Welfare Letter
 

Dear Guvmint:

This is the best job ever! Alls I gots to do is get pregnant once a year and the money keeps rolling in. Billy Bob only make 5 bucks an hour over washing dishes at the truck stop, but since I been poppin' out these young'uns I get an extra 6000 bucks from our tax return every year. Not to mention the free housing and health care.

Ooops, gotta run...Billy Bob is home on break and wants him a quick somethin'.

Thanks again,

Your ever faithful employee,

Marletta

You must work for a social service or a hospital. :D

lol...something like that. I'm not (as you know) completely oblivious to the plight of the poor...but I see so many renderings of the above fabrication that every now and then I just want to smack someone. ;)

I'm so jaded.

......................hey look! I'm shutting the hell up.
No mo' commi'ent.
:)

If there is someone wanting to help there are 10 who want to take advantaged of him/her.

If there is someone wanting help there are 10 who are taking advantage of him/her.

Funny how many people in the "helping" professions become jaded over the years. I join you.

How do we convince poor and/or less educated people to stop reproducing? I'm actually being serious here.

I don't believe we can, nor should we try. Maybe a better solution is to give them the education and choices required to prevent unwanted pregnancy. It would be a pretty cheap thing to do and much less expensive then having to pay for another welfare baby. Just my thoughts.

You mean the "you don't deserve to have children" message won't work?

Well we did try a bit of Eugenics in the US before so it might work, but how would you convince the bleeding hearts?

Well, the straightforward action would be to take away all incentives that come with having them--no more tax credits, no more welfare...

But there's that pesky also-hurts-the-innocent-kids side to it.

Problem with removing incentives is there are two issues at hand -
1) Those that are having children to live off the welfare system and
2) those who are just poor and ignorant (srsly). Not bein mean.

The first group would try to find some other way to abuse the system and the latter group would suffer terribly because they were/are unwittingly having children. I thought the implants (norplant?) would have some impact on this issue, but then it became a moral issue with preventing them from reproducing... human rights something blah blah blah.

Oh and yeah - don't forget there are kids involved here too - guess the whole adoption thing coulda helped out there, but it doesn't seem to be.

Some young adults get screwed on educational benefits in this country as well, by choosing to work, live on their own, remain single, and not have children yet. Help with school? Hey, you make a whopping 13 grand a year, you don't need funding. Now, if you'd find a way to get yourself a kid...

Education should be accessible, to the poor, but also to the middle. The incentive for many lies in using the system because let's face it, Burger King wages pale in comparison to the other side (unless, of course, you work in Financial Aid...then BK wages start looking pretty good.) :)

I don't know the solution. I have empathy for the poor. I love to see the success stories I see. I believe in helping others. (The tax credits, well sorry, I don't think making a $6000 profit on your tax return is fair to the childless; yes it costs money to raise children but I neither made that choice for them nor got them pregnant, but I watch my total tax liability go to the opposite end of profit every year. Can't I just write my check direct rather than funnelling it through the IRS?)

However, having said that, I see many, many, many (did I say "many"?) people who knowingly, willfully, and without shame, play the system...year after year.

Eh, like I said, I'm a bit jaded. One minute my picture was next to the entry in the dictionary for "liberal" and the next I'm thinking WTF? Jaded, not jaded. Jaded, not jaded.

Trust me, McDonalds doesn't pay much more.

You've got a lot of company.

I thought you were being sarcastic when I read this. Then I realised it may not be the case in the US. Trust me, it doesn't work. We have the above and there are still people spawning recklessly and damaging another generation born into poverty, ignorance, bad parenting and all round stupid choices.

I suggest 3 year implants for every girl aged 14 unless there is a specific medical case against it. Okay, there are some who will get pregnant the day after it is removed, but at least they've had a chance to get through basic schooling by then.

Good luck with that. It would never ever happen here, because it would "encourage" those precious little snowflakes to have sex. We just had a huge hubbub about a new vaccine to prevent cervical cancer--there were actually large numbers of people who did not want the vaccine given to 12-year-old girls specifically because the cause of this particular cancer is an STD, and thus giving it to them was just one more safeguard for their immorality.

So true, Clodfobble. Incredibly sad and stupid and short-sighted (on their part), but true.

I third that thought!

Fortunately in the end it passed, in Texas anyway. I don't know about other states. What it really came down to in the end is that our governor is more beholden to the pharmaceutical lobby than the religious lobby. Not the best of reasons, but I'm still glad it worked out the way it did.

