In one of the oddest major news stories I’ve seen in a while, U.S. charity Project Prevention is offering British drug addicts £200 (about $320) not to have children, in order to prevent damage to children.
Charities over here have criticised the move, calling it exploitative and devious, and personally I can’t see a registered charity lasting too long if its donors realise that their cash is going straight into the back pockets of addicts, and the whole sterilisation thing has rather unfortunate implications. On the other hand, it has the noble goal of protecting children, arguable an ends which justifies the means. I imagine the Dope will have some interesting comments on this; what say you? Distasteful exploitation, or novel solution to a very real problem?
I don’t have a problem with it so long as it is and remains voluntary on the part fo the addicts. Anyone willing to take money so that they will not have children should not have children. I would prefer that it be a reversible procedure, though. Nor do I think the unfortunate implications aspect (which I take to mean the possiblity of racist motives) valid.
Did you have something else in mind when you wrote of unfortunate implications? Or is there a racial nuance I’m not aware of here.
does not seem to know what the word exploit means, or use it in a way not consonant with its proper definition. By which I mean he’s a nitwit. The addicts are not being used to create money or value for the charity paying them off. They are being prevented from creating more problems for themselves and the larger society.
Hm, if the charity is up front to the donors that part of the money is going to sterilize addicts, I don’t have a problem with it. If it can prevent addicted and seriously damaged infants, fine. That is at least being honest about stopping a segment of the population that probably shouldn’t be having kids that pop out addicted, damaged or could be injured by being stuck with an addict/addicts as parents. For once someone is actually thinking about the kids.
I’ll go with exploitative and devious. Their goal isn’t protecting children, it’s preventing children. No, addicts probably shouldn’t be having children, but offering addicts $300 to stick in their veins so they can never, ever have children rather than trying to get them to stop using leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Add to that it’s an American charity now looking to sterilize Brits. Add to that it originally called itself - no kidding - CRACK (Children Requiring A Caring umm… Kommunity). From their website they still seem to use the number 1-888-30-CRACK.
To be clear, here: Is the 200 quid cash, or is it directly paying for (part of) the cost of the procedure? Just how much would such a procedure cost, anyway?
Personally, I have a problem with any charity that’s giving cash to drug addicts without some sort of oversight over how the money’s spent. Giving them food stamps or gift certificates or the like, fine: There’s still the argument that they can now spend money they would have used for food on drugs, but at least you’re not directly feeding their addiction. But if they’re just counting out bills into the person’s hand and then waving goodbye to them, that’s just irresponsible.
I wish we’d see more of this sort of stuff. I’d imagine it’s actually a very cost effective way to do a lot of good. People that shouldn’t be having kids having kids is one of the biggest problems we face in the world and one of the biggest causes of suffering. Why it’s a forbidden thought to talk about this is strange to me - such a big problem, so little mention.
I mean - this being voluntary is win for everyone around. Either they don’t want to have kids and no real harm done, or they do want to have kids and they’re so fucked up that they’d rather take the $300, in which we’re all better off if they don’t, including their hypothetical kids.
But if the sterilization itself is seen as the group’s goal (as opposed to profit), that goal is more achievable by making the offer to people in bad straits; when things are bad, people may take offers they would have refused at other times in their lives. In that sense the group is exploiting vulnerability in the circumstances.
But it’s the fact that people put themselves in those bad straits that it becomes desirable for them to agree to sterilize. They’re not pouncing on people during moments of weakness, they’re targetting people because they’re more likely to cause harm than good when they get knocked up. You make it sound like their goal is sterilize every human, and they’re starting with the vulnerable low hanging fruit, and there’s no reason to suspect that.
I didn’t mean that, of course. But their approach could be consistent with a perspective that there were undesirable types of people who should be sterilized, and that, among these, people in the depths of addiction, rather than being assisted out of those depths, might be productively targeted. And I’m not saying that is necessarily the case, either–just that an observer might conclude this and find it “exploitative” on that basis.
For example, their site suggests that they’ve been accused of “targeting blacks.” Their response is,
Likely all true. And yet, if in fact the program results in a pattern of sterilization of black and poor people, I can understand people being uncomfortable with that.
Do they offer their incentive to middle-class white addicts as well?
For those calling this abominable, squicky, etc. - would you be bothered if a group advertised free sterilization procedures for drug addicts? This seems to me a case of anti-market bias: an irrational aversion to mixing “noble” things (fundamental biological urges like friendship, sex, and medicine) with money, something evolutionarily novel.
Same reason people consider the people running a volunteer blood donor clinic to be nobler than people who pay people to donate blood - even though the latter may be more effective in collecting blood and saving lives. Throwing money in the mix somehow makes it squicky.
Heh, no shit. my EVE Online buddy had a granddaughter 3 months ago, now the mum is knocked up again…he is really no t thrilled, especially since he didn’t like her babydaddy the first time around.
The only problem I have with it is that, it seems, you need to be an addict to be eligible. That is, it is targeting people who aren’t thinking terribly clearly, by virtue of being addicted to substances which alter judgement. Both the drugs and the addiction alter thinking. (See: studies which show drug addicted animals choosing their drugs over food.) I do wonder how this plays out as far as “informed consent”; it seems that a case could be made that true consent is impossible whilst one is faced with withdrawal as a consequence of not taking the money (assuming, of course, that an addict will use the money for more drugs instead of food or rent or medicine).
But these are philosophical ethical questions for medical ethicists to argue over at cocktail parties, or armchair ones to argue over on a message board. In terms of real world cost vs. benefit analysis, I’m all for it.
But I’d also like to see no cost sterilization offered to people who aren’t addicts. Addicts aren’t the only people who shouldn’t be having children they don’t want.
I think the real problem with paying for blood donations isn’t that it’s somehow more “noble” to do it for free, but that when you pay for blood, the quality is compromised: The folks who are motivated to give blood for money are probably more likely to be engaging in behaviors like injecting drugs which would put their blood at risk. Yes, of course the blood bank screens for that, both with the questionnaires and with lab tests, but you still want multiple layers of protection, and it might well be that the level of rejection among paid donors makes it just not worthwhile.
In that case the answer is to require more screening of the second blood bank’s product, not to regard it as inherently problematic and icky. If, as is likely, it can produce more donated blood than volunteer donations, even with the extra screening, then it should be praised more than the less effective volunteer model. Yet that is not what is done.
I have a big problem with it, in that it seems to be explicitly throwing the recipients themselves on the scrapheap.
For starters, there’s the fact that the money is for sterilization - a permanent procedure. The message here is “we know you’re never going to clean yourself up and be a productive member of society - we just want to stop you fucking up any future potential kids. As for you, feel free to crawl into the nearest gutter with a needle in your arm and die.” I’m sure that’s not the way they’d put it themselves, but it seems that this charity doesn’t actually want or intend to do anything to help the addicts themselves, and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
And, as pointed out, putting cash in the hands of current addicts really does not sound like a good idea. Unless, of course, you don’t really care if they stick it straight into their veins because you’ve already given up on them.
BTW, here in Australia, my three-year contraceptive implant cost the princely sum of… $5. I can’t imagine it’s much more on the NHS. So it’s not like decent contraception is out of reach of anyone who wants it. I don’t know what a vasectomy normally costs. I’d support that being free for anybody who wants it - I think people who don’t want children, shouldn’t be having children. But I still dislike the idea of targetting addicts.
My sister is a foster mother and I’ve seen what happens to children of addicts. I know not all kids end up with problems but I’m all for the charity’s premise.