Listening to Freakonomics (and reading the book) has reinforced an idea of mine. They often talk about the fact that a real analysis of some situation or system in society gives us answers that we don't like to hear. They site examples and raise questions like, "is college worth it?" and "did the legalization of abortion lower crime?" Things that may be reasonable and true, but that people repel away from.
Society is built on a lot of erroneous assumptions that we are more comfortable with than the truth.
I see a lot of problems that have solutions that are Soloman's baby solutions. If you'd just be willing to cut the baby in half, you could solve the problem, but no one would be happy and no one is willing to do it. The difference is that some of the solutions I can come up with are not going to sacrifice any babies.
Take abortion, for example. The problem is that some people find abortion to be equal to murder and feel that it should never be allowed. While you would have a hard time finding anyone that would tell you that abortion is a great thing, you have a lot of women each year that choose to do it as a way to prevent other problems. While there are probably some that do it because they were not wise with birth control, and this is the whoops method of birth control, that's pretty hard to defend. Many do it because they are not ready and feel they would not make a good parent, and trying to raise a child would limit their ability to get an education and place themselves firmly in the middle class. Other's should not even consider bringing life into the world, as they are completely irresponsible or addicted to drugs.
My thought is that in an ideal world, there wouldn't be a need for abortions, but there also would not be any unwanted children brought into the world. We talk about human rights, and I believe one of the most elusive human rights should be that each child should know that their parents really wanted them to come into the world. This follows one of my other theories that one of our primary problems is that there are just too damned many people to begin with, so saying life is precious clearly is not how we're treating it. Life is common. We should treat it like it's more precious, and we should make it more rare, rather than more common.
My solution to the abortion divide is that we put children on birth control as soon as they are able to conceive. Once they are 18, married or in a stable relationship, and financially secure (or in a position to expect to be financially secure), then they can be taken off birth control. And I don't just mean women, I mean men, too. My fantasy solution would solve another large problem, solving a lack of male control over procreative decisions. This imbalance must be responsible for a portion of the divorce rate for men who are pressured into having families that they do not want. The default should be that you're not able to have children until everyone involved is ready and agrees. Then you could plan for the timing make it happen without undue complications or unwanted circumstance.
If you follow the consequences of this line of thinking, it solves a whole host of problems, not the least of which is teen pregnancy and children having babies.
Enacting a public policy that makes birth control mandatory for all pubescent teens under the age of majority will never happen. The problem is that everyone feels their position has to be respected and because of this, no compromise is possible. The "do nothing" option is the default. I'm not saying that solutions such as these do not have problems inherent in them or will not need to be administrated fairly and subject to modification or exception in some cases. I'm saying that you have to be careful doing these things, and you have to state up front what your intent is, and then you have to monitor the unintended consequences and adjust your approach along the way. But over all, you have to make some decisions and put some policies in place that will seem strange at first, but solve the problem in the long run. Good solutions will take into consideration objections from each end of the political spectrum, and find answers that address most concerns while moving society forward.
I do believe a world in which every person is brought up knowing they were planned for, had high hopes pinned on, and were loved before and after they were conceived would be a much nicer place to live.
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