I'm in favor of using simulators in medical training,

but I doubt that this one will discourage many wannabreeders. What we really need is something like the "Toddler" robot that I saw in an old short story. To get a license to breed, a couple had to spend a year with a robotic kid. The thing did everything that real toddlers do except piss and shit, and it made up for that with an ear-busting screech when it was low on fuel or decided that it wasn't being fawned over enough. It also had an uncanny knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time (Sex? Forget it!). At the end of the story, when the couple decided that they didn't really want a kid, the Toddler, in an adult voice, congratulated them. The voice belonged to the thing's remote operator, whose duty was to make sure that only the most determined potential parents got that license.

I loved the remote operator idea. He could do obnoxious things that no pure robot could do, such as pouring a bottle of bleach into Daddy's briefcase (and giving Mummy and Daddy demerits for leaving the bleach where a toddler could get at it).