Lafollette and Parental Licensing

From guest blogger, Olivia.

Lafollette suggests that people obtain some sort of license before become parent to regulate less than ideal situations in which parent are not fit to take care of a child. Examples of parents being unfit mostly because they are financially unstable or too young to successfully take care of a child. He compares a child bearing license to a driver’s license that regulates who on the road in the way that would certify that those with the permit have acquired and proven a certain level of knowledge.

His argument is criticized because if a necessary license was implemented it would unfairly disenfranchise minorities and seems like slightly mirror eugenics, especially in such a broken system like the United States. Lafollette would say that it’s still moral to have a process that would help regulate a society in which parents who are ill equipped, so that is not common.

I think there is a more compelling in argument, to say license for driving a vehicle in fundamentally different that regulating when people decide to have children. People generally attempt to earn a driver’s license purposefully, whereas people who have children when in an unstable financial situation, generally are not looking to have a child in that situation. Many children that are born in the United States are the result of an unintended pregnancy. There are also better ways to prevent pregnancies. Sex education and access to resources and contraception and perhaps a raise in the minimum wage would be more productive means to reducing the number of unfit parents that allows people to have autonomy.