Reply #111: Good questions, and a substantive topic,

[LWolf]

even if you seem determined to object to my engaging in it.

Honestly? I hate the idea of authoritarian legislative control over reproduction. I don't, though, trust my species to be responsible just because it's the right thing to do. If we could, there wouldn't be an issue. I don't think we should do nothing while the population doubles in increasingly shorter spans of time.

To start at home in the U.S.:

Turn tax deductions upside down. A generous deduction for those with no biological children, a smaller deduction for those with one biological child, no deduction and no tax for 2 children, and a carbon tax on every child past 2.

Education: A massive effort to educate the populace of the world about the need for responsible reproductive choices.

Also, a cultural shift away from children as the means to self-completion.

Free birth control, sterilization, and abortion on demand across the globe.

What else? Something more aggressive? I'm not on board with it, but my mother has, for decades, suggested:

Automatic sterilization of males upon puberty, to be reversed when they are educated, self-supporting, and able to support a child.

When I pointed out the gender inequality in this idea, she replied that vasectomies were safer and less intrusive than tubal ligation, and that if a way could be found to do the same reversible process for girls, she'd be all for that.

I don't think I'd support something like this unless better, and more reliably reversible methods were available for both genders, and unless the less restrictive solutions were not working.

Still, we require a license for pet owners. Why not for parents?