William Saletan's article F--- Off: Skip Work and Make Love for Your Country (Slate, September 13, 2007) discusses a strange issue of orders given by a Russian governor. A governor in Russia actually gave orders to employers to allow a day off from work in order for the employees to have sex. Although this may seem like a joke, the reasoning behind this was actually to increase the population of the country after a "radical decline" due to AIDS, drug abuse, and other population killers. Cash awards were said to be issued to couples who could give birth exacty nine months after the day that employees were alotted to have sex, and believe it or not, a main doctor said that due to a similar deal that
happened the prior year, "women delivered three times the usual number of babies on payoff day." A rebuttal to this story is that having women try for this prized day of birth will only cause women to induce labor which could possibly lead to premature birth. Would women really threaten the lives of their children for a cash prize, or would they pass up the chance to have a healthy baby? Also, could this concept be reversed to decrease the population? In countries where there are way too many people, could a government issue cash prizes to couples who refrained from having more children, and would the population follow through? Maybe not--sometimes human nature is hard to resist.
3 comments:
After reading this blog, I was dumbfounded at the fact that people were actually getting paid to have children. I believe that this is immoral because people may be trying to bring a child into the world based on profit instead of love. I understand that the AIDs Epidemic wiped out a mass amount of their population, but overtime through "natural" birth, they would gain back part of their population. Olivia makes a good point when she reverses the process of getting money for not having children. In countries like China, where you are only allowed two children (one boy and one girl), their government one day might pay them not to have children at all. Also, I believe that there could be a false inducement of labor if there is money involved. People do crazy things in order to make a profit, so I think that Russia is making a wrong decision in offering a cash prize if you have your baby on a certain day. Hopefully, Russia will reazlize what a mistake they are making and even though the Russian people will have to have one more day of working, they will at least not be cashing in on making a baby.
The Russian government may think that they are doing a good thing with the cash incentives and it seems to be working, but there are consequences. The government is not thinking about the long-term effects of their move. There will be a lot more induced pregnancies and a lot more complications later in life for the babies born exactly nine months after the sex day. A much better idea would be to provide a window of opportunity of about a month for the babies to be born. Combining this with the extended maternity leave and day-care subsidies for women who bear children is more likely to produce the results that Russia wants. This would still emphasize the sex day, but would also allow for more natural births and less complications for the children later in life. This of course will then lead to a healthier population then what Russia will have if they continue the present trend.
disagree with the Russian government's idea to re-populate thier country. To bribe married couples, single mothers, and just plain single women is a dangerous idea. The people of Russia think that having a baby would be worth a prize, but later realize they were not ready for the responsibilty of taking care of a child. So now the children become a sense of regret and maybe even a burden to these people who were bribed by thier government. Also, trying to have a baby on a certain day means they are forcing themselves to become impregnated, and that could be dangerous to the mother and the child. The answer doesn't lie in controlling the birthrate, it lies in healthcare and preventing those deadly diseases from killing off thier population. The government should put more time into solving thier pullution crisis, so it is safe for the families in Russia. In fact, I think that the suicide rates will go up within time if the government still bribes it's people. Too many childre
n to handle could result in the parents thinking they can't provide for thier family, and then they turn to suicide. Bribing for a population increase may not be harmful right now, but in the future it certainly could be. Russia could reach thier population goals and then become over-populated because everyone was participating in the bribery. The saying, "If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to want a glass of milk." can relate to this situation. The Russian people could get so prize-hungry that when the government stops thier bribing, they could turn on them.
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