The problems of environment, war, regional conflict, unemployment and poverty have remained for too long on this planet. Because of these problems, the majority of us now live below acceptable human standards. If we had set a standard of human living and abided by it, we could have prevented these problems.

We can set and abide by a basic standard of human life most effectively by ensuring that humans are not born into poverty. If we do it now we can prevent further multiplication of these problems.

Requiring by law, a predetermined level of basic financial capability to become a parent will ensure that children are not born into poverty. This would make it more likely that they can buy medicines in case of disease, live in sanitary conditions, are less likely to go hungry and shelter less and would have access to better quality education and information.

As the proportion of the poor decreases, the government will not have to provide cheap transport, subsidized goods, free education and free healthcare. Money saved in this manner could be used to improve infrastructure and enforce law and order.

As the proportion of the prosperous increases, more people will be able to afford environmentally friendly resources and technologies. This would lead to a gradual decline in the number and magnitude of floods, famines, droughts and earthquakes. We can then continue our progress without causing a threat to our own survival or to the survival of other species.

A newborn child cannot earn the money needed to stay alive. We must ensure that its parents have the required money before it is born. If we take care of the basic block of society, namely, the child, we can make whole societies fair and secure.

Parents who do not have the financial capacity to support their children must be periodically identified and given a timeframe in which to attain the required financial status. If they fail to attain the required status in the given timeframe, they should be prohibited by law from having any more children until the financial status required is attained. Imprisonment for either parent for a number of months or some other legal penalty should be implemented if they have any more children without attaining the financial capability required. A child's right to food, shelter and education is infinitely more important than its parents' right to reproduce. This law may or may not be respected and obeyed at first, but if well enforced, it will prevent children from being born into poverty. It will secure the basic rights of every child to be born and hence the rights of every future adult in a reasonably short span of time. It promises a clean break from poverty and all associated evils.

The human race is facing various threats to its existence today. Our societies try to secure the rights of the adults. We need to realize that we cannot hope to provide for every adult unless we can first provide for every child. If defects remain in the treatment meted out to children, defects remain in human beings and hence in society. We need to realize that a fair and secure childhood is the right of every human child. That ensuring a fair and secure childhood for all is the secret to securing all basic human rights.

If we really want a way out, we must not let the next generation come into existence unless a life of dignity awaits them. We must disallow the possible birth of a child unless its parent has the required money for the child's well being and welfare. This would secure the child's needs and hence his or her well being to quite an extent. The basic inequality with which man has lived for all these millennia is all too easily ignored and forgotten. Mankind is different enough among itself without adding any inequality based on economic states.

We are now faced with a choice: To let the majority of mankind be the instruments of propagation and maintenance of an unfair and unacceptable way of life or to set standards that are human for all humanity and to set them in stone. Only when the bad standards propagate to us do we care. But is that wise? It requires far fewer resources to protect everyone if it was first made sure that there were enough resources to protect them before allowing them to be born. Don't allow anyone to be born unless we have the resources to give him/her a fair life. If not, doom is coming. Overpopulation and consequent horrible living conditions will choke humanity and leave it gasping for breath. Let it not happen. Let us not allow it to happen. All our worries would vanish if we would just put children first. Nobody should have to accept a standard of life lower than a standard that is agreed upon, internationally, as fit for a human being. As much as possible, every human being, until he or she can survive on his or her own should be given the greatest freedom of choice and tightest protection from outside forces and influences that inhibit his or her growth in any manner, whatsoever. It is the weak that we have to protect and not the strong. Parents should not be allowed to mould their children into whatever they have in mind. Rather, if every human being is to be the master of his or her own destiny, children should be allowed to make choices independent of all outside influences, including parental, as much as possible.

A human being can be born anywhere - in slums or in a well-off family. You and I could have been born in the slums instead of in well-off families. Every child born in the slums could have been born into a well-off family. There is no law that ensures that such a thing happens. A law upholding such high standards of living may be impossible now, but one upholding commonly accepted living standards is not. Presently there is no law effectively protecting the human right to live like a human being, with basic decency and self-respect. If we can't give that to every human being, then we shouldn't allow birth of humans where we can't give them the respect they deserve and the basic amenities they need to survive. If we can't afford to keep five pets at home, then we'll keep just one. Similarly, let's not have any humans where we cannot provide them with what they need to survive. This is a universal truth: As quantity increases, quality decreases. As the quantity of human beings increases, the quality of their freedom, of their food and shelter, of their education, of their very life, undoubtedly decreases. And the world population is rising steadily.

