This one caught my eye this morning when I was semi-comatose in front of my sister’s television. It woke me up, rather.
Drug addicts across the UK are being offered money to be sterilised by an American charity.
Project Prevention is offering to pay £200 to any drug user in London, Glasgow, Bristol, Leicester and parts of Wales who agrees to be operated on.
The reasoning is that it is for the children. To avoid children being born into a potentially abusive household. While long term contraception may make sense for someone who is in the middle of addiction, sterilisation takes no account of changing circumstances such as the addict kicking the habit, meeting someone and deciding that they want to have family.
It is, of course, a regurgitaion of an old – and discredited – idea. Yes, it’s our old friend eugenics in another guise.
A chap I know runs the local council tax benefits assessment unit, (a deserved promotion as he’s the only one there who seems to both know about and care about the job).
Before this he had been a heroin addict for 6 years.
So yes folks do change.
I find this “charities” activities most disturbing.
No prizes for guessing what the money paid to the addicts will be spent on.
Hmmm….
I thought that eugenics was something that was practiced on its hapless victims without their consent, in which case this proposal is significantly different.
That’s not to say that:
– it’s not without moral or philosophical concerns as outlined
– the bandits won’t try to use this as a foot in the door towards the real thing…
Well, yes, that very thing was discussed with my sister.
PG, I think it all depends on how consent is obtained and the circumstance surrounding the individual, doesn’t it? An addict desperate for a fix is hardly going to be taking a rational decision made with all of the possible downsides balanced against the benefits. Unless someone is able to give consent completely free from any coercion, then I don’t accept that it is properly given. Dangling two hundred quid in front of an addict is a form of coercion. Would they do it for no money? I very much doubt it. It is because of that, I see the parallel with earlier versions of eugenics.
No it isn’t. The problem is of babies being born permanently damaged due to the drug addiction of their parents (predominantly the mothers I suspect). Even in the BBC report you have linked to (and presumably not bothered read) the women is quoted as saying “it was the only way to stop babies being physically and mentally damaged by drugs during pregnancy.
So it really is a ‘think of the children’ moment.
I know not all children of drug addicted parents are born with major, permanent, disabilities and the process of sterilisation is a one-way process that the patient may not understand the consequences of. But it is not quite as simple as being ‘our old friend eugenics in another guise’
PG,
If you’d listened to R5L this morning* you’d have had the usual calls for it to be extended to all drug addicts as a compulsory measure. I know its a fallacy but the slippery slope is very slippery in this case.
*Yes, I know, but I was waiting for the news and sport, honest!
I find the whole enterprise immoral and also completely wrong-headed. Vasectomies are in more than half of cases reversible (at taxpayers’ expense). Sterililization of women can cause serious long-term health effects (early menopause, osteoparosis) which will also require medical intervention at our expense.
I can see a case for a financial inducement to accept a contraceptive implant if the primary aim is to prevent the conception of children who will be damaged by drugs and alcohol. But no, this zealous bunch seem intent on removing a group of the unfit from the breeding pool, and that is very dangerous indeed.
PTB, I had’t given any thought to the health problems sterilisation would cause. Good point.
Indeed.
Yup. Which is why, although in a different guise, it is our old friend eugenics. Just with a fluffier complexion.
Personally, not something I would support but unless it is made compulsory I just don’t see it being eugenics.
Many people do things that they later regret and I don’t see this being any different, in fact less dangerous, than them sharing needles and taking chemicals they don’t know the composition of.
It’s more a society with beliefs and funding making a difference. If more societies did this, although not this subject obviously, the world could be a better place.
Well, as I’m currently in the market for a vasectomy (which I was expecting to have to pay for) I think this is a great idea. All I have to do is convince these folk I’m worthy of the money and I’m quids in.
Oh, well, go for it then 😉