Poverty & Child Malnutrition

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AcrobatMan

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Why do people who cannot feed themselves produce babies and let them starve ?

Why cant they abstain or use some other means not to produce child.

Yesterday I saw some very disturbing picture of living small childs in skeleton and bones on my television. What right has their parents got to produce childs when they cant feed them.

Obviously the ideal way would be to eliminate poverty but ..

A child suffering from hunger is the worst site ever, believe me.

Thats why I dont want to watch television except for sports.

AcrobatMan
 
I've always wondered about that too. My question is, if you are starving and ravaged with disease, how can sex even come into the picture? I don't understand that.
 
I can't believe that the outrage is at parents who are unable to feed their children, and not at the inequalities in this world which leave millions of people with no food or clean water.
 
Hmmm.
there is so many poverty that you must have a lot of children to be shure that some of them will survive. Children are important because they suppose to take care for their parents when they are old.

And one of the reasons that they are so poor, we do not chiar our richdom with the third world. I do not want to forbid poor african people because that will be arrogant. the western world ( 25 % of the worldpopulation ) consume 75 % of the world recources.
 
Rono said:
I do not want to forbid poor african people because that will be arrogant.

Well said, Rono.
I'd love to see the reaction from people in the US and Western Europe if people from Africa attempted to instruct them on how to live their lives.
 
Fizzing - Obviously you didnt understand what I am trying to say.
I was just trying to question why people should produce children
when they know most of their children will starve to death. There is absolutely no outrage. Infact I am surprised by your reaction.

I am not also talking about why 25% of the people has 75% of the resources and things like that. That could be done in a seperate thread I suppose. We know that poverty should be removed, we also know that it cannot be removed. Thats not the point anyway.

AcrobatMan
 
AcrobatMan said:
Fizzing - Obviously you didnt understand what I am trying to say.
I was just trying to question why people should produce children
when they know most of their children will starve to death. There is absolutely no outrage. Infact I am surprised by your reaction.

I am not also talking about why 25% of the people has 75% of the resources and things like that. That could be done in a seperate thread I suppose. We know that poverty should be removed, we also know that it cannot be removed. Thats not the point anyway.

AcrobatMan

Sorry AcrobatMan, my post wasn't intended to sound confrontational or anything. I thought you sounded angry at the pictures you saw of children who are dying from starvation - I know it makes me angry, it's a completely natural response.

The fact that there are such inequalities between rich and poor in the world is absolutely relevant to this thread - it's the reason that the poverty you described exists. And of course we CAN remove poverty - there is enough food in this world for all it's inhabitants, there's enough money to provide clean water for all, to provide safe homes for all and to provide education and healthcare for all. Whether the elimination of poverty ever happens depends on whether rich countries have the will to do so, not whether the world has the resources to do so.
 
I would NEVER presume to tell anyone, regardless of what country they live in, that they have no right to bear children. I am not outraged that people in starving African nations continue to produce children, I am more sad and confused by it.

I know children are the future of every country, it just saddens me to know that in some countries, they are not going to live to see their second birthdays. I hold no anger or contempt toward their parents...they are the ones who have to watch their children die.
 
Bono's American Wife said:
I would NEVER presume to tell anyone, regardless of what country they live in, that they have no right to bear children. I am not outraged that people in starving African nations continue to produce children, I am more sad and confused by it.

I know children are the future of every country, it just saddens me to know that in some countries, they are not going to live to see their second birthdays. I hold no anger or contempt toward their parents...they are the ones who have to watch their children die.

Exactly my views
 
I guess the situation re: child raring for those people living in poverty is no different to anywhere else in the world. For starters, sure they are some of the most impoverished people you could ever see, but they fall in love, get married, have sex lives, they desire to have families like all of us. The poverty they experience is something unfortunately I expect is not accepted as such, but I guess normal. I suppose that really they are all aware of how differently we all live. They may not have tv and other media, but they cannot be ignorant. I'm sure they know other countries and cultures are different. Poverty is something they would do anything they could to overcome, but it is a huge issue. To rise out of that I think would be different to rising out of our own version of western poverty, that being unemployment, homelessness, destitution. We dont have a whole country of people living the same way. It isn't comparable I guess, but I think it is more possible where we live to overcome those things.

I see what you are saying for sure. It would be so hard for them. The knowledge that the child you are bringing into the world is destined for the life of poverty you live must be heartbreaking. But I have no doubt the desire to have a child is too strong to ignore. Rarely can any of us say we are happy with the circumstances we hope our child will grow in. We dont face the challenges they do, but they, like us, must surely hope for the best and know they will try their absolute damn hardest, to help their children in any way they can.
 
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