There have several debates around the birthing choices of the poor demographic of the society. This article was inspired by the movie - Capernaum which I did a short review on yesterday. Poverty sucks on several levels, but there is nothing more heartbreaking than children having to suffer for lack of basic amenities like food, shelter, and safety. These are non-negotiable rights for every child.
There are people are of the opinion that you shouldn’t have kids unless you can afford to care for them financially. The poor happens to always be at the receiving end of this conversation for obvious reasons.
“Why have kids when you know you’re poor?”
“What use if bringing children into this world just to watch them suffer and resort to begging on the streets for food?”
All touching arguments which I’m not totally against, however, poor people have rights and choices to live as they wish. Arguing that their birthing rights should be limited is unfair and quite frankly ridiculous and impractical. A large portion of the population includes poor and middle classed people who have to strive to survive. Talk about workforce and consumption, limiting their ability to reproduce will definitely take a toll of the world economy.
Poor people do not make a choice to be so. The problem lies with the governing body of the society. There are structures put in place to ensure that the poor stay poor and the rich get richer. It’s an unfair world we live in. Arguing that poor have less children sounds logical but that is an oppression on oppression. Like the poor aren’t oppressed enough already.
Personally, I think it should be up to every individual and family unit to decide how many children they want and when. It is classism for the elites or the fortunates to sit on their privileges and dissect the reproductive rights of the poorer class.
This is a rather sensitive topic, one I think we should approach with a little more understanding and consideration. Speaking out of concern for the children, I think that those who are too poor to give kids a decent life should at least reduce how many kids they have. Quite frankly, most children who have preferred not to have been born than live the life they have been dealt.
Both out of consideration for the children and the parents who have to go through unthinkable circumstances to provide for their children. The little boy in Capernaum - Zain, sued his parents for giving birth to him. You know what? I don’t blame him. Zain never had a break, from one pain to another heartbreak. It did help that his mother was expecting another child in addition to him and his four siblings in the little shack they lived in with little to nothing to eat.
Out of concern for everyone involved, I think poor families should prioritize family planning(even that is a luxury) to control how many they have. The financial burden of caring for one child is already enormous, talk more of four to six with a low income or no income at all. No one, no child deserves to live life like Zain in Capernaum.
But such is life.
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