I recently attended a debate on the actions of the charity 'Project Prevention'. If you haven't already heard of them, it is a charity started by a woman called Barbara Harris, and their main aim is to stop drug addicts from having children. They have caused controversy because they are offering £200 to drug addicts to get sterilised.
Is this right?
Should people in such a vulnerable state of mind be encouraged to make such a life changing and permanent decision? Addiction is a temporary state but sterilisation is forever. Everybody deserves a right to life but is there too much of a risk to these babies health?
The Guardian featured a story from a former drug addict who said that ' If somebody told me all those years ago that I wasn't fit to be a parent I would have agreed. But not today. Sterilising people for being addicted assumes that drug users will never be anything but that.'
Sterilising Drug users is NOT stopping the problem, shouldn't the money be used to try and rehabilitate addicts instead of taking away their chance of having children and then leaving them with more money for drugs?
In the debate I heard lots of reasons for and against this charity but it all comes down to a personal, ethical decision.
What is the 'right thing' to do?
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