Sir David Attenborough said humans are a plague upon the earth and I agree. With a population of 7.5 billion and increasing rapidly, the world is vastly overcrowded with finite resources quickly being depleted. Despite this no nation on earth is taking the problem seriously. This includes Scotland and the UK. Here are some examples of discrimination against the childfree and anti-natalists:

1. Taxation: Housing and Child Tax Credits and Benefits. I am paying for the children of people who are far wealthier than I am.

2. Children’s Education and Childcare. About a quarter of my council tax is spent on this.

3. Travel on buses and trains where space is often taken up with prams, buggies etc. in disabled areas and nothing is done about it.

4. Concessionary or even zero fares for children on all forms of transport is also very unfair.

5. Parent parking at supermarkets, leisure centres etc. very near to the entrance. These people are not disabled. They should be treated like everyone else.

6. Advertising and the media is totally natalist biased. Everything is geared to selling to an increasing number of consumers, regardless of the impact on the environment. Every birth is considered a miracle as it fuels the fires of consumerism, which it seems are inextinguishable. The BBC (Big Brother Corporation) is probably the worst for this parent and child worship; it’s not called Aunty for nothing, patronising natalist nonsense that I have to pay £12.12 a month for.

7. Maternity and Paternity leave for something which is purely a life-style choice.

8. Political rhetoric regardless of party is all about the family, members of that family and creating the next generation. If you are not part of such a family you are instantly deemed an outcast and ignored by ALL political parties and effectively disenfranchised.

9. The police too, who seem to think that if you don’t have kids you are a second class citizen that doesn’t matter. This happened quite recently with a visit from the police about a noisy and unruly neighbour with her dysfunctional family of children and grandchildren. It was implied by one officer that I should just have to accept the noise and disturbance of children and their parents.

10. And finally individual politicians. Responses from MSPs included being ‘offended’, ‘puzzled’ and that ‘I should not look down on parents’. I received no reply from Nicola Sturgeon or the Scottish Government.



My petition is submitted therefore to highlight this blatant political and institutional discrimination, and suggesting areas where the law and social attitudes need to change, so that population growth can be curtailed instead of being encouraged. And as parents consider they have such a ‘stake in the future’, then surely they are the ones who should be paying for it. Time for some personal responsibility, instead of expecting society as a whole to pick up the bill.