it might serve as an illustration. It doesn't discount immigrants, but I doubt that immigrants are increasing the fertility rate much.

Code: Select all

Post-school qualification	   Average 
				                  number of	 % Childless
				                  children

Bachelor/
higher degree			     2.1	      21.1

Trade certificate,
diploma or other 
post-school qualification	     2.5	       9.7

No post-school qualification	     2.7	       7.7


All females aged 45-59		     2.6	       9.1

So in 1992 at least, there was a difference, but it was less of a difference than in India, with fertility ranging from 2.1-2.7. Not a huge difference, really. Less than one kid.

I also found this interesting:

The link between education and employment is illustrated by similar differences in fertility patterns according to occupation. While there was relatively little variation in the average number of children among occupation types (ranging from 2.2 to 2.6), the proportions remaining childless where quite different. Professionals and para-professionals were the most likely of all occupation groups to be childless (18% and 17%) while those classified as labourers and related workers were the least likely to remain without children (5%).

What the figures seem to say to me is that professionals and educated women are less likely to have children, but if they do have children, they have about the same number as everyone else.

Here's the PDF I got the information from if anyone's interested.

Yeah, the near-total abdication of responsibility for early development is pretty terrible.

When my sister was born, my dad and his girlfriend got a free book from the local authorities which basically said, "Bogans, read to your kids." I think it might be standard service in SA or something, though I'm not sure how much good it really does. You can tell them that education is important, but if they still think that you don't need anything more out of life than to leave school at 16 (or 17, as it is now) and then get a job attaching the doors to Holdens, then that's what they'll teach their kids.

[Vehrec]

Fertility levels are influenced by a lot of things-but Education's impact among both men and women is huge. This partial data set from India for instance, may give you all some idea of what I'm talking about, and I've seen a similar study that also tracked the husbands education level. The total fertility rate varies from 3.09 for illiterate women, to 1.35 for women who have completed graduate or higher level education. Part of this is directly attributeable to delaying the onset of childbearing so that these women can complete their studies, but equally important is employment and the availablility of contraceptives. It might be obvious, but how many highly career driven women do you know of with more than three kids? All these antecdotes about the uneducated poor might have something behind them.

India isn't a great example. It had a caste system, has low status for its women, is third world- do we have data for first worlds, discounting immigrants?

Most of these studies are focused on the Third world because thats still a hotspot for population growth. Discounting immigrants in the US's case would also discount all the studies I know of, since as far as I know, Immigrants and their children are one of the few things holding the US TFR above the replacement rate. A quick check of google scholar shows a couple of possibilities, but this paperby Yang2 seems the most promising before I turn in for the night.

[Mayabird]

Poverty is the greatest cause of mental retardation. When the developing body is presented with too few resources (you know, food), to cover everything, it first shunts the resources to development, then growth, and whatever's left goes to the brain. The brain is a very expensive organ, using something like 20% of the body's resources while making up only 2% of the usual body weight, so if it's not getting enough fuel it will suffer. And, frankly, you don't have to be that smart to breed, so that's how evolution sorted out distribution order. Also note that one doesn't have to be fully mentally retarded to have mental deficiencies because of hunger during early development.

Take that as you will.

[Simon_Jester]

And uneducated, poor people breed even faster it seems. Can't count the number of times I've seen lower ranking enlisted with little education with 4 and 5 kids. And then when they get in trouble for finacial trouble they say they don't know why they make ends meet. These of course are the same ones you saw in the store last pay day blowing his entire pay check on frivalites.

Another point is that stupid people don't necessarily have stupid descendants. Intelligence is governed by a lot of genes that interact in unpredictable ways; if it were simple we'd already know how it works (much as we understand the genetics of eye and hair color). The child of two stupid parents could quite easily be a person of normal or superior intelligence. Or they could merely be a very nice person who is a blessing to all they meet, or a tireless worker that no sane employer would trade for two ordinary people, or... you get the picture.

None of that is guaranteed, of course. But the mere fact that a person is stupid doesn't guarantee that their children will create more problems in the world by existing than they will solve.

I'm not willing to claim the right to assert that a hypothetical person I don't know should not exist, based purely on who their parents are. It's not my decision to make.
________

Hmm... I'm wondering how far (free) public education and a good library would go to remedy that.

I mean, ignoring (for the sake of argument, not because it's a good idea to do so) all the handicaps that come with being poor, and assuming the availability of free public education and a free public library with adequate content, I would think that one could bootstrap themselves into a higher tax bracket to the education level required for a better job...

But I guess that's a lot of wishful thinking on my part.

Oh, it can happen; it does happen. But it doesn't happen all the time. Which means that the children of the poor tend to stay poor... but it also means that genetic merit exists throughout the population, rich and poor alike. Having good genes doesn't guarantee success if your environment stinks, and having bad genes doesn't guarantee failure if your environment is good enough.
______

Most of these studies are focused on the Third world because thats still a hotspot for population growth. Discounting immigrants in the US's case would also discount all the studies I know of, since as far as I know, Immigrants and their children are one of the few things holding the US TFR above the replacement rate.

Moreover, while immigrants are very likely to be poor, there's no reason to assume that they are stupid (at least, any more so than average).