[Troubleshooter]

Originally posted by OnyxCougar
My husband brought this point up last night:

The generalisation here is that we're doing this to druggies/people who have been convicted of neglect, etc. So ostensibly, to protect the children. This includes children in the womb, yes? Can't be having those women knowingly and willingly doing hard drugs, not caring about their fetus, right?

Then you must concede that what is in the womb is a child (the one you're saying you want to protect), therefore, if taken to it's logical conclusion, you are pro-life.

IOW, if you're advocating forced sterilization to prevent harm to children/unborn babies, you're also advocating preventing them from being killed in healthy mothers.

My husband says you can't have it both ways. Either it's a child at conception, and we protect it from druggie mothers and abusive husbands (charging him for murder if he kills it in the womb), and should enact provisions to prevent it from neglect/abuse, or it's merely an embryo until the moment it is released from the mother (via vaginal or ceserean delivery), and it is afforded no protection until that time.

That's the problem with logic, if not used properly it's nothing more than a systematic way to make the wrong decisions.

Strictly speaking, I'm not interested in doing this "for the children." I'm interested in doing this for humanity. Now. before I get accused of megalomania, I'm speaking in the abstract, not because I'm some postern pounding preacher speaking about The Peepul.

I'm not pro-life(tm), I lean more towards choice, but I also believe that choice comes with responsibility.

Originally posted by OnyxCougar

In addition, glatt is right in that we are talking about PERMANENT solutions here, because even if we put norplant in, the woman can carve it out of herself. This means that the idea of "until she is off drugs for a year" won't work.

The long-term chemical solution could be part of a program where the contraceptive is an option for reduced sentencing or also part of a pro-active aprt of the welfare program. Or, reduce benefits of people who don't subscribe to the free contraception programs available to them.

And I agree, some women just aren't cut out for the chemical solution.

Originally posted by OnyxCougar

Also, something else I thought of....the question was brought up as to what would constitute "retarded" enough to employ the sterilisation, and I think that would be if a person was unable to care for themselves at all, needed 24/7 care, then they most certainly should not be having children.

I agree.

There are plenty of accepted (and acceptable) standards as to what constitutes profoundly retarded or incapable.

Originally posted by OnyxCougar

Again, I agree with the intent of the process, but don't agree with the implementation. You can either live in a free society or not. I choose to live in a free society. If I wanted to be denied the choice of having children or not, I'd go live in the Middle East and get my clitoris cut out and be denied an education and a whole bunch of other things I take for granted as a British/American citizen.

I think that part of the idea that scares people most about this idea is that is to be broadly implemented and easily enforced. I don't think that it should be broadly administered but should be a penalty for a provable trend of profoundly poor decision making or as a result of something that affects you so profoundly that you are incapable of adhering to your responsibilities.