I think you’re missing my point. My understanding is that a “crack baby” is not very much different than any other premature baby once it has gone through withdrawal.
“those crack babies are almost always going to go home with the crack heads,”
THAT is the greater tragedy.
“by thir own choice, I hasten to add”
I think some people take issue with the notion that the addict is in a position to really consent to anything. They are arguably incompetents like the insane, retarded, minors, etc. This may not aalways be the case but it might be the case at least sometimes.
So what? Why should it have to go through withdrawal at all, and how does that address the problem that it still has to rely on a crack head to take care of it?
Statistics from Project Prevention:
http://www.projectprevention.org/statistics/
- Most of their clients are caucasian
- The organization offers a variety of long-term birth control options, most of which are NOT permanent.
- No one is sterilized who has not already had children.
They offer the following remarks about their last 20 patients who opted for Tubal Ligation:
121 pregnancies between them
24 abortions between them
6 of their children either stillborn or died after birth from complications That is an average of 6 pregnancies prior to being sterilized
Average of 4 living children each.
78 of their children remain in foster care (they can reclaim them if they get clean)
Carry on.
I am sorry but we are having a debate about class, sex, racism, and drugs. Actual facts not allowed. Please acquaint yourself with board customs.
I’m not sure I’d accept Project Prevention’s completely unverifiable word as ‘fact’.
Assume their facts are verified.
Would you be okay with their program ?
I think this is a very excellent well administered program.
No.
If they’re offering free sterilization, I think that’s great. If they’re offering money to get sterilized, I think that sucks. I really don’t think I can be any clearer about this.
The below was typed before seeing post #124, I’ll leave it in case it’s interesting.
I think most addicts would gladly go through the procedure just for the pain meds they’ll receive when it’s done. Give them two days of warm soft bed, six full meals, and an IV drip of something to take the pain away - you’ve got yourself a deal.
My bet is that the $300 just convinces them that missing the 3-4 days of hooking or begging or picking up bottles won’t leave them high and dry on the other side.
I do think that a 3-year implant (or longer if available and safe) for females is a better option though. For males, vasectomy is almost always reversible, and in the cases where it isn’t, retrieving sperm for insemination is not terribly difficult. Hysterectomy is more difficult to reverse, and far more expensive to work around in future.
The part of this that gives me pause is the emphasis on permanent choices. It does rather smack of a wish to prevent the transmission of “addiction genes.” (i.e. It could be eugenics of a sort.)
But I don’t think that’s the aim of the founder. Like her, and like Dio, I’ve seen the horrors that addicts perpetuate on children, and I can tell by your responses who here has and hasn’t. We can’t guess at the motivations of other donors to her program, but I’m guessing that she just wants to keep children from being born into dangerous and painful situations.
Bottom line for me: Prevention, by any means necessary. But by reversible means if possible.
Your strawmen have been that anyone who is skeptical of this program is in favor of “seeing them make a crack baby, then letting it starve to death,” or feels that “a recovering addict not being able to have a baby…is a worse alternative than a baby being left alone in an apartment to starve.”
Nobody has said such things except you. Nobody thinks dysfunctional addicts having and neglecting babies is acceptable. There is simply skepticism and discomfort with the priorities and methods of this program.
It appears that the opponents of this fall into 2 categories:
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Those who think drug addicts are incapable of giving informed consent. If this is the case, then would you support involuntary institutionalization for them until such time as they are no longer addicted? If not, why not? If you believe that they are incapable of making informed choices about contraception due to their addiction, then why should they be allowed to make other choices?
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Those who think that it is “exploitative” to offer them this money. Would offering them $100 to mow my lawn be exploitative? How about offering them $100,000 for their shoes? How are these any different? If offering someone money, at a time when they are desperate for it, for something that I think desirable is morally wrong, then is offering an unemployed person a job wrong? The unemployed person may not like the job I am offering, but he takes is because he needs the money. Anything morally wrong with that?
Those are the only two alternatives. You’re trying to say that this is a false dichotomy, but in order to make that case you’d have to show a third alternative and there isn’t one (except maybe just hoping they won’t get pregnant, which is no alternative at all).
I fall into this category. I’d feel more comfortable if the sterilization was temporary but i would be OK with institutionalization of drug addicts 9its better than throwing them in jail.
If you can’t see the difference among a pair of shoes, a job, and a lifetime of fertility, I’m not sure there’s anything I can possibly say to make you understand.
What should comes first? A job or making a kid ?
Would you offer them $300 to permanently forfeit their ability to get a job?
What would be the positive outcome ?
For who?
Seriously, I’m not going to dissuade you from your “won’t someone think of the children?!” argument, and you’re not going to convince me that it’s okay to bribe a vulnerable person into an irreversible decision, so unless you come up with some brilliant point worth responding to, I’m not going to continue this conversation with you.
So let’s be clear. Your position is that it is more desirable to produce a suffering disadvantaged child or children than to allow or influence an addict to make a voluntary irreversable decision to forgo his/her reproductive ability.
Simply put, if you had your way, and made Project Prevention go away you would condemn thousands of babies/kids to pain and suffering.
Congratulations for your ethical stance.
Because repeated abortions aren’t medically safe. More than two, and the brows of your OB staff furrow because they know that placenta previa, placental insufficiency, placetal abruption, cord prolapse, prematurity and a host of deformities are a very real likelihood…even assuming a woman with many repeated abortions can get and stay pregnant in the first place. Every time you perform an abortion, you scar the uterus, and wherever there is scarring, the implantation of an embryo is seriously compromised.
Yes, I believe every woman should have the right to abortion on demand. But if you’re seriously positing that as an alternative to sterilization, you should know it isn’t one. It’s quite likely to lead to infertility itself, and when it doesn’t, to pregnancies which are far more likely to be dangerous to the mother and fetus alike.
(This information doesn’t come from an anti-abortion site, by the way, this is from my OB nursing textbook.)