Forced sterilisation. Who is bu?

[pyjamaramadrama]

My boyfriend and I got into a heated debate over this at the weekend.

We were speaking about someone I know 'of', she's had 8 children, there are 5 different fathers and some dispute over the paternity of the children. The children have all been neglected, emotionally and physically abused and are now all in care and have unfortunately been separated as they all had different needs and physical and behavioural problems due to what they have been through. She is now pregnant again and the baby will be taken straight into care.

My boyfriend thinks that she should be sterilised because she will just go on having more babies who will be taken straight into care. I think that he is wrong.

My argument against is that where would you draw the line? This woman's situation is extreme, but would it open the door for other 'undesirables' to be sterilised? I also said that she may still turn her life around, unlikely, but she could.

His opinion is that even if she did turn her life around, she's ruined all those young lives and doesn't deserve a second chance, he compared it to killing somebody, I made the point that even murderers get a second chance.

I asked him if he also thought that runaway dads should be sterilised, he said that they should. See how the gates have opened?

I'm pretty sure that most on MN wouldn't agree with forced sterilisation, but I'd be really interested to hear some intelligent arguments about why this could never work. Or perhaps some people think he has a point.

I really do feel that there is a massive double standard here. She is a "bad" mother so she should be sterilised but no mention at all of the men who fathered the children and appear to be equally incapable