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Should Ireland do the same...

  • 18-10-2010 12:00PM
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21


    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-11545519


    Charity offers UK drug addicts £200 to be sterilised

    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 first person in the UK to accept the cash is drug addict "John" from Leicester who says he "should never be a father". The move has been criticised by some drug charities who work with addicts.

    Drug treatment charity Addaction estimates one million children in the UK are living with parents who abuse drugs. Pregnant addicts can pass on the dependency to the unborn child, leading to organ and brain damage.
    Mrs Harris set up her charity in North Carolina after adopting the children of a crack addict.

    Damage to children

    Speaking to the BBC's Inside Out programme, she said: "The birth mother of my children obviously dabbled in all drugs and alcohol - she literally had a baby every year for eight years.
    "I get very angry about the damage that drugs do to these children."
    After paying 3,500 addicts across the United States not to have children, she is now visiting parts of the UK blighted by drugs to encourage users to undergo "long-term birth control" for cash.
    John, a 38-year-old addict from Leicester, is the first person in the UK to accept money to have a vasectomy after being involved in drugs since he was 12.
    Maria Cripps Dovetail Centre
    He said: "It was something that I'd been thinking about for a long time.
    "I won't be able to support a kid; I can just about manage to support myself."
    Simon Antrobus, chief executive of Addaction, said while no-one wanted to see children brought up in a drug-using environment, there was no place for Project Prevention in the UK.
    "It exploits very vulnerable people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol at probably the lowest point in their lives," he said.
    The Reverend Robert Black, of Victory Outreach, which works with former addicts in east London, said he thought Project Prevention's aims were "very devious".
    Reversible contraception
    Maria Cripps, project manager at the Hackney Dovetail Centre which works with drug users and their carers, said: "I think Barbara uses some very extreme examples to get her point across. It might work in America but Great Britain is a very different country."
    But Reverend Martin Blakebrough, director of Camden's Kaleidoscope Project in north London, said sterilisation was "worth considering" if it was right for the individual.
    A spokesperson at the British Medical Association said: "The BMA's ethics committee does not have a view on the charity Project Prevention.
    "As with all requests for treatment, doctors need to be confident that the individual has the capacity to make the specific decision at the time the decision is required.
    "The BMA's ethics committee also believes that doctors should inform patients of the benefits of reversible contraception so that the patients have more reproductive choices in the future."


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Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,444 ✭✭✭Absurdum


    let's just kill them instead


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 180 ✭✭Ste_D


    Great idea. Maybe we could start sponsoring junkies to get the snip! It will save us all a fortune in the long run!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,019 ✭✭✭✭Cuddlesworth


    I heard they found the perfect place to do it, somewhere up near Krackow in Poland.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 34,567 ✭✭✭✭Biggins


    I suppose it could be an option for an individual to decide on and take. It should never be a state mandate however.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 544 ✭✭✭Pookah


    Yes.

    If only to reduce the amount of scumbag threads on After Hours, in 18 years time.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 5,964 ✭✭✭fonecrusher1


    Hows this for an idea to stem the flow of rampant scummer breeding?

    If you incur more than 5 convictions you get sterilised? Im constantly seeing stories about habitual criminals with several convictions being involved in fatal assaults. The accused has 8,9,10 previous convictions for various crimes...etc etc same old depressing description.

    Obviously the idea of going to prison doesn't trouble them at all. Being sterilised might actually register on the average primitive scummer brain as a severe punishment.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 11,909 ✭✭✭✭Wertz


    American neo-fascists and borderline eugenics. I'll bet you they're "christians" too.

    Anyone that takes that pittance in exchange for their one actual purpose of being on the planet in the first place is better removed from the gene pool, so in reality this charity are doing the world a service....but not in the way they think.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 17,916 ✭✭✭✭orourkeda


    it'd be more fun to burn them


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,479 ✭✭✭Notorious97


    200 quid? How dear is a bullet?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,673 ✭✭✭✭senordingdong


    Wertz wrote: »
    American neo-fascists and borderline eugenics. I'll bet you they're "christians" too.

