US Charity aims to neuter UK junkies

[lurkio]

If charity was their intent they could just as easily give vulnerable drug addicts £200 worth of contraceptives, it strikes me as quite sinister really and a potential slippery slope.

Contraception is free anyway dude

 

[Weebull]

This is quite easily solved. Get them to freeze sperm before going ahead of it or use the reversible vasectomy.

Neither of which are mentioned by the original article, and AFAICS, not a part of this "project".

Also note that condoms have been available for free for a rather long time now. If drug addicts were responsible enough to use them this scheme wouldn't exist.

Errr, why wouldn't it? It wasn't created due to market demand, it's been set up by a charity branched from the US, and funded by people who support the scheme, not those that use it.

The closest example I can think of offhand is of religious preachers on the streets. They aren't sustained by market demand, they exist because people of a certain belief want to try and convince other people to believe. Whether they're wanted by said other people is entirely irrelevant.

Has anyone raised the point yet where addicts may not be in a state of mind to fully understand their potential decision to be castrated?

I've tried. Compassion for those in a worse state than yourself isn't exactly a big thing on here though.

 

[RDM]

Has anyone raised the point yet where addicts may not be in a state of mind to fully understand their potential decision to be castrated?

Post #14 it was first mentioned. As an aside it isn't castration, the testes are still there and they still produce testosterone and you can still fully enjoy sex. Well, after a couple of weeks when the swelling goes down...

A heroin addict would be far more likely to think of his next fix with that £200 instead of the procedure. If he/she becomes clean later in life it would be a massive inconsolable regret. It's highly irresponsible of the 'charity' which blatantly has its own misguided agenda to pursue. It's their way of saying 'you have no right to reproduce and we are going to take advantage of your state of mind'.

The flipside of that is they would not really be in the state of mind to have children either, but they can already do that. Which is hardly fair on the child. There are no easy answers to this one.

 

[RDM]

Errr, why wouldn't it? It wasn't created due to market demand, it's been set up by a charity branched from the US, and funded by people who support the scheme, not those that use it.

Because if drug addicts as a whole used other forms of contraception then you wouldn't be having drug addicted babies being born to drug addicted parents. Therefore this charity wouldn't need to exist as the problem they are trying to solve wouldn't exist.

 

[Deadbeat]

The very nature of serious drug addiction is that a person may not be in a completely worthwhile state of mind when in need of their next fix though. It's not like you or I, sitting down in a perfectly sober frame of mind, and deciding that "Yeah, I'll take £200 for the snip".

Sorry for the late reply, but I wasn't talking about the decisions drug addicts make while under the influence of drugs. More, I'm casting doubt on that person's ability to make sound long-term decisions, since they must have been faced with choices, as many of us have, that eventually led them to this point in their loves. Moreover, I'm not referencing drug addicts generally, only those to whom £200, a relatively paltry amount given the conditions, is worth such a drastic act of self-mutilation.

What happens if that person cleans themselves up and becomes a perfectly respectable member of society later in life? They've then been doomed by a personal choice made years before in an unfit state. It's hardly getting a bad tattoo, it's giving up the ability to ever raise and care for your own flesh and blood.

Granted, and while getting a bad tattoo is relatively easy under the influence, a decision like this isn't something that's going to be rolled out over a weekend. For this scheme to work in any respectable capacity, there is bound to be some form of screening process to ensure that the addict in question has considered it to the best of his or her mental capacity. If that mental capacity is so vehemently diminished by drug abuse that the procedure sounds like a good idea, even if they reformed later in life I'd still be skeptical about entrusting the care of a child to them

Perhaps not, but the rights of basic freedom kind of extend to that, don't they? We're free to **** anyone we like (as long as they want to too, of course ), and if we choose or don't choose to protect ourselves when we do, then bosh, a sprog.

Do you see this as an acceptable state of affairs? As I mentioned in my last post, people are perfectly within their rights to do whatever they damn well please with their lives, and I'm not going to naysay them. Where that crosses the line is when a person's actions directly and negatively impact on another person's life, inducing consequences that the second party has done nothing to deserve. Bringing a child into a family that does not have the capability to support it is tantamount to abuse from day one. The baseline, as I see it, is that I'd have a clear conscience if hundreds of drug addicts in such a mess that £200 is worth more to them than the prospect of ever having children, even if every one of them later reformed and became productive, valid members of society, if it'd prevent one single child being born into drug-fuelled abuse and neglect. On the flip side, would you buy a second chance, not at a productive life but just for the capaciity to bear children, for potentially thousands of people in the country, if the price was nothing more than a single child born into such circumstances?

Actually, I'd imagine you fit in quite well with the amount of "lock 'em up and throw away the key", redemption-phobic, unsympathetic types on here.

As stated, I'd object violently to this being a mandatory procedure. My intention is not to punish, but to protect. I've seen reformation on the most extreme scale, and I salute those that have done so well and worked so hard to achieve the kind of life that I believe everybody deserves, if they earn it. In this, I think the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. It's a consequence of, ultimately, the choices that people make.

Edit: Holy wall of text! Think I'll bunk off for a smoke while this gets resolved.

 

[wannabedamned]

Love it!

Offer it to everyone and anyone though, Dont limit it to druggies.

That way we'll see a decline in Chavs breeding! I'm sure!

 

[semi-pro waster]

I'm sure I read in The Metro this morning about someone who has already had this done for £200.

I've not read the Metro today but I wouldn't be at all surprised if you had given there's someone called "John" in the BBC story who has had it done for the money.

While there may be some people that it would be far better if they never had children I can't help but feel this particular offer is taking advantage of people who aren't necessarily in any fit state to make such a decision (and equally not in a state to consent to having a child I suppose). I'm not sure on the finer details as I see there is perhaps a possibility of reversing this procedure so it may be practically speaking less of an issue, it still seems slightly morally repugnant however.