To be fed up of people saying drug addicts should abort?

[SchrodingersMew]

I realise I will probably get flamed for posting this here.

In the past 12 hours I have seen a comment from someone on here saying drug addicts should abort and then logged into Facebook just there to find another comment from someone saying ".I would only hope that disgusting junkies/alcoholics/abusers and the like abort when they fall pregnant."

My Mother was a drug addict and this really makes me upset every time I see comments like this. They are basically saying me and my Brother should have been aborted. :(

I know I am probably being unreasonable about this, but it really does upset me and I think some people should think before posting comments like that.

Stop all the addicts having babies and the birth rate would go through the floor.

Not all addicts are chaotic types collapsed on the floor in their own mess.

Many addicts hold down jobs and appear to the outside world as good upstanding members of society.

More interesting to find out why there is so much addiction in society. Maybe it is part of the human condition. Certainly people in the UK and nearby countries have been keen to get off their heads for as long as records go back.

Bloodymary I didn't even realise I was 'coping'...it was just 'normal'.

SchrodingersMew Thankyou for your kind words.

This was in the 60s/70's...social problems not as important as they are today. Only got out of there because my Gran climbed in the window and found me eating tissues as I was so hungry...she took me there and then.

Crazy That is so sad. :(

Maybe I am biased then?

I dont think they should be forced to abort. I do think they should have some sort of counseling to discuss abortion and child welfare.

Altinkum I think that is just a human way to think.

I think it is possible to be pro choice and still think that way, as I said earlier.

Abortion can be the right choice if it is definitely the right choice for the individual and there are good reasons for doing so. I don't agree with later abortion unless the child is incompatible with life.

"yekke, in that case you are a small minded twonk, and i hope your children never get into a mess with drugs as fuck knows how you'd deal with that....there but for the grace of god go all of us..."

TSC I would disown them. No question about it. Never would I entertain them until they sorted their lives out.

I've seen what drugs can do. I'm not speaking of to the person who chooses to take them but to the rest of the family. Had the family I have in mind in particular tried tough love upon the addict instead of liberal understanding there would be a family still now intact, supportive of each other and on speaking terms, grandchildren who knew and saw their Grandfather and, far more importantly, a young woman who had never had to suffer the consequences of her brother's addiction.

She wouldn't have been repeatedly raped by her brother from the age of 12, she wouldn't have become anorexic, she wouldn't have attempted suicide, she wouldn't have been self-harming. She wouldn't have been fucked up by not just her brother raping her but by the fact that she was a good, decent kid who got so far pushed aside whilst her parents concentrated on "poor son" and "poor son's problems" that she couldn't trust anyone at all. She later was diagnosed with, amongst other things, NPD which caused a rift in the family which was too great to mend.

That's just one story, sure. But behind every drug addict there's a human story - one about the real victims of their addiction.

It has been said that bringing disability into it is irrelevant. Not if addiction is an illness. My mother was alcoholic, it was hideous. I'm physically disabled, and as a result have been considered an unfit mother. I have not suggested that addicts make good parents; only that they are ill, and need help. So do their children, who very ioften love and want to say with their addicted parent. Obviously, taking heroin/crack etc is risky and foolish. Anyone not do anything risky and foolish ever? Meeting of all those in phonebox later.

TSC it doesn't change the fact that a huge amount of people in the UK are addicts, stop them all having children and we will start having to import them from somewhere.

yanbu. i know a heroin user quite well, she's made big mistakes but her dc were desperately wanted and loved. they still are.

''stop them all having children and we will start having to import them from somewhere.''

Why the crosshairs?

We need people in the UK to reproduce to continue the population. Stop everyone with an addiction from having children and that will be a big enough whack of the population to seriously affect the birth rate. Then what?

Answer is of course that forcibly preventing people from reproducing is not the way forward. Something that is quite obvious to me, but sadly I know that there are plenty on MN who disagree.

It's philosophically tricky. I'd never say "she should have had an abortion/all junkies should always abort" because that's an appalling thing to say, but I would agree with what I think is the majority on this thread that all female junkies should be strongly encouraged onto long term contraception, and that would have exactly the same effect on the OP and her brother.

Do you have some numbers?

"yes,tough love, you should just pray for them...that'll do it yekke....

i would and could never abandon my kids. surprised how easy it would be for you to do the same to yours"

Pray? You can pray for who you like TSC. :o

I fail to see how you can possibly be "surprised" that it would be "so easy" for me to "abandon" my kids. It would only be a "surprise" to you if you knew me and would expect something different. And who said it would be "so easy"? Not me. There are lots of decisions I make which IMHO are the best for me/my family. They are not necessarily "easy" but essential and right all the same.

As for "abandon" - would far rather "abandon" the addict than the sibling who works hard, is decent and is undeserving of being pushed aside for the sake of a junkie.

altinkum, just call me a bad parent then. So shoot me.

What does that make the parents of the junkie, violent, theiving, raping son and their pushed aside, raped by her own brother from age 12 daughter then?

I had a quick look just now and this here was the first on the list, reckons that 1 person in 13 in the UK is dependent on alcohol and 1 in 26 on other types of drug.

It also quotes this number "920,000 British children have one or more parent who misuses alcohol" - that is an awful lot of children to never have been born in the first place. Even if you imagine that some of the addiction started post children, it's still a vast number.

Whether you like it or not, the fact is that huge numbers of people are addicts, and are living lives that look normal to the outside. Many people with addictions function very well indeed including within the home. Prevent them all having children and that is one hell of a lot of children not here any more.

I assume we are not including smoking when we talk about addiction - obviously put that into the mix and it would mean about a quarter of the populaiton not being allowed to breed.

Possibly orangehat, but my physiological caffeine addiction is unlikely to have a significant negative effect on my children (my MN addiction OTOH....)

Addict is a wide word, not many people feel that the 20+% of the population with a nicotine addiction are automatically terrible parents, the ones with crack cocaine or full blown alcohol addictions however normally are not in a position to parent adequately.

I think when people think of an addict they think of someone at the end of the addiction road, collapsed somewhere in a pile of vomit.

Fact is that all these addicts start somewhere, it can take years and years to get to that point.

If what people mean is they don't want hopeless chaotic people to have children then that is what they should say. Not all hopeless chaotic people are addicts, not all addicts are hopeless and chaotic.

How many kids are in care?

Im addicted to caffine, so make sure to include that if smoking is in, also chocolate hob nobs.