Well I will be saying a bit more than I want to about myself here but here goes any ways...

If you all have not figured it out, I work in the health care sector. Specifically I am a health care provider. That is all I want to say about that. I can tell you that a majority of people scam the system, in my limited experience of 30 years. It is not pretty. There is no easy fix. After a while you fold in on yourself and do the best you can for the people you care for, regardless of their personal situations or ability to pay, and in the end take care of yourself and your family to the best of your ability. Anyone have any experience slamming your head against a brick wall repeatedly? After a while all you get is a head ache, the brick wall only gets bloodied and remains indifferent.

wait - please. What passed? I missed it.

The "controversial" life-saving cervical cancer vaccine legislation.

What worked for you?

Working in health care destroyed me. Literally. When I quit I felt like I needed to be de-briefed and get PTSD therapy. The more you care the more you're burned.

:D
Sundae and Clod:
No. It wouldn't work because:People like me would get pissed about mandatory reproductive laws falling on girls (again) and say they have had enough!! I'm tired of women having to be responsible for every goddamned thing. We have always bared the burden for every fucked up social problem there is....screw that suggestion let's toss it. Here's one.


One word:Vasectomies.

K?

When the guy gets married,becomes a certain age, or is certain he wants a baby, and stops sowing his seed all over the field...it can be reversed. Which is the cause of so many welfare babies. Guys are fucking and running, at alarming rates. "dat ain' mi bebby" So before we even think to inconvenience women again lets attack the problem from where it stems.

Who remembers the male "pill"? What in the hell happened to that?!? Where did it go, and why has it not been released?!? This is bullshit...I get so frustrated sometimes....:yelsick:

Damn, V...that was cold. ;)

I'm cut from a different cloth...I've never wanted kids, so I was religious about contraception.

http://www.ppwp.org/education/progra...inkitover.html

A friend's daughter had one of these from school. They feel it worked...

Well said Cic!

OK, then we'll stand on principle, just leave it the way it is, and let teenage girls continue to get pregnant and fuck up their lives

I'm not so sure I agree with your vasectomy point, but a male pill would be more than a great idea.

I see where you are coming from Cic, but the truth is a teenage pregnancy has far more impact on the mother and the mother's family than it does on the boy or his family. Of course there are exceptions, but on the whole the boy just goes on with his jolly old life and knocks a few more hapless teens up for good measure.

I knew a lad whose teenage girlfriend became pregnant. As an "older woman" he felt he could talk to me more easily than his friends so I got the whole sad decision making process as it unfolded. They basically talked themselves into the idea of being together and baby makes three despite only having dated for a matter of weeks before the happy event. Last I heard he was away at Uni and "visited" the baby when he was back home for the holidays. So much for facing up to the consequences of his actions. And he was supposed to be one of the good guys!

Anyway, getting a contraceptive implant is not much more complicated or painful than getting a shot. Quick trip to the doctors and you're out in 5 minutes - you can't say the same for having a vasectomy, especially re the bruising.

With many women (myself as an example) it stops menstruation completely, so it is a bonus not a burden.

Anyway I know the policy is unlikely ever to be adopted in a country where teenage pregnancies are high, for many, many reasons from human rights to morality to religion. But I'd be all for it, if it did.

But that's precisely the point isn't it Sundae? The main effect tends to be on the girl, where the lad gets to move on if he so chooses. So...given a choice of where to focus our enforced interventions the state/society usually looks to the girl. If you're talking about interventions after the fact (dealing with the consequences) it makes a kind of sense to focus on the girl as she's easily identifiable as a mother to be. If, however, you are talking about enforced intervention pre-conception and targeted on a general demographic then there is no reason for the state/society to continue to focus on the girls.

Enforcing contraception to me is an appalling idea. Do you enforce it with all teenage girls? Or just the poor? Means tested, enforced medical intervention? Really? Or mass medication of half the young population? Quite aside from the complete violation of their human rights, what about the expense? That's a hell of a lot of contraceptives right there.

Education does have an effect. It might not feel like it when you look around and see all those teen mums...but it does. My area of Yorkshire had one of the highest (actually it may even have been the highest) rates of teenage conceptions in England. This means it has become one of our key performance indicators and thus large amounts of time and resources have gone into trying to tackle this, primarily through education programmes, but targeted ones: rates of teenage conception are much higher amongst looked after children and they're significantly higher in certain geographical areas and if parents were also teenage parents.

