The Editor, Sir:

Persons who wish to drive or own a car or boat or want to get married or have a business, will need to seek permission and clearance of the state in order to do so legally; what a person can do without a licence is have a child. You can actually create a precious human life without instruction or legal examination, but you can't drive a car without permission from the state. Which is more important, the life of a car or the life of a child?

This is not about permission to have sex; this is about the responsibility of creating a human life and how it will change your life. There has to be some type of system so that we can stop all these innocent children from being killed emotionally, mentally and physically; it's not fair to them. Every year, thousands of the children we've created so carelessly are being starved, beaten or otherwise traumatised, hundreds of them die. And that doesn't include the ones still walking around.

Too many children abused

There are too many children being abused, tortured, mutilated, and killed in our society, not to mention the 12 and 13-year-olds whose stomach has already taken on the contours of a football. It seems too common a story in the news these days and I think such mandatory testing would benefit not only the children, but the parents of this country. We have seen an enormous amount of children who didn't get what they needed at a critical stage in their development, so they go through life thinking the world owes them something. And indeed we do. But sadly, we can't give it to them because that critical skylight of time has passed.

Parenting is a huge step and one should be prepared for it. The Government has a responsibility to look out for the safety and protection of the children, and I agree that much should be done to help everyone become acquainted with those issues. Many people may believe this system would be an invasion of their privacy, but really, this is asking parents to do what the laws said they should. I want to point out that just because something will be abused doesn't mean it shouldn't be tried, and I want to point out that our many other licensing policies still exist despite the occasional abuses.

Rights

We do have the right to be a parent, but no right is unconditional. My right ends where your freedom begins. Under what conditions do we have those rights and, then, under what conditions are those rights violated? Why, for example, should the right to be a parent depend on the means of become-ing a parent? The destruction of life is subjected to moral and legal examination, so too should be the creation of life, whenever and however it occurs.

To prepare children for life as adults and to protect our children from ill-treatment, this attitude towards children must be disentangled. Licensing is a workable way to protect children. Furthermore, it would increase the likelihood that more children will be adequately prepared for life as adults than is happening now. People need to understand that caring for a life and changing the future of the world with each and every child they have, is an awesome responsibility, a responsibility that should be met only with enough knowledge and training to be successful.

I am, etc.,

LERON MATTISON

leronmattison@yahoo.com