I have got children, and I don't want any more. This had already crossed my mind.

As to the subject, I do agree that offering this money to persuade a vulnerable person to have this carried out is highly questionable. The idea may be sound, but I would say that only if the procedure could be reliably and cheaply reversed.

£200 is a nice little bribe to an addict that will fund their addiction for a few days, maybe and then, if they ever get clean and sort themselves out, they have little, if any hope of having a child. Whether they would be great parents or not, may be open to question, but there are plenty of non-addicts who should have been sterilised, IMHO.

You see, this is the attitude I'm talking about. People who would normally be less than happy about the state (for example) interfering with people's individual rights suddenly turn around and say "you can't be trusted to make this decision, so I'll make it for you". You don't have the right to do that. I don't have the right to do that. Only we, as a society, have the right to do that collectively and we do that by passing laws through a democratic process. It's not illegal to have contraception, even long term hard to reverse contraception by operation. It's not illegal to pay someone. It's not even illegal to pay someone to have long term invasive contraception. It is actually illegal to pay someone for an organ, which is probably a vaguely analogous case but one which probably wouldn't stand in court.

We, as a society, are happy enough to let us kill ourselves. In fact we're happy enough to let each other do ourselves irreperable harm in all sorts of ways, from extreme sports to smoking to eating too many pies. We only intervene when there is a weight of evidence that an individual's behaviour is shown to cause (or probably to cause) harm to others e.g. drug addiction leads to crime, passive smoking leads to harm to others, driving while drunk means you could harm or kill someone else. Society basically says 'you want to break yourself, go ahead. But if you harm someone else, be prepared to feel our collective wrath'. That's actually how we operate as a society.

The idea you are suggesting is anathema to that. If you take this decision out of the hands of drug addicts because they can't be trusted to decide for themselves, where does that path end? Alcoholics banned from supermarkets because there is booze on sale there? Fat people only allowed to buy salads? The end point of this path is true facism, with each of us proscribed in all aspects in case what we do breaks some collective and ill-defined sense of moral rectitude. It's not utopia, it's not even a civilised society, it's George Orwell's 1984.

There's a famous saying - "I disagree with what you say but I would defend to the death your right to say it" I'd add a second maxim - "I disagree with what you do but I'd defend to the death your right to do it, provided what you do harms no-one else".

And, just to play absolute devils advocate - say the charity gives some addict £200 after they get a vasectomy, and they spend that on drugs. That keeps them happy for a week or two and in that week or two, they don't mug some old lady or break into someone's house. Under your regime they don't get that £200 and that house gets broken into or that old lady gets terrorised and possibly hospitalised. Are you going to go to that family or that old lady and say 'I'm sorry for your injury and pain, but paying that addict that £200 that he ended up getting from you would just have been wrong, so you're going to have to live with it.' The problem with moral absolutes is that the world is not absolute and we have the Law of Unintended Consequences.

As I say, I don't like what the charity is doing and I don't agree with the reasons for doing it. But some of the arguments as to why they shouldn't be allowed to do it scare me infinitely more than the charity itself does.

Jon

Any form of surgery is a form of mutilation - a very finely controlled form - but you tend to come out of surgery different to how you went in. The aim of surgery is to cure the patient, or provide relief from symptoms. The benefit of such an action could be directly to the person undergoing surgery. As such, we don’t normally view this is a mutilation. It’s a benefit to that individual. It is very rare that surgery is performed with the benefit of society in mind.

In this case, I see the surgery involved as being of no benefit whatsoever to the individual. It is not providing a cure for their problem, it will not be helping them in any way to become a better person. It is being done because of a philosophy of a group or individual who are taking the view that once you are an addict, you always are and always will be a bad person who has no right to have children. I have no idea how sterilisation can cure someone of their addiction. I am sure that the medical community may be scratching their heads too.

Indeed, they have taken a step which reminds me of certain totalitarian states fron the twentieth century. Let us remind ourselves of Barbera Harris’ view of addicts:



Despite her disclaimer (which rings about as a true as when someone starts a sentence “I’m not racist…”), she compares women to a dog. Even if she truly believes that these people are not dogs, I am of no doubt that she sees them as a sub-species which needs to be controlled. To use this kind of pejorative language invites comparison with others who have done the same, and I am sorry to say that this kind of train of thought will be found amongst racists who see other ethnicities as sub-human at best.

The inflamatory language continues:

.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pr ... ontroversy

We must remember that the procedures mentioned are not the simple tying of tubes - they are the removal of whole organs; castration and hysterectomies. I am sure that in he mind, such procedures would be the ultimate best form of treatment.

So I do choose my words carefully - and in this instance I believe that I was right to say what I did, and I hope this communicates my thoughts a little more clearly. I am well aware of eugenics, and it was rather popular in the 1920s.

Is it right, is it wrong, what if they 'get better'......?

I dont have nor pretend to have the answers but smack heads not having children can only be a good thing IMO.

What if they stop being “smack heads” and then want to have children? Are you saying that they should be denied that choice forever?

Well that's rather my point - you're using a term which, while etymologically accurate, is in general use for a different purpose. We use the word 'mutilation' in terms of a crude injury, often either self-inflicted by disturbed people or inflicted on people against their will. People don't refer to organ transplants as 'mutilation' but they technically are. To refer to a tattoo as a 'mutilation' suggests you consider it ugly. 'Mutilation' has connotations of disfigurement whereas 'surgery' does not. And, frankly, I thought the intent of your use of the word was fairly evident. Evidence suggests you're literate enough to use the words you mean to use.


Well, it's of obvious benefit to the individual in the short term, to the sum of £200. Whether it's beneficial in the long term we simply have no evidence to base a judgement on.


Got no argument that they're a very odd bunch of people, with some very... unsavoury attitudes to the world.


We only have one example to go on in the UK, and in that case it's a vasectomy he's getting. Which are, I believe, medically reversible these days although I don't know if you can get that done on the NHS. If they were to specify castration, I would frankly be happy to throw them on the next plane back to the US myself. Apart from anything else, castration has massive biological and psychological consequences upon the individual undergoing the procedure beyond no longer being able to have children.


In that case, you'll undoubtedly be aware that Eugenics is a far more wide ranging and if anything even more sinister notion than this lot are proposing.

I have some sympathy with those who object to the actions of the charity but I think there's a careful line to be walked between protecting vulnerable people and just imposing your opinions upon them, which is something I see as also fundamentally wrong. And using rather.. provocative language and comparisons doesn't make me any more comfortable with the 'nay sayers' position.

Given the question about 'later in life' issues that has been raised, a further question occurs to me. Say an addict who has taken the deal (and is therefore functionally infertile by whatever means) has been 'clean' for several years and can provide legally viable evidence that they have taken no drugs for that period at all. Should they then be considered a candidate as a parent for fostering or adoption?

Jon

That's why I said I dont have the answers. I also asked the question what if they 'got better'. I also didnt say I agreed with them being castrated. I said smack heads not having kids can only be a good thing. If they're no longer smack heads then who knows.......

Tricky one.

I wonder what the reaction would be if this was extended to alcoholics.

Or Christians.

If they were "true" christians they wouldnt have children anyway. So sayeth the Pauline creed.

Um, it really doesn't.

Yeah let's not bring religion in to this, we brought Hitler in a while back but I think we got away with it.

Thats just natural behaviour