Imagine you are a 54-year-old homeless man addicted to cocaine. Imagine your significant other, a 35-year-old homeless woman with her own drug problems, is the mother of four children, three of whom you fathered. All four children have been placed in foster care because you have no ability to care for them.
And now, you may not have any more children under penalty of law.
In a March 31 ruling made public last week, Family Court Judge Marilyn O’Connor of Rochester, N.Y., issued a startling decision: Rodney Evers, the gentleman in question, and a woman identified in court documents as Stephanie P., may not procreate until they prove they can look after their children.
The case, reported in an article by The Associated Press that ran in The Register-Guard, raises an interesting and important question: Is the right to procreate absolute?
Certainly, the facts of the case are dispiriting. Evers and Stephanie have problems so intractable that it is difficult to imagine the couple ever pulling out of them.
They have shown no ability to help themselves in order to better their future. They rely on the foster care system to sort out the results of their irresponsibility.
And yet, if the ability to have children isn’t one of those “unalienable rights” Thomas Jefferson wrote about in the Declaration of Independence, then what is an unalienable right?
Granted, the right to procreate isn’t explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, but neither is the right to bake cookies or any of the other rights we exercise with nary a thought. A right to procreate also runs consistent with the history of judicial interpretation regarding the 14th Amendment, especially given the Supreme Court’s ruling in Eisenstadt v. Baird. In the 1972 case, Justice William Brennan wrote, “If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.”
If you are going to have a constitutional democracy that gives its citizens basic rights, you must accept the fact that some will use those rights irresponsibly. Gun owners will kill people, criminals will get away with crimes and racists will spout hate speech.
Learning to deal with these problems in a way that doesn’t infringe on citizens’ rights is part of having a mature society based on freedom. Though it might annoy Judge O’Connor, Evers doesn’t forfeit his right to procreate simply because he is homeless and addicted to cocaine.
Interestingly, the article notes that O’Connor’s ruling has “outraged civil libertarians,” as well it should. But Americans should view the concept of an American civil libertarian as redundant, like so-called “free speech zones.” Just as all of the United States is one big free speech zone, so should every American proudly wear the label of “civil libertarian.”
Thankfully, O’Connor stopped short of ordering the couple to use contraception or obtain an abortion should Stephanie become pregnant. To do so would have sparked valid comparisons to China’s one-child policy or Oregon’s own deplorable history with eugenics.
Unfortunately, Stephanie did become pregnant two weeks before the judge’s order, family members said, and O’Connor could potentially jail Stephanie for contempt.
This would help no one. The state failed Evers and Stephanie — and Evers and Stephanie failed themselves — far too long ago for intervention to do any good.
Whether or not Stephanie goes to jail for a few days, she will likely become pregnant again. Such is the frustration of dealing with the poor. They often fail to help themselves and even continue self-defeating behavior, whether due to poverty, a lack of education or simple helplessness.
In any case, violating the right of Evers and Stephanie to procreate isn’t the best way to solve this problem.