Door to door charity collection

Unauthorised door-to-door collections for ‘charity’ are getting out of control in some parts of Birmingham. I have a particular gripe about them because many years ago, I handed a pound over to a cold caller claiming to be collecting for a Mosque. An hour later, I saw the same person coming out of a bookmaker. Now of course it is perfectly possible that he did not mingle the charity collections with his personal money used for placing bets, but somehow I doubt it.

The point is bigger than my solitary experience of many years ago. Unauthorised door to door collections are wrong, plain and simple. And not only because they are irritating and a nuisance for people. There is no way of knowing if someone is genuine. In a sense, it is also emotional blackmail. If someone knocks your door and tells you in an emotive tone that he is collecting for a refuge for poor orphans somewhere in Pakistan (and most collectors in our area are Pakistani), what do you do?

State-funded fatherlessness

There is an interesting story in the Daily Mail about a welfare-dependent woman who obtained free fertility treatment on the NHS and is now raising a fatherless child (all ingredients to get the Daily Mail on its high horses). Fertility ‘treatment’ has been around no doubt for as long as humans have: either in the form of concoctions that you consume or rituals that you perform to enhance fertility. Nevertheless, there is an important question: is there a human right to fertility services and is the desire of the woman to conceive the only factor worth considering? Like many things, there is no right or wrong answer. As a minimum, the state should not help bring into the world children who will be fatherless. The best environment for a child to grow up in is with both parents.