Sunday, July 09, 2006

The wrong KIND of babies!

Remember the problem of the declining population in Scotland. Those were the days eh? "Move to Scotland" they exhorted young people, especially university graduates. And they told the Scottish to be more friendly to in-comers. Now I notice there's a slightly different plan afoot. They're going to make drug and alcohol addicts promise not to have children. I guess the first plan worked too well. I guess they're trying to ease off on it now... Or is it? Maybe they want more babies in Scotland but only the RIGHT KIND of babies.

Here's a radical solution: how about offering support for kids throughout their childhood so that it's possible for the kids of drug and alcohol addicted parents to become university graduates?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Well, why not? After all, penniless smackheads in need of methadone are rational people! In fact, I have an even more cunning plan. You get them to sign a Social Contract promising not to take any more drugs. See, there's always a simple, money-saving answer to complex socio-economic problems if you only think outside the sanity box.

/rant

The Daedalus humour column in Nature once suggested putting methadone in contraceptives, so you couldn't forget to take them but would have to make an effort of will to come off them and have kids. It makes more sense to me that way round.