Do poor people deserve to have children? That’s the question posed by Senior Policy Analyst Dr. Mijin Cha at Demos.org recently.
One might anticipate that a woman as well-credentialed as Dr. Cha would easily bring vital, cutting edge, and razor-sharp analytical tools to this query, but alas, her article serves instead as a reminder of the irrational populism which all too frequently characterizes the collective hive-mind.
The word deserve is defined as ‘to be worthy, fit, or suitable for some reward.’ In that sense, the question as posed is a non-starter, based on an irrelevant premise. Are children a reward? If so, for what? Who judges? Who sets the standard? The word does however serve to elicit sympathy – if poor people ‘deserve’ children, then they are without question victims, when circumstances such as poverty negate the possibility. Further, the unspoken assumption is that some one or some thing is responsible for alleviating the unjust suffering of these poor souls.
If one recognizes that the decision to have a child rests primarily upon the whims of the child-bearing half of humanity, then a re-statement of Dr. Cha’s thesis might be in order, to wit; ‘poor women deserve to have children.’
Why? According to Dr. Cha, it’s because the SNAP (food stamp) program helps a lot more people than just hungry moms and kids, it helps people with disabilities too. Furthermore, there is little or no fraud in the SNAP program. Therefore poor women deserve to have children. (Yes, dear reader, the absence of logic is profoundly disturbing).
Plus, ‘people refuse to let go of the image of the Cadillac Welfare Queen in all her racially tinged glory.’ In other words, poor women deserve to have children because you’re racist if you don’t agree.
According to Dr. Cha, we are all slaves to the idea that poor people have only themselves to blame for their poverty. The reality, she claims, is that ‘people are working hard, in fact harder than ever, and still can’t make ends meet.’ This might very well be true, however she doesn’t mention whether or not these hardworking people include some, most, all or none of the moms collecting SNAP. Dr. Cha is conflating two groups, those who are ‘working harder than ever’ and those who are ‘poor and deserve to have children,’ without demonstrating any particular connection between the two or providing any substantiating evidence.
One point which seems reasonable on its face is that ‘Our economic system takes the benefits of the work of many to enrich the few.’ There is almost certainly some substance to this argument: children are unaffordable because some employment is unjust. Unfortunately, Dr. Cha’s solution simply applies an almost identical injustice: let’s take from the many (citizens who earn a taxable income) and give to the few (the poor who deserve children).
Last but not least: if you the reader don’t agree that poor people deserve to have children, then you the reader are a raving lunatic with a morally repulsive mentality. That’s right; YOU are the problem (and probably a racist too, don’t forget).
Dr. Cha’s arguments consist of straw men, ad hominem attacks, irrelevant evidence, unsupported generalizations, an absence of recognizable logic, and most importantly, a complete failure to bring her assumptions and conclusions into the light for critical examination. Based on this work at least, a PhD ain’t what it used to be.
Her arguments also clearly transgress the boundaries of rationalism: they are indicative of a collectivist mentality which is profoundly female, based as it is on emotions, guilt-trips, false accusations and shaming. But the ultimate and totalitarian consequence of her position is even more disturbing: Dr Cha is openly promoting an increase in the use of force; yet more violence by the state against its own citizens. Accommodating the poor who want children (if we accept the premise that they ‘deserve’ it) can only be accomplished by forcibly seizing the property, and the very labor, of other citizens. Which is the greater injustice?
It is worth noting that in the past, many citizens voluntarily contributed their time, their energy, their property, their labor and indeed their very lives for the benefit of hungry moms and kids. These people were called husbands and dads. State violence against productive citizens (still mostly men) has replaced the voluntary contributions of those same men, and the collectivist demands of falsely-empowered females are the largest reason for this shift.
A quick read through the Demos.org website reveals that ‘Demos is a public policy organization working for an America where we all have an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy.’ It is apparent that ‘equal say’ and ‘equal chance’ are in fact synonyms for ‘equal outcome.’
Demos is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Kresge Foundation, among others.