Failure of Democracy

Today, most countries follow democracy. Why is this so? The people of a country ought to decide what is best for them and democracy ensures that the people govern themselves. This is quite the opposite of dictatorship. But is it close to our real ideal? Doesn't anyone of us want to live in a perfect world? If people govern themselves, make the laws and decide their future, is that close to perfection? Of course it isn't. Perfection is every human being treated like a human and not a single human being treated like an animal. Will democracy erase the sheer hopelessness into which most humans are born every day? The endless poverty? No, it won't. Let democracy remain as a system that prevents tyranny and dictatorship. But let there also be better laws to prevent human birth into poverty. Since the people make the laws, it's in their own hands whether to attain perfection in their society, if they abhor poverty, if they care for every human who is to be born, they will do it.

The majority, the billions of people living in less than respectable, inhuman conditions, who inhabit the earth today cannot be ignored. Their ways of living will affect those who live otherwise because they are the majority. We hail democracy as our savior but it is hardly worthy of such a title. Democracy will ensure that the poor majority will make the decisions in the poor countries and those decisions, though benefiting the poor, will not also stop short of bringing the rich to the level of the poor. With the population explosion on the horizon and especially the poor being the major contributors to it, the degradation of living standards is not only imminent but also inescapably obvious. Why is something so obvious being chosen for blatant dismissal and disregard in the minds of the billions who inhabit the earth today? With poverty comes disease, crime, injustice, pain, sorrow, overcrowding and more poverty. And all of it is going to spread and make itself the accepted standard of living. Every evil has its root in poverty.

Democracy fails because it tries to secure the interests of adults and not the weaker and less independent portion of the population, who are the children, who are, without doubt, the more deserving members of the population. Also, for a society to be stable in the long run, its very basic blocks need to be secured, namely the children who are the citizens of tomorrow. 'Democracy + Child Protection Law' is the perfect solution to the need for social order. The Law protects infants and children who cannot voice their opinion or run their country. Democracy is the self-governing, decision-making machinery run by the adult population section. The law should protect the interests of the infants and children who exist today as well as those who are yet to be born while democracy will protect the interests of the adult population. But in today's world, with much sorrow I have to say, that both Democracy and Law is used to protect the interests of adults almost exclusively. How foolish we have been! Using all the great ideas of democracy, justice and equality and the governing machineries based on these principles exclusively for the protection of adults! Laws to protect children (especially since they cannot vote) ought to be powerful, all pervasive and unstoppable in order to be effective.

Because children are so carefree, and seldom complain, we take it for granted that they are happy. But have we treated them fairly? Even the child who begs seems happy. A normal life is the right of every child, whether it complains or not. Stop trying to create jobs for all the adults. It will get us nowhere. We have to start from the children. If we cannot take care of them now, then certainly we cannot take care of them when they're grown up adults. Stop trying to provide higher education to everyone. If the children don't get their basic needs fulfilled because there is no law that sees to it that it's done, whatever is done to provide education to the youth will not be much effective, the education being of lower quality and not being within the reach of all. Because, if there is not enough for infants, how can there be enough for youngsters? If there's not enough for youngsters, will there be enough for adults?

And so all our social work and social order is futile because it serves to secure mainly the interests of the adults, in a democracy, where only adults vote. This is where democracy fails. It asks the opinion of adults, not the weaker, younger, dependant portion of the population, since they are too young to voice their opinion or even think for themselves. So instead we must have a powerful law that secures their interests and thus fill this void that democracy cannot hope to fill. Democracy does not secure the weaker, younger dependant population. The law that makes up for this shortcoming, the Parenthood Financial Capability Law, is the message of this article, and is the plug that can fill a large gap in democracy and hence make up for its greatest shortcoming. To achieve maximum effectiveness, this law secures the interests of children to a reasonable extent before they are even born. Basic needs of human beings, which are greatest and most disregarded at childhood, have to be secured for equality, justice and harmony to follow. These in turn would have ensurThe problems of environment, war, regional conflict, unemployment and poverty have remained for too long on this planet. Because of these problems, the majority of us now live below acceptable human standards. If we had set a standard of human living and abided by it, we could have prevented these problems.ed peace, national security and harmony. We have fought for equality and justice. Now we have to fight for the rights and needs of every newborn child. We really don't have to fight for them; we only have to make their existence a prerequisite to parenthood. For, if we had done so in the beginning we wouldn't have had to fight for equality or justice, peace or freedom. All these would have followed, without the bloodshed it required otherwise. The greatest inequality is the inequality among newborn human children. The greatest injustice is the one committed to a child when he is denied food and water. How can any nation be at peace with itself when more and more such injustices are being committed each day?