An Immodest Proposal

Although Train's speech implied a need for severe environmental regulatory measures, he said it was not necessary to accept "the dire hypotheses and methods underlying some of the more extreme predictions." A decidedly dire method of population control was advanced last week by the California social welfare board. The board's proposal for reducing illegitimacy in the state smacks ominously of Anthony Burgess's satiric novel The Wanting Seed, in which phony wars, homosexuality and cannibalism were officially encouraged as antidotes to overpopulation.

Specifically, the board suggested that: 1) a mother who bears a third illegitimate child should be deemed "morally depraved" and required to hand the child over to the state; 2) the mother of an illegitimate child must name the child's father within six months after giving birth, or relinquish the child; and 3) girls 16 and under who bear an illegitimate child could be considered "incapable of providing support" and lose the baby after a court hearing. Said San Francisco Representative John Burton: "What's easier to attack than illegitimate children?"

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