What can you really do about it?

Every so often there are issue which make you question your principles about what should and should not be the business of the state to deal with.

One such issue is something I read about twice while in hospital, the tale of a woman from Luton (pictured) who is pregnant with her 14th child, and the fact that the other 13 have all been taken into care. Apparently her sister has called for her to be sterilised.

This is the point at which I found my libertarian instincts in question because the idea of the state sterilsiing anyone forcibly is repellent, and yet, at the same time, here we have a woman that is quite literally a baby-making machine who has made clear that she will keep going until they let her keep just one of them.

Now, don't get me wrong here, perhaps she really is going to be 14th time lucky. Perhaps, if the baby is born without defect - previous ones apparently had some severe disabilities which evidently the parents couldn't cope with hence the charges of neglect etc - she will be a decent mother this time? The thing is, what if she isn't, and, in 18 months time we see her in the paper again, saying the same thing whilst pregnant with number 15?

Clearly her actions are irresponsible towards the society around her, and also selfish to the children that she's already given birth too and then neglected. However, I just cannot bring myself to support any call to have her sterilised to stop her from doing it. That would be as bad as China's one child per person policy which can enforce abortion by the state.

Seems to me the only thing you can really hope for is that as she's now 36 the menopause hits her early and she only has another ten years or so to keep reproducing. Meanwhile, the taxpayer will have to keep on supporting and funding her offspring in foster care, or hopefully they can be adopted into loving homes.

The choice is simple. Take the cost and hit of supporting this woman's irresponsible actions and chastise her royally for it too; or take a step down the route of the extreme social engineering Left national socialism and communism, and have the state decide who can and cannot have the freedom to procreate.

I know which I one prefer even if it does cost a bit more money to deal with.