Projection Prevention offers to help UK drug addicts stop having kids - people freak out

[snowykitten]

I have always supported Project Prevention, a charity that pays drug addicts to get long-term birth control or sterilization in order to prevent more kids from being born as crack babies. They've been active in the USA for a while but recently they expanded into the UK as this news story discusses:
Charity offers UK drug addicts £200 to be

Comments

[longtail]

I wish people would learn what "Eugenics" is. This is NOTHING like eugenics. Unless you believe that addiction is totally hereditary and we're trying to "breed out" people prone to addiction.

Frankly, I'd rather a drug addict get it and maybe suffer some regret later on than having a helpless child suffer through addiction in the womb, health problems, abuse, and neglect at the hands of an addict.

So I wholeheartedly support this.

[object_sleep]

And you're a jerk for supporting this, and apparently not pro-choice.

This is absolutely eugenics.

This is coercing the 'undesirable' members of society (in this case, drug addicts) into sterilization, or long-term birth control methods. WTF do you mean this is not eugenics?

And what drug addict wouldn't accept free money? omg fucking coercion to the point where my eyes fall out.

[bloodyrose82]

As a child of an addict, I can categorically say you are talking out of your ass.

[object_sleep]

I am a child of TWO addicts.

One to alcohol, the other to drugs.

And no, I'm not talking out of my ass.

[bloodyrose82]

Regardless, you're still talking crap. I can respect you have a different opinion. That's cool. We all have them. I don't respect the shit you are calling people because you don't like that they are supporting this.

[object_sleep]

So? Don't respect what I have to say in defense of vulnerable people with addictions.

You're now backpeddling because you thought I had ZERO experience with parental addiction, and I have a shit ton. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles...most of them are alcoholics, all of them have kids, and my mother has/had a drug problem. I get what its like to have an addiction, or an addicted family member.

What I don't dig is people saying that they have a right to judge their fertility choices. And because it hits this close to home, and people are talking about them like their second class citizens, whose fertility is up for outside decision, I have the right to call those people assholes. Because they're talking about my family.

[bloodyrose82]

No, I'm not trying to back peddle in the least. I'm simply saying that I feel I have experience in the area, as clearly you do too. It wasn't my intention to spout it as 'evidence' for my opinion being right. I wasn't making a statement about YOU, I was making one about ME

[object_sleep]

But it does when they're talking about addicts like they're second class citizens, and it does when they're saying that addicts shouldn't have children, and making all sorts of blanket assumption-statements like that.

They have the right to judge addicts when they have zero experience, but you say I don't have a right to call them assholes

[bloodyrose82]

Are they talking about them like second class citizens? I dunno. I don't think anyone is inferring they shouldn't have rights. I'm not sure I'm seeing judging beyond the normal 'addicts don't make good parents', which, quite frankly is true

[longtail]

eu·gen·ics   
[yoo-jen-iks] Show IPA
-noun ( used with a singular verb )

the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, esp. by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/eugenics

Again, unless you believe that addiction is hereditary and that they are trying to genetically manipulate the population, then this is NOT eugenics.

I accept that you believe it's coercion. It's a valid viewpoint. I simply don't agree with you. As dog pointed out, not every person who goes in there accepts the offer. Being a drug addict doesn't mean you are helpless against the offer of free money and are unable to think at all. I find it a little offensive that you

[object_sleep]

You say that this is ignorance? To someone with two addicted parents, whose family also suffers from addiction? Whose partner suffered from addiction? Who's best friend suffered from addiction? Who herself suffered through addiction?

No, random LJ user, you are the ignorant one. And I find your assumptions and dissmissiveness offensive.

[longtail]

Too bad. I'm STILL calling you ignorant, and also very childish because you simply can't seem to deal with the idea of someone not agreeing with you. I've also grown up with addicted parents and family members, and I also have struggled with it.

YES, addicts CAN make choices in the face of free money to feed their focus. This program offers a CHOICE to help them avoid making bad choices that hurt children. People HAVE gone in and turned it down.

So I don't agree with you. Get the fuck over it already.

[arkved]

Guess what? YOU aren't the ONLY person in the whole wide world to have family members/friends who have gone through and are still going through addiction problems. If you haven't noticed, you are the one who is on the offensive and being extremely abbraisive to anyone who has a different view than you have. I find your assumptions to be offensive, since you assume that NO one here, other than yourself, knows what they are talking about.

[torment2romance]

this.

[dog]

personal attacks are not cool no matter who we disagree with. i will not insult your intelligence by accusing you of not knowing this rule of the cf community.

I find your assumptions and the dismissive nature of your comments to be offensive as well. i have biological parent-addicts, too. i have disabilities from being born on drugs, including partial deafness and heart defects. this does not mean i am right. nor does it mean your opinion is the god-sent law of the land. we could get into a pissing contest over whose addiction was worse, or whose parents loved them less, or who had less money, but frankly - irrelevant. the fact remains that the project is a public service which addicts and non addicts alike are free to take advantage of and promote, protest or ignore

[arkved]

Well, first of all you do not know the definition of "eugenics." Go look it up, then come back and post about it.

What is worse? "coercing" someone to use long-term birth control or doing nothing and them having children who in turn suffer for years on end, possibly get killed, and live a life of dispair? I'd much rather the drug addict use a long term BC, hopefully get their life straightened up, and then if they decide to have kids, great! if not, even better!

Running around calling people "jerks" or "assholes" only makes your argument weak and people wont listen. I can respect that you have a differeing view point, that is fine, but we are adults here, and name calling isn't exactly in the realm of acting as an adult.