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Necessity and Enforcement of the PFC Law
It is tough to implement any law, especially for the first time. But
when a certain law has many times the potential than any other social
mechanism, the resources at the disposal of other social mechanisms
should be diverted instead towards its implementation. There is only
one real reason why the PFC law ought to be enforced. The reason is
that it is the fair thing to do. Fairness will then be truly maintained
because it is applied to the very birth of humans. Fairness in life
will automatically follow fairness in birth. The only reason we’ll ever
need to enforce this law is that it’s the right thing to do. It is the
only way the infants born in this world can be required to be treated
fairly. It is the only way we are going to put a bar on human value, a
permanent bar that is not allowed to come down. A bar on human value
that is immune to changing circumstances and times. A bar on human
value that can only be increased with the passage of time but never
decreased.
A law that can make a thousand other laws redundant and unnecessary
while making the absolutely indispensable ones more potent. A law that
achieves many long-aspired goals and thwarts many imminent catastrophes
at once. A law that causes global prosperity, population control and
environmental sustainability at once. The law which ought to have
existed before any other law. Such is the PFC law. However, like any
other law, it will be no good, even with such wonderful potentialities,
if it is not effectively enforced.
The PFC law truly is, the law that ought to have existed before any
other. For, without requiring that birth be under respectable
conditions, we cannot successfully require that life be under
respectable conditions. If we do, then we would need a host of other
laws to govern and safeguard that human dignity and respectability in
every matter and detail; at every place and at every time, which
obviously as history has shown, is not only impossible, but also
ineffective. We cannot successfully require a person who was born and
brought up in an environment where he or she was exposed to the
anti-social elements of society to conform to the rules of society.
When suffering can be reduced or even eliminated, it is a crime on the
part of the law-enforcers to allow it to continue to happen. If we do
not secure the dignity of man, we will see the undesirable consequences
of our inaction in our lives, behavior and our very thoughts. Our
thoughts and actions will always turn out to not be in conformity with
our intentions. We will be in a state of helplessness. It will be like
some evil power is acting through us, affecting our behavior, actions
and even our thoughts.
When the currency of your country gets devaluated, the value of the
money in your pocket gets devaluated. In the same manner, as human
value is devaluated throughout the world, because there is no
sufficient safeguards or ‘policies’ to keep devaluation in check, your
value decreases. Your value will decrease because you are part of the
human race that is increasing in quantity and decreasing in quality on
a general basis. Unless safeguards in your country keep the standard of
living or quality of life from dropping.
We have seen how important it is to secure the child. We have seen how
important it is to nip the buds of all suffering at the childhood stage
and never to allow those buds to take roots and hence grow to full
stature. It will not be easy, however, to require all humans to meet a
certain financial capability requirement before they produce offspring.
There ought to be a specialized and well-equipped government division
which thoroughly checks the nation for offspring born into environments
that do not meet the basic financial capability requirement. If and
when they do find such a case, the parent should be warned and
prohibited from having any more children without meeting the basic
financial capability requirement. If any more children are born without
the financial requirement being met, either parent will have to go to
jail for at least a couple of months or have to suffer some other legal
penalty. The other parent can stay behind and take care of the child
while the government will provide the financial backing to make up for
the absence of the other parent. In this manner, the government will
not be trying to blindly alleviate poverty through schemes or subsidies
for the entire lifetime of the poor, but punishing those who pass on
poverty to the next generation while at the same time having to provide
financial support for only a few months. The law would become effective
in preventing poverty and a drain on the nation’s wealth. If the parent
who has returned from jail has another child upon his return, a much
more harsh legal penalty needs to be implemented. For example, a longer
prison term or sterilization, whichever is acceptable to the offender.
In this manner, a person is warned twice before he or she comes under
the heaviest swing of law.
Alternatively, a person who breaks the PFC law could just be sterilized
or sterilized after being warned once or twice, and hence prevented
from having any more children. It would then be a far more potent law
in itself, but may not be really effective because it would probably
cause human right issues and disfavor among the public. Forced
deportation or exile to another region within the country would have
much the same effect, but if there are too many PFC law breakers, the
government would have to provide for all the children left behind.
Forced sterilization of the woman (or tubal ligation as it is called)
is another possible legal penalty. It would be effective but involves
serious surgery and all associated risks. Vasectomy, on the other hand,
is performed under local anesthesia to sterilize a man and is
reversible in the majority of cases as opposed to tubal ligation.
Forsaking the extreme measures, we could instead try the most moderate
legal penalty, a compulsory family planning education session, a free
family planning kit and an option to go for sterilization, performed
for free by the government. Which approach would work better? The
penalty for breaking the PFC law could just be a compulsory session on
family planning. No one said the legal penalty has to be harsh and
cruel. I even have a feeling that the moderate penalty would work
better. Moderate or extreme: I cannot say which approach will work. A
type of approach that works in one country may not necessarily work in
another. Either way, the approach that finally works has to be pursued.
A fair life for every human being cannot be achieved without first
achieving a fair life for every human child. Not the other way round.
Whatever is needed to achieve a fair life for every human child must be
done, not by using up new resources, but by diverting existing
resources from other purposes.
Or we could have a combination of both the moderate and extreme legal
penalties. There are so many possibilities. As stated through out the
book, the first and most important action would still be to bring the
PFC law into existence, with a very moderate penalty at least. We could
later work out a combination of moderate or extreme legal penalties in
each country. One combination of the moderate and extreme legal
penalties could be: On the arrival of the first child into an
environment that does not meet the PFC law requirement, the parents are
required to attend a compulsory family planning session. In addition to
this, they are given free family planning kits and an option to go for
sterilization, which is also provided free. On the arrival of the
second child into an environment that does not meet the PFC law
requirement, a strict vigilance and control over the family finances
with the child’s welfare in mind, by the government, would need to be
effected. On the arrival of the third child into an environment that
does not meet the PFC law requirement, forced sterilization of either
parent or a few months in jail could be the legal penalty.
However, if moderate penalties are not effectively enforcing the PFC
law, and we hesitate to implement extreme legal penalties, the day will
certainly come when we are absolutely forced to do so, human living
conditions having deteriorated to a correspondingly unbearable extent
We are ultimately setting the living standard for tomorrow when we set
a certain financial capability requirement to become a parent. The
higher the requirement, the tougher it will be to enforce it. So,
instead of requiring a sky-high financial capability requirement, we
probably ought to start off with a moderate but slightly above average
level of financial capability requirement to become a parent.
Suggested
Plan of Action for Developing Countries
International
Efforts to Secure Child Rights
World leaders 'Say Yes' for children
Setbacks and Successes
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