Is It Ethical To Pay Drug Addicts To Get Sterilized?

The organization Project Prevention offers drug addicts (mostly women) $300 cash if they agree to sterilization or long-term birth control. Founded in North Carolina, the program has expanded to the UK and hopes to work in Kenya, Ireland, and Haiti.
Not so fast, say critics, including Niamh Eastwood of Release, a drugs law organization in the UK. "By encouraging sterilisation, Project Prevention is taking away reproductive rights for women at a point when they are not able to make a clear decision about such an important issue," Eastwood wrote in a lengthy editorial. "Harris’s retort is that, if they are not able to make an informed decision about their health, they are not able to look after a child. However, it is not that simple. As a society, we must protect the fundamental human rights of every person, including their sexual and reproductive rights."

There are accusations that Harris focuses specifically on black women, and others who say that Harris views all addicts as "eternal victims," and doesn't seem to give a care what happens to these women as long as unwanted babies are not born.

Other critics question the wisdom of giving cash to drug addicts at all. The project's founder, Barbara Harris, has adopted drug-addicted babies and says most of the women contacted have already had children and know what they're doing. Link

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As a former teacher of those children of the inner city, as long as the sterilization is temporary, I have no problem with it. The children are starving, and usually have little care; no one else wants them. When Mom is lucid, she regrets what she is doing, but is powerless when under the drugs' power. As long as nothing is permanent, I see no problem.
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I have to agree with Yvonne. If it's temporary, then I'm for it. If they want children down the road when hopefully they are better, then they should have the oppurtunity.
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Keeping in mind that ethics are entirely subjective, and this is really nothing more than personal opinion.... personally I see nothing wrong with it. The way I see it, if the individual isn't entirely lucid when they make this choice, and are already so desperate as to go this route to begin with (without concern for the long term effects or even immediate consequences) - they are going to make one of two "bad" choices anyhow, and the one has a more dramatic long-lasting effect on others and society. If they are lucid, then they are well within their rights to make this choice anyway.

In short I agree with the sentiment expressed on their web site: "If you can not trust someone with their reproductive choices, how can you trust them with a child?"

Now, just how reasonable that all is is also depends somewhat on how the entire process is handled to begin with, and that I don't know.
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