I was originally planning to write about my close encounters - the times I almost found myself the star (i.e. the victim) of one of those horrifying murder-mysteries. Seriously. I'm still going to write about that, but there is something I just have to comment about first. And if you still don't know what that is, I suggest that you look at the title again.
That's right - the two-child policy. For those who don't know (and I deem it rather problematic if you haven't at least heard of it), the two-child policy is a move by the Philippine government to control the nation's population which has been spiralling out of control. The two-child policy itself is part and parcel of a wider program, which includes information dissemination on birth control methods. Specifically, what the two-child policy does is to provide incentives for couples to have just two children (i.e. if you have two children, you can avail of certain social priveleges, something you will not be able to do upon the birth of the third child onwards). Thus, it is a little different from China's one-child policy (and not just because one is different from two), where, in very simple terms, only the first child is free while the succeeding children are subject to an exorbitant government tax.
That's it, basically. I don't want to explain any more than I have to. If you have questions, you can either post a comment and hope that I'm in an especially patient mood when I get to read it or, and I think this is the better option, look it up in the Internet yourself.
For the purposes of this discussion, I will be focusing on the two-child policy itself. I will be setting aside the information dissemination campaign that accompanies it because, firstly, this is something that has been done before and, secondly, while controversial on its own, it's an issue that I do not find particularly interesting.
CHAMELEON SOFIA
1) Birth Control: Is government intervention justified?
The main opponents of this policy argue that the decision about the number of children to have falls in the private sphere and, therefore, beyond government mandate.
False.
The government, the ideal government anyway, has the responsibility to protect people from other people, which is why it has been said that "your right ends where your neighbour's begins." Also, the government has the right to protect people from themselves, which is why suicide is technically a crime.
In this case, the danger to other people is clear: more babies = more citizens = spreading the already thin resources of the government to a wider base. In other words, the standard of living of the nation will forever be limited by the mismatch, to say the least, between the resources of the country and the people who can legally claim a right to use them. The danger to the self of too much children is also clear. Despite the economic argument, which I find particularly weak, of how children equates to economic resources (i.e. the more the merrier), I posit that more children pose a drain to the resources of the family. This is especially the case when the nature of economic resources, as influenced by globalization, is characterized not by the number of people but by the quality of their education. In other words, there has been a shift from a manual perpspective of people to a service-oriented one. In the former, where resources are procured by mere reproduction, the logic of giving birth to an entire barangay may hold ground. But in the latter, where investment is necessary before the end goal of service-proficiency can be arrived at, the logic does not hold ground.
Indeed, child control is not a private matter. Because it affects both the self, the family, and the entire nation, the government has both the right and the responsibility to step in.
2) Effects of Government Intervention
To say that the government has the right to step in is not to say that the government should step in in this particular way. That much is clear. So the nature of the policy itself, its effects, should now be discussed.
For the purposes of this discussion, I will be putting aside religious objections. While I believe they should be considered, especially in a country where 98 % of the population ascribes to the particular religion that is so noisily objecting to this, I also believe that, at the end of it, religious considerations are secondary. And I don't say this because I am an atheist or an agnostic. I stand by the principle of separation of church and state. The Philippines is not, after all, a theocracy. Whether this is good or bad falls beyond the scope of this discussion.
The main effect of this policy is clear to me: the commodification of children. Children become an economic good with a corresponding price attached to them. This, basically, is what the policy does.
Well, that way of putting it was scandalously harsh. But I think that this effect has been around for a long time. With the advent of Adam Smith's free market, everything has been subsumed in the totality of economics. Everything, even people, now have a price. To say that people are removed from this is completely absurd. Economics has to be considered when having children - after all raising children cannot be done on pure will alone. The physical realm is necessary for this, and it just so happens that this physical realm now operates according to price.
Besides, I think that what should be given importance to is the quality of life. Once again, I am not saying that, in order for people to turn out good, there has to be the presence of an environment characterized by so and so materials. Of course not. As an avid reader, I am well aware of people who rise up from squalid conditions and achieve greatness. And I applaud them for it. But I also believe that it is important to be reasonable. For every person that is able to do that, how many people aren't able to do that and instead go on the opposite path? The fact is that the environment has something to do with how the individual turns out. That's the old equation of nature + nurture coming into play. And because of that, I think economic consideration are very important and should be considered in this.
Indeed, I have no problem with using an essentially economic equation to look at children. I think that this would be better for them, as it would introduce the consideration of factors, formerly ignored, that determine the kind of life they would have. And I think this is important, as there are some kinds of lives that are essentially dehumanizing.
3) Alternatives
It may be argued that the two-child policy is a rather extreme measure and that other policies may achieve the same goal without causing as much as ruckus as this.
To that, I ask: what alternatives? I think everything has been done before. Information dissemination, on its own, is not new. It has been undertaken by non-governmental organizations, even if the Church has been against this since forever. No tangible effects have been seen.
I am more than willing to be proven wrong in this. I welcome new ideas. But I am not delusional.
Don't expect me to praise an alternative that does not exist.
Conclusion
And so I end this entry with a clear, albeit not that sophisticated or inlusive, stance to the two-child policy.
The Chameleon will make additions when she deems necessary. Or when her interest in this topic, which has been temporarily exhausted by her recently concluded non-stop typing marathon, is piqued again.
Source of picture: http://www.univie.ac.at
No comments:
Post a Comment