Project Prevention are an American based charity who I came across a couple of years ago when I used to torture myself by watching the BBC's "The Big Questions" on a Sunday morning. Something I have susequently stopped doing, in a bid to stop deliberately upsetting myself...
Anyway, I got into a debate on the subject with a close friend of mine last night, so thought I would share it with you guys to see what you make of it:
In a nutshell, Project Prevention give money to crack 'eads, skag 'eads and any other drug based 'eads, in exchange for their sterilisation. Yes, that's right, so they can't reproduce.
“We don’t allow dogs to breed. We spay them. We neuter them. We try to keep them from having unwanted puppies, and yet these women are literally having litters of children.” These are the words of Barbara Harris, founder of Project Prevention, who has made it her aim to give $300 to as many drug and alcohol addicted women as possible. The deal? That they recieve long term contraception or sterilisation to prevent them having children that she believes they are unable to unwilling to care for.
Sounds viable?
According to Michael J. Sandel’s book “What Money Can’t Buy,” hundreds of thousands of babies are born to mothers with drug issues. Many of these babies will be born addicted and our medical systems will spend millions to repair the damage. Once the doctors have done their job, the babies will most likely be put into the foster care system where they will be moved around their entire childhood.
Ms Harris is driven by her own experience. She fostered, and then adopted, four children born to the same crack-addicted woman in Los Angeles. Taylor was the second she took in.
"He couldn't keep food down and his eyes looked like they were going to bulge out of his head," she says. "Noise bothered him, light bothered him, he just couldn't sleep.
"My husband and I had to take shifts with him. He would sleep 10 minutes, wake up screaming. I was just angry at his mom, I thought how could somebody do this to a baby?"
Funded by private donations, the majority of their marketing consists of distributions of their literature to foster parents, police, social workers, probation officers, hospital workers, church leaders and others who “may know someone who is taking drugs.” In addition to the $300 cash incentive, they also offer an extra $50 for referrals of other substance-abusing women.
To get the money, addicts have to prove that they have either been arrested on narcotic offences, or provide a doctor's letter confirming they use drugs.
Since the project started in America in 1997, they have paid money out to 3,242 addicts, most of whom were women and 1,226 were permanently sterilised. Thirty-five men have had vasectomies. And since 2010 they have also been operating in the UK.
I'm sorry (not sorry), but I don't like it. I find it creepy.
Obviously it's pretty controversial. Project Prevention have been accused of racism (amongst other things), as their campaigns mainly target poor black communities. And, although only 1,000 of their clients have been black compared to more than 1,800 being white, whites make up 79% of the US population, while blacks account for just about 13%. So in terms of hard numbers, the program is skewed disproportionately toward blacks.
It has also been referred to as social engineering - defining addicts as unsuitable to have children. The scheme has been compared to eugenic sterilisation in the US during the 1930's and the Nazis' programme of eugenics, which led to the extermination of Jews and the murder of many gypsies, the mentally ill, and homosexuals.
The whole thing just makes me feel VERY uncomfortable. I mean, what happens if the person gets clean and wants to have a family? They can't! Sterilisation is permanent.
It has also been argued that having a family is one of the most valued parts of many people's lives. By removing that, or the possibility of it, are they not removing a powerful incentive for an addicted person to get clean: the hope of that better life?
The main issue for me though, is whether a drug-addicted person is legitimately of a sound mind, and therefore in a capacity to make such a life-altering decision? The concept of informed consent, which is mandatory to gain before sterilisation requires that the patient choose the procedure freely. I for one think that $300 cash given to addicts is pretty coercive. It's a bribe! They are expoiting the weaknesses of addicts whose only care is where they're going to get their next fix; by offering them just that- their next fix. What do they think they are going to do with that money? OBVIOUSLY BUY MORE DRUGS. Resulting in more money being fuelled into drug trade.
Really a feasible solution? Surely the money would be better placed in rehabilitation projects?
I don't know, I completely see how the issue splits people. But I can't help but see the whole project as a way in which the economically privileged can dictate who will and who won't have children.
My friend obviously disagrees with me and takes the more harsh perspective of: "What makes a woman's right to procreate more important than the right of a child to have a normal life?".
I'm not sure it's as black and white as that... But I will let you make up your own minds.
L.
