An immoral charity pays drug addicts to become sterile
By Karen Ingram
Drug abuse is a serious problem, not just in the United States, but all over the world. Among the worst victims of this global plague are the children born to drug-addled parents.
A woman named Barbara Harris could tell you all about this, as she adopted and raised four children born to the same crack-addicted woman.
"My husband and I had to take shifts with him," Harris said of her second child, Taylor, in a Feb. 8 BBC News article. "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?"
Harris' inventive solution to the problem became Project Prevention, an organization that pays drug-addicted parents $300 apiece for long-term birth control, which includes anything from Depo-Provera shots to more permanent methods of tubal ligations and vasectomies - in short, sterilization.
According to Project Prevention's latest statistics, which were updated on their website Oct. 17, they have paid a total of 3,600 "clients" in all 50 states. Of those clients, 1,319 had tubal ligations and 54 had vasectomies.
Project Prevention has also recently gone global. BBC news reported in an Oct. 17 article that Project Prevention is offering 200 pounds, or $318, to addicts in various UK cities, including London and Glasgow, if they agree to the aforementioned birth control.
Harris and Project Prevention have been attacked by critics who compare this charity organization to Nazi programs in the 1930s that sterilized or killed groups of people deemed to be unsuitable for procreation, including Jews and mentally handicapped people. Harris has also been accused of being a racist and targeting poor and drug-addicted minorities.
I wouldn't go so far as to accuse Harris of practicing eugenics, and I don't think she's racist, either. Harris is white, but her four adopted children are black or of mixed ethnicity and her husband is black. Also, the statistics on her website show that more than half of her "clients" are white.
I can certainly see her side of things, as many babies born to drug-addicted mothers suffer from withdrawals, premature birth, physical and mental problems, among other things. I understand her desire to end the suffering of children.
That being said, Project Prevention leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth because I can see such a "charitable project" being carried out on other groups of people someone might deem "unsuitable" for procreating.
There are many children born into less than ideal conditions all the time, and although I bemoan the overpopulation of the planet, I get a chill at the thought of people being paid to get sterilized because they are deemed unworthy breeding stock. There are millions of children in the U.S. who suffer without drugs coming into the picture.
According to worldhunger.org, 13 million children in the U.S. are hungry. Should poor people be sterilized to spare their children from pain and suffering? Should people be sterilized because they have Down syndrome? Or because schizophrenia runs in their family? Or diabetes? What about people who are HIV positive?
What about the children of people who are "suffering" because their livelihoods conflict with someone else's belief system? Should gays be sterilized? Or illegal immigrants?
When you target one group of people because of the harm they could do to their children, you run the risk of declaring open season on anyone who might be "undesirable." As I've already stated, I believe the population is dangerously high on this planet. I also meet people every day who annoy me to the point of thinking "Gee, I hope this idiot never breeds," but I am not arrogant enough to believe I can choose who should or should not have children. I don't believe any individual - or charity - should be given the power to make that call.
This is a choice that should be left up to the individual. I choose not to have children because, whether I raised them or not, they would be genetically predisposed to depression, thyroid disorders, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and my less-than-charming personality traits.
The choice not to procreate is mine, as it should be for anybody else, whether they're an addict or just a jerk.
The world does not need charities that prevent people from procreating. There is already an award out there given to people who find amazingly stupid ways of preventing themselves from contributing to the gene pool. It's called the Darwin Awards. Support that, instead.
Article courtesy of UWire.