bizzarely enough, no, I do not support this idea

1) surely this is a MASSIVE breach of peoples rights?
2) how do you decide what you need for a liscence?
3) if someone has no liscence and gets pregnant, are you telling me we should FORCE them to abort it or put it up for adoption? seriously?

The criteria and definition of a "good parent" is way too broad and subjective. Sure there's the "exception" options, with qualities that unanimously are agreed as being bad for child rearing. But, what about raising kids religiously? Doing certain surgeries on them, or refusing certain medical procedures? What about different views on the importance of education?

All I can see a license doing is simply trying to prevent the certain "exceptions" from happening (negligence, abuse, etc). But, I don't think that'll really help, as those "exceptions" should be common sense anyway.

Regarding enforcement, I don't think you really could without vastly changing the political (constitutions, etc) and ideological landscape.

The closest thing I see as feasible is to withdraw any financial or social support to people who have children without authorization. And even that would surely generate a shitstorm...

As much as I think that some people shouldn't be parents, I don't think I can support something so controversial.

I know, I understand your point completely. To use the example you gave. Like Communism, Eugenics looks good on paper; but when it is put it into practice it generally does not work well.

I'm glad you do, not many do and think I'm fucked up in some way. The funny thing is that I am extremely liberal yet I support the removal of a system that keeps so many people up and going.

No.

Or rather, I would support a parenthood license if and only if a fair and reliable means of predicting who will be a good parent and who will not could be devised and applied. I don't believe that such a test is possible, and so I do not support any kind of parental licensing.

That's the kind of crazy idea I'd only expect to see in sci-fi movies featuring all seeing government intervention and strange curfews for no reason other than control. Most kids are accidents. There's no way around that. We won't be able to get to a point where enough people plan to have kids and will responsibly get a license to obtain the rights to have one.

It's because people aren't meant to be totally logical beings.  At least that's why Eugenics doesn't work.  Communism doesn't work because there are limited resources and few people are content with what an "average" amount of resources could provide them with in the long run... and get jealous when someone who does something they see as less important is equally compensated.

OBJECTION!

The USA army still needs soldiers!



......


Just a joke before someone gets serious offended.

Not really. Eugenics implies control, which mirgro doesn't seem to be advocating. If anything, he (she?) seems to be advocating the opposite: removing an existing degree of control over people's lives, and allowing the negative consequences which that control ostensibly prevented to take their natural course.