Last year we had the sharpest reduction in teenage conceptions of almost anywhere in the country. It's a way to go, but these thiungs help. Especially if you attempt to tackle some of the related problems at the same time. Basically a concertd effort by councils, health trusts and local community organisations and neighbourhood management boards.

I thought welfare mothers make better lovers.

I'd personally guess that generic pill contraceptives for everyone (about $40 a month per person here) would be no more expensive than all of the unplanned deliveries that would be avoided (base cost for a single c-section with no complications is about $10,000.)

As for human rights, of course the theory is that these are girls who don't want to become pregnant in the first place. If a program like this were really going to be put in place, of course there would have to be ways of opting out, just like there are ways of opting out of vaccinations. Nothing would be "enforced," it would simply be the default medical treatment, which could be altered for individual cases.

Seeing as how all the impact lands on the girl-like Sundae would offer....furthering my point, again, vasectomies. Yes this is a clear violation of rights. But we are speaking hypothetically still, and I say hypothetical vasectomies.

Implants are more harmful in the long-term (bilogicallly and/chemically) to young girls than vasectomies. Sorry.

@classic Europe was developing a pill for men when I was 15 and somehow that lost it's appeal and fervor, and still not used...not sure why. I'll go look it up.

New info:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3543478

Article on the male pill, according to this, it may lack funding. Wow.

Gee thats shocking - who is usually in charge of that decision? ---Men

Of course teenage girls only fuck teenage boys, right?

Except reversing vasectomies is actually fairly difficult and frequently unsuccessful. It is intended to be a permanent solution, like tubal ligation, not a temporary birth control.

Thank you. Just saw this thread, and the talk about vasectomies like they were a switch you can turn on and off was bugging me. Vasectomies should always be considered PERMANENT.

Nobody should be getting a vasectomy if there is even a small chance they will want kids in the future.

Oh come on its just a little snip

I think that there should be a couple conditions on receiving welfare (and the other attendant benefits, including medicaid and foodstamps). No more money for new babies, and regular drug and alcohol screenings. Test postive, lose benefits.

I see too many junkies who have full benefits, and are using the cash-based portions to keep using. My (and your) tax dollars at work!

Over and over and over again.

One of my crack whores is now pregnant with her 10th child.

She has somehow managed to give live birth to 9 babies so far. She does not care for any of her children. They are all in foster placements. At the very least her parental rights should be terminated so the kids can be put up for adoption.

Interesting note ... the medicaid will not pay for birth control, but it will pay to reverse a tubal ligation.

Hey! I have given hypothetical choices...

FWIW - I did my part - snipped and clipped.

I don't see how preventing pregnancies among girls below the age of consent can be considered a human rights issue. It is not preventing any woman from having children, it is merely allowing otherwise vulnerable young women the chance to complete their schooling at an age when society does not condone them being in sexual relationships, therefore does not consider them fit parents.

In the real world, I agree that the boys concerned should be targeted by education. Of course it should not be socially acceptable that teenage boys can act like rutting stallions, leaving behind girls to face 18+ years of single parenthood. But at present the bottom line is that apart from a financial contribution there is no way to insist that a boy remains with a child, whereas emotional ties and societal pressures mean that the girl will.

I am not positing obligatory contraception as a punishment for those bad, slutty girls. I am putting it forward as a way of protecting them - the reason I don't sugest it for boys is that they don't necessarily need the same protection. Currently it is girls that visit family planning clinics for free contraception, girls that go to the chemist for the free morning after pill. Boys are just as entitled to go (to family planning clinics I mean) and get free condoms. The fact that they don't means a huge change in behaviour and attitude has to occur BEFORE the main onus of contraceptions falls on men.

The response I remember from the first time the male contraceptive pill was mooted was, "Would you believe a man who told you he was on the pill?" and the answer among my friends and I was, "No!" Even in a committed relationship there was the attitude that a sleepy man asked, "Did you take your pill today dear?" might be included to mumble, "Yes" in the same way he would if asked if he'd put the bins out.

Whatever we want to believe re responsibility for contraception, what we would like to make equal, the bottom line is that no man has to face pregnancy and childbirth. Which means that a girl or woman who doesn't plan to have a baby will always have an added incentive to ensure they don't have one.

Great points SG. I guess until men start actually carrying the child and giving birth, the onus will have to stay with the women.