Do you think persons with very low IQs (just slightly above the retarted level) be allowed to have children?

Question

I know of someone who has two children. One was taken by children's services and the other is not getting any proper stimulation at home. (The father who is also "delayed" exposed himself to teach his daughter about certain sex acts). Child services has tried to take the second child but the mother has always managed to "squeak by." She left her partner only after intense pressure from outsiders. The teachers at the school actually had to sit her down and tell her that she should not be teaching her kid to throw snowballs at vehicles, etc as if they were addressing an adult child. She cannot even add up one dollar in change without using a calculator and sometimes even that comes out wrong. Should there be an IQ "cutt-off" point for having babies? (I am not making this up).

Answer 1

only if their a risk to the saftey of the kids, or are going to be unable to bring them up,

but just because your a bit stupid doesnt mean you cant have kids.

Answer 2

I think anyone should be allowed the blessing of children, intelligent or unintelligent. People with extremely high IQs don't neccessarily make successful parents, and the same goes for people with lower IQs. There's a very intelligent father I know of, who's raising his two young children in a very strange, unnatural way. It's a shame that public services are trying to take the child away, I think the mother seriously needs some professional help. Is there a public hospital that could give her a psychiatric assessment and help if she (and it sounds like she does) needs it?

Answer 3

No, there should not be an IQ cut off. For those of you younger folks (probably most of you on Yahoo Answers,) you are probably not aware that in the not-too-distant past, there was forced surgical sterilization of the "feeble minded" (which is one of the many terms that used to be applied to people with developmental disabilities.) Unfortunately, many of those people really didn't have low IQs; they were misdiagnosed because they were hard of hearing, or had speech and language delays, or came from a "bad family" or any number of other conditions that wouldn't have precluded them from being good parents.

What I really have a problem with is people who, for whatever reason, are unable to provide a healthy environment for their kids. This isn't especially linked to intellegence or to income; there are plenty of people with high IQs and lots of money who are irresponsible parents.

Having said that, though, I will also say that as a professional working with people with special needs, most people with low IQs need a lot of help and support to be adequate parents. It's hard enough to give appropriate stimulation and guidance to our children under the best of circumstances, and those who don't really understand what kids need in order to become successful adults will inevitably fail at the job.

Personally, I think that anyone who cannot take adequate care of their children for whatever reason should not have them. But there should never be a determination for who should "be allowed" to have children. First of all, the criteria could change dependent on the social climate. What if the powers that be decided that blue-eyed blondes should not be allowed to reproduce? Or people of a certain religion, or people whose families had a history of heart disease, or whatever? Secondly, how would you enforce such a law? Sterilize the "undesireables?" Force them to have abortions? Take away their babies at birth? Any of these are just way too ugly for any civilized society.

What I would endorse is a legislated way of ensuring that the needs of children are being met. I would prefer that children remain with their parents whenever possible, but with mandatory support services if seriously inadequate parenting was documented. For example, I know a child who acts out in serious ways at our school. He is almost 8 years old, and he says sexually inappropriate things to other children at school. His mother admitted to me that she can't control him, that he has repeatedly done things like taken a hammer to the windows of the house, or smashed furniture with a golf club, or run into the street chasing cars as if he were a dog. She also doesn't see anything wrong with him still sleeping with her every night, in the nude! (She wears a nightgown, but the child sleeps naked.) These situations have been reported to child protective services, but because there is no proof that he is endangered or abused, they file a report and that's that.

So I would certainly support a law that would mandate that parents who can't control their kids (and who don't see the problem with 2nd graders sleeping naked with them each night!) need to accept in-home assistance, parenting classes, and demonstrated progress in order to maintain custody of the child. But there is no way you can mandate "allowing" someone to have babies without getting onto a very slippery slope which has already been slid down in the past.

Answer 4

With all of the babies born to "normal" parents that beat their children, kill their children, or allow them to drink vodka so they will go to sleep, and you are worried about a person with a developmental disability parenting children? I think there are many with what would be seen as "higher IQ's" that are not fit parents. I think that teaching people to care for kids might be a better way to go. Just sterilizing people due to a developmental disability would put us closer to Nazi Germany than I would care to be. I think they would be more receptive to teaching than "normal" people are.

I think if you want to worry about parents, worry about the ones that are hurting/killing their kids. You will find those people are normally not in the "developmentally disabled" grouping in intelligence.

Answer 5

You dont have to be intelligent to LOVE someone. I absolutely do not think that what happened to that woman was fair in any way shape or form, The gov't could never justify taking that child away from her mother. This has probably been the saddest thing I have ever heard.

Answer 6

Mmm, sounds like a lot of parents I know. Used to be called the "proper" way to teach kids about sex ed as well.

Cant keep them from having kids. Maybe if society was actually accepting of people like them rather than shunning them they would be able to get help and guidance from the start, rather than being persecuted, forced to break up their marriage and having their kids forcibly taken away from them.

Answer 7

I believe that yes, they should be allowed to have children, why deny their happiness? I know some people with high IQs that shouldn't be allowed to breed at all. Just because some people have a high IQ, doesn't mean that they'll be good parents, or even good people. Oh and by the way, my IQ is 128.

Answer 8

She can't continue to 'squeak by' if they go to the school or park outside and wait. Keep calling them and sooner or later, they will be able to take the child. She is NOT in a good invironment.

Answer 9

There are so many guidelines for having children that I wish they could enforce. We can just add the iq level on our wish list cause unfortunately it can never happen. There'd be no way to regulate it.

Answer 10

in this case she should not have the children sounds like child herself but it she gets help and super vision yes id hate to see anyone loose there children