Mayor Wants to Pay Parents Not to Breed

A New Zealand mayor is being criticized for suggesting that "problem parents" should be paid not to have children.

Michael Laws reportedly said there would be "less dead children and less social problems" if known criminals were paid to be voluntarily sterilized, according to news.com.au .

"There is a group within our society who give their children no hope nor opportunity from the moment that they are born," the regional mayor wrote on the Web site of a New Zealand radio station where he hosts a talk show.

News.com.au also reported that Laws went on to write: "It would be far better for this appalling underclass to be offered financial inducements not to have children, given the toxic environment that they would provide for any child in their care. ... The consequent financial and social savings to our community would be considerable. ... There are too many people who should not have children."

Laws denied making some of the statements, which were originally posted in the New Zealand Dominion-Post . In a new post on the radio station Web site he wrote that, "A 'Dominion-Post' story by young journalist Simon Wood saying that I suggested welfare beneficiaries be sterilized is completely wrong, I did not say that and I have never said that."

New Zealand has the third worst rate of child deaths due to maltreatment among member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and it is ranked fifth for both child beatings and sexual abuse.