Dear Editor,
I recently heard Senator Ruel Reid call for a mandatory policy to limit Jamaicans to having no more than two children for at least the next 10 years or until we improve economically. This might sound like a great idea at first glance, but is it really?
I have a few concerns about such a policy and its implementation. First and foremost let me make it emphatically clear that children are produced from sexual intercourse between a male and a female. The last time I checked this is an activity that is usually done in private. The million-dollar question is how do we monitor such activity to ensure that women are not impregnated a third, fourth or even fifth time.
Let us be practical, under this policy what would be the penalty or consequence if at all a woman was found to be pregnant a third or fourth time? Is it that if she is found to be pregnant beyond her quota the doctor would be bound by the law to abort the child, or is it that after the second experience of childbirth the doctor would also be lawfully bound to tie the tubes of the female and/or perform a vasectomy on the male?
Another question of contention is how do we monitor or even curtail the sexual practices of some of our very promiscuous men who sometimes find themselves in the situation where two or three women are pregnant for them at the same time. The truth is we can't even get some of them to wear condoms and we have been preaching this safe sex practice from "salt fish a shingle housetop".
How do we prevent person from simply behaving irresponsibly; like getting drunk at a party and going home and having unprotected sex with someone you meet that very same night, or going to the beach and having sex in the water with that cute guy or sexy girl you met there.
In the final analysis, such a call can only be described as arrant nonsense, clearly the good senator did not think it through before he made the call.
We need a serious culture change and this can only be achieved by a rigorous education programme not necessarily for this generation but the next. Let us seriously focus on the children that are now at the early childhood level to ensure that they are constantly exposed to good morals and values.
Gary Rowe
Coleyville PO
Manchester
magnett0072004@yahoo.com
Two-child proposal arrant nonsense
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I recently heard Senator Ruel Reid call for a mandatory policy to limit Jamaicans to having no more than two children for at least the next 10 years or until we improve economically. This might sound like a great idea at first glance, but is it really?
I have a few concerns about such a policy and its implementation. First and foremost let me make it emphatically clear that children are produced from sexual intercourse between a male and a female. The last time I checked this is an activity that is usually done in private. The million-dollar question is how do we monitor such activity to ensure that women are not impregnated a third, fourth or even fifth time.
Let us be practical, under this policy what would be the penalty or consequence if at all a woman was found to be pregnant a third or fourth time? Is it that if she is found to be pregnant beyond her quota the doctor would be bound by the law to abort the child, or is it that after the second experience of childbirth the doctor would also be lawfully bound to tie the tubes of the female and/or perform a vasectomy on the male?
Another question of contention is how do we monitor or even curtail the sexual practices of some of our very promiscuous men who sometimes find themselves in the situation where two or three women are pregnant for them at the same time. The truth is we can't even get some of them to wear condoms and we have been preaching this safe sex practice from "salt fish a shingle housetop".
How do we prevent person from simply behaving irresponsibly; like getting drunk at a party and going home and having unprotected sex with someone you meet that very same night, or going to the beach and having sex in the water with that cute guy or sexy girl you met there.
In the final analysis, such a call can only be described as arrant nonsense, clearly the good senator did not think it through before he made the call.
We need a serious culture change and this can only be achieved by a rigorous education programme not necessarily for this generation but the next. Let us seriously focus on the children that are now at the early childhood level to ensure that they are constantly exposed to good morals and values.
Gary Rowe
Coleyville PO
Manchester
magnett0072004@yahoo.com
Two-child proposal arrant nonsense
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