    Anyone that takes that pittance in exchange for their one actual purpose of being on the planet in the first place is better removed from the gene pool, so in reality this charity are doing the world a service....but not in the way they think.

    Gene pool could do with some chloriene regardless.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,568 ✭✭✭candy-gal1


    Yes, we should do this! One of the things that p***** me off is how scumbags, scangers, drug addicts/junkies are allowed to breed!! this should sort a lot of problems imho.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,565 ✭✭✭southsiderosie


    I don't actually have a problem with this if it's a reversible process. At first they were paying for women to get their tubes tied in the US, but I think they have switched to using IUDs which are effective for up to five years. That way, if a woman gets cleaned up, she can get the IUD removed and still have children.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,814 ✭✭✭Gone Drinking


    I've two fostered brothers, both were born herion babies. They lived with their mother, in terrible conditions till they were 2 and 3, then they were taken by the state and given to us. After a few years on and off drugs, their mother has been drink/drugs free for the guts of 10 years.

    One of them has just started college, the other is sitting his leaving cert this year. Good lads, rarely in trouble, never anything serious.

    Just an example of how the current system does work for some people.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,933 ✭✭✭Logical Fallacy


    Wertz wrote: »
    Anyone that takes that pittance in exchange for their one actual purpose of being on the planet in the first place is better removed from the gene pool, so in reality this charity are doing the world a service....but not in the way they think.

    Humans have long gone past the point of reproduction being our "one" purpose, social evolution and all that.

    Can't wait to see the kind of knock on effect this idea has on STD's in communities of drug users.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,766 ✭✭✭squeakyduck


    I think £200 is the least you should have to pay to get a man to have the snip. It will save some poor child the embarrassment of his/her dad trying to nick money off his/her friends or trying to sell them gear!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,379 ✭✭✭Sticky_Fingers


    I heard a radio interview she gave to the BBC last year and while the idea initially sounds like it was thought up by a complete right wing ideologue I thought she made a valid point that perhaps deserves some serious consideration. People will no doubt bleat about civil rights and how it is somehow taking advantage of people when they are at their lowest but if they are in such dire straits that they are willing to voluntarily undergo life changing surgery for the sake of £200 so they can score more drugs then they are in no fit state to look after a child in the first place.

    Its an unpleasant solution to a horrible problem but at least she is willing to do something and deal with the situation in a pragmatic way instead of wringing her hands and tutting like the isn't-it-terrible brigade.

    Here's the BBC interview for those who are interested (second from the top):

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qvbj


  • Posts: 17,735 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Jaysus that's horrific.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 11,909 ✭✭✭✭Wertz


    I don't actually have a problem with this if it's a reversible process. At first they were paying for women to get their tubes tied in the US, but I think they have switched to using IUDs which are effective for up to five years. That way, if a woman gets cleaned up, she can get the IUD removed and still have children.

    Is that what this charity are suggesting (article doesn't make it clear)? If it's reversible then that changes things somewhat and allows for people to clean up their act in the future and go on to live normal lives with kids etc. If it's simply making sure any addict is removed from the gene pool permanently then I have a huge problem with it, especially if it were to gain credence as a state policy.
    Humans have long gone past the point of reproduction being our "one" purpose, social evolution and all that.

    Only because our numbers have grown so vastly in the last few centuries....like it or not we are still an animal species and as such our only real reason to be here is to procreate and die...if we manage to contribute to the greater good and benefit society along the way then that's good too....but either way life goes on.
    candy-gal1 wrote:
    Yes, we should do this! One of the things that p***** me off is how scumbags, scangers, drug addicts/junkies are allowed to breed!! this should sort a lot of problems imho.

    I'd be just as concerned that some people on these forums are allowed to breed when attitudes like this prevail.

    The social welfare system that facilitates people to have children for long term finanical gain is what's at fault here, not the drug addicts that take advantage of it. It's encouraging people that can barely look after themselves to have kids that then supplement their income and housing needs...kids suffer and usually go on to repeat the mistakes of the parents.

