This guy just litters the world's consciousness with tacky inflammatory comments. He takes no consideration of the wider social, political and cultural contexts. Why does the Dominion Post give him a column? Oh that's right ratings. How sensationalist, snore. And his argument is that if you're not a "contributing" member of society you should not have the right to exist. Who determines what "contributing"is and to whose society? And the blame is largely laid at the feet of woman. Pick up your game Mike - think a bit.
MICHAEL LAWS
Produce the licence or forget about reproducing
Having a child should require a demonstration that the child has the real opportunity for a future, and the real chance to
be a positive contributor.
ONE OF the great superstitions of our time is that animals are people too. From the dreamy anthropomorphism of
Disney to the midnight raids of animal activists, a belief has sprung that we have an especial responsibility for all
sentient non sapiens.
In essence, they are little people – only with horns, hides, trotters and beaks. And instead of being here as a food
source or mode of entertainment, our job is to treat them as a kind of disabled kiddy.
In fact, the disconnect is so total in parts of the West that biology lessons, explaining the origin of supermarket meat,
are accompanied by health warnings and smelling salts. Every vego and vegan is still recovering from the trauma.
New Zealanders are not immune to such nonsense. Cats and dogs are treated as mini-children, the SPCA thunders its
outrage every second week and we are about to liberate mad pigs from their pens. It will end up just like community
care – gibbering masses on street corners having incontinence problems.
And we do a special line in outstanding upset whenever any case of animal cruelty hits the courts. Throw a rock at a
seal or tie a firework to a cat's tail, and you are immediately labelled a psychopath.
In the Oamaru District Court last week a new wrinkle was added to the old question: what is more important – a human
life or that of an animal? On this occasion, the animal won.
Cue Sheryl Santos Teriaki. She is a 19-year-old who has been convicted of a particularly nasty case of animal neglect
involving dead, dying and emaciated dogs, over a four-month period.
The district court judge was disposed to send her to jail but took a look at her burgeoning belly and opted for house
arrest/community detention instead. Indeed Judge Paul Kellar made it very clear that only the six-month-old in her belly
saved her from prison.
But then he did something quite strange. He banned her from owning any kind of dog for the next 10 years. Bad girl.
Yeah, but it gets better, Teriaki has been a very active bad girl. Despite already having a child, she has managed to
acquire two other criminal convictions – both from last year. One, for beating up her then partner and a second, for
drink-driving. The animal cruelty conviction is her third in 11 months.
Which explains the proximity of prison. And the dog banning.
Yes, but Teriaki is allowed to have a human child. She is deemed unworthy to own a dog but a kid is just fine.
Contrast this with adoption in New Zealand. The adoptive parents are put through a series of excoriating tests to
determine whether they would be worthy parents. It is a searching examination of not simply the physical environment
that will be provided to any child, but the psychological fitness.
Apply those tests to every child being brought into this world and I'd bet many parents would be a fail. But no, we let
everyone breed.
I would like to think that any child that Teriaki turns out will be an educated, empathetic and contributing member of
society. A taxpayer, even. But I won't be holding my breath that she won't simply contribute to our feral underclass.
Because Teriaki – and those like her – are provided with an assumption that must be challenged. That everyone has
the right to have a child.
If any woman is manifestly unfit, subnormal, drug addicted and destructive then we might tee up Child Youth and
Family to wait in the delivery room. But only after the child is born.
Cue another six months pregnant, mum-to-be, 35-year-old Isabelle Kare Brown. You will remember her from last week
because her lawyer Tony Bouchier did the unthinkable and petitioned the court for her to be locked up rather than freed.
She was living rough, hopelessly addicted to anything, and had been so for years. It is unclear whether she evolved into
a feral or was made one.
Two previous children have been removed from her. Of course, CYF put that in a kinder way when responding to the
court. Their exact words were "Her history of serious drug abuse, mental health issues and transience means we have
grave concerns about the wellbeing of her unborn child."
Yet we still allow Brown and all the other damaged ferals to breed. Indeed, as I have pointed out before, we actively
encourage them through our welfare system, our state housing policy, our legal aid programme and endless
sympathetic social workers. There comes a stage when a society has the right to protect itself from the bad decisions
of others. And of acting when it anticipates harm.
In these excessively libertarian times, our society allows rights to people who should not have them and are not in a
position to exercise them responsibly. Which leaves two options. Either we involuntarily sterilise these pathetic
wretches. Or we offer financial inducements for them not to have children.
The reality is that having a child should require a test. A demonstration that the child has the real opportunity for a
future, and the real chance to be a positive contributor. Instead we work on the opposite tangent: have as many kids as
you like. But if you want that dog? Prove yourself.
mlaws@radiolive.co.nz
