Its later than you think

but doesn't that kind of thing lead to the government having the power to decide in advance of a person becoming a parent who is likely to be a good one? this might seem an obvious judgement re: say heroin addicts, but what about people in recovery? people with unspent criminal convictions? people with unusual or (very) minority religious or political beliefs? people with a mental illness? people with learning disabilities? people judged to be too poor to provide for a child? people who fail some notional parenting test because they have ideas on child rearing that conflict with the (current) best advice (advice that changes every ten years)? i see slipperly slopes and big brotherdom there. (also, the right would probably want assurances that parenting licences not be issued to The Evil Gays. and if/when they're back in power we'd be in a world of crap.)

i would rather see social services properly funded (e.g. paying wages commensurate with the importance of tasks like child protection) and a properly interconnected network (so that kids can't fall through the gaps) to better help the children who do have awful families. i'd be totally opposed to any legislation that even smelt like it was designed to control who can and can't reproduce.