    This sytem would be thin end of wedge stuff: it starts off with drug addicts, then illicit drug users, then alcoholics, then ex convicts...where does it stop?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 5,964 ✭✭✭fonecrusher1


    I don't actually have a problem with this if it's a reversible process. At first they were paying for women to get their tubes tied in the US, but I think they have switched to using IUDs which are effective for up to five years. That way, if a woman gets cleaned up, she can get the IUD removed and still have children.

    Sounds prefectly alright to me.

    Except i think it should be selective temporary sterilisation for those who through their own reocurring deviant behaviour have been judged unfit to father/mother potential offspring. When they have been satisfactorily rehabilitated & complete maybe 2 years of non criminal activity the process is reversed.

    In a nutshell; keep acting like a lawless dirtbag & we'll just deny you having kids.:)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,565 ✭✭✭southsiderosie


    Wertz wrote: »
    Is that what this charity are suggesting (article doesn't make it clear)? If it's reversible then that changes things somewhat and allows for people to clean up their act in the future and go on to live normal lives with kids etc. If it's simply making sure any addict is removed from the gene pool permanently then I have a huge problem with it, especially if it were to gain credence as a state policy.

    According to this article, they offer both tubal ligation and IUds. The payout is the same for either. I guess the tubal option makes sense if some addicts already have kids, but I wonder if someone in the throes of addition is making a rational decision when they permanently sterilize themselves for cash. But like I said before, I think the IUD option makes sense, since the long term implications are far less severe.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,453 ✭✭✭Shenshen


    Biggins wrote: »
    I suppose it could be an option for an individual to decide on and take. It should never be a state mandate however.

    ^^ This.
    An argument could be made to get the operation free of charge, but offering money as an incentive? No.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 5,964 ✭✭✭fonecrusher1


    Wertz wrote: »
    The social welfare system that facilitates people to have children for long term finanical gain is what's at fault here, not the drug addicts that take advantage of it. It's encouraging people that can barely look after themselves to have kids that then supplement their income and housing needs...kids suffer and usually go on to repeat the mistakes of the parents.

    So whats your solution then?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,379 ✭✭✭Sticky_Fingers


    Shenshen wrote: »
    ^^ This.
    An argument could be made to get the operation free of charge, but offering money as an incentive? No.
    The problem with this though is that there already exists widely available free birth control for people in this situation but the participants in this scheme do not avail of it.The only thing that brings these people through the door is the money, it's a nasty and unpleasant truth but that is all the people think about when they agree to take part in these schemes.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 5,964 ✭✭✭fonecrusher1


    The problem with this though is that there already exists widely available free birth control for people in this situation but the participants in this scheme do not avail of it.The only thing that brings these people through the door is the money, it's a nasty and unpleasant truth but that is all the people think about when they agree to take part in these schemes.

    To be honest, it sounds like a gene pool cleaner to me.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Music Moderators, Politics Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 22,418 CMod ✭✭✭✭Dravokivich


    Wait... does this mean that there's a Junke / Scummer Gene that's being passed on that we haven't been told about?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 11,909 ✭✭✭✭Wertz


    So whats your solution then?
    I was going to suggest removing drugs from the hands of blackmarket supply, instead moving to supply by the state, cutting out the felonious element of drug use and treating addicts as a medical issue, not as a criminal one...but I'm wasting my breath/fingertips with that argument in this thread, so I won't bother.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,440 ✭✭✭The Aussie


    Wont somebody please think of (Jeremy Kyles ratings) the children...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,072 ✭✭✭PeterIanStaker


    The Aussie wrote: »
    Wont somebody please think of (Jeremy Kyles ratings) the children...

    We'll have those all important DNA results after the break . .


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,097 ✭✭✭Herb Powell


    Pretty disgusting. Doesn't really deal with the root causes of the problem. Vague response I know, but that's how I feel.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,379 ✭✭✭Sticky_Fingers


    We'll have those all important DNA results after the break . .
    Lets hope they are presented in an extra thick envelope with razor sharp corners:D


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