A 27-year-old man who fathered eight children by eight different women in Virginia, USA, was recently offered a plea deal where he agreed to undergo a vasectomy or tying his sperm tubes as a form of sterilisation, in return for a reduction of his prison term by up to five years.Derrick Aarons MD, PhD is a consultant bioethicist/family physician, a specialist in ethical issues in medicine, the life sciences and research, and is a member of the Executive Council of RedBioetica UNESCO.

He had been charged with child endangerment, hit-and-run driving, and driving on a suspended licence. The prosecutor in the case said she offered the man the deal in order to prevent him fathering more children as she said he needed to be able to support the children he already has when he gets out of prison. In this regard, she said the man and the state both benefited from the deal.

One may criticise this decision as ‘using surgery as a form of punishment’, but it may also be viewed as using surgery to provide a utilitarian benefit to society. It is also a moot point whether making such an offer to an incarcerated person constitutes coercion into surgery and sterilisation, and whether it should be used as a part of a criminal justice case. Should there be a limit to a person’s right to reproduce?

Could this approach work here?

Men who ‘sire’ children without any parental support or input in the child’s upbringing is a pervasive problem in Jamaica. As much as 70 per cent of families across Jamaica are single-parent, matriarchal families, and while some mothers have a visiting relationship with their children’s fathers, many children grow up without any significant relationship with their fathers. Many irresponsible fathers prefer to live alone or away from the mother or mothers of their children since that allows them the freedom to date new women, proffering themselves as single and available.    

Further, in our culture, women are often pressured into having more than one child, even if they cannot financially or emotionally afford them. Even among more educated persons, there is a pressure by both men and women to prove their fertility and fecundity repeatedly with the belief that ‘no children nuh starve inna Jamaica’.   ‘Wha’ happen?  Yu nah have another chile?  Ah wha’ wrong wid you?   Da one deh wan’ company!’   

For many, the purpose of life is to have many children, no matter what.  No consideration is made regarding the possible outcome in life for such children who did not ask to be brought into the world, nor the accompanying responsibility that parents have for 18 years of commitment from infancy to adulthood.   

The quality of life for children in Jamaica

We should always deliberate on the quality of life for the numerous children brought into the world, the responsibility parents have for providing adequate nurturing, nutrition and emotional support for each child, and ensuring a good education for all offsprings. The children will need all this in addition to fair opportunities for them to succeed in a very competitive world. Families in Jamaica have very limited resources to adequately raise children, and so the more children they have, the smaller the resource slice for each child is going to be. Being able to reproduce does not mean that you should reproduce. Circumstances matter.

In light of all this, as Jamaica moves to firmly establish plea-bargaining into our criminal justice system, and as numerous irresponsible men populate our jails, shouldn’t we contemplate how their children or society can benefit from the type of sentencing imposed on them?

China’s ‘one-child’ policy

At the other end of the ‘reproductive rights’ spectrum, China’s ‘one-child’ policy has been criticised by some as having a negative effect on the common good. Whilst that government has claimed that the policy has benefited society through raising living standards, reducing overcrowding, and helping to relieve poverty and under-development, critics claim that the one-child policy has inflicted massive suffering and state-directed violence against women.   

Some say the coercive policy has a grave, negative impact on women, including the side effects of contraceptive use, conflicts between a couple’s wishes and the State’s population goals, and the permanent emotional distress that occurs as a result of failure to produce a male child in the Chinese society.   Over the past year, China has altered the policy so that parents who themselves are only children, may have more than one child.    

Our time might come

Due to the outward migration of many of its inhabitants over the past 50 years, Jamaica has not yet had to face many of the social issues that currently exist in China. However, as barriers are placed by developed countries that significantly reduce our migration to their shores, it may only be a matter of time before we also will have to make substantive decisions regarding population control in our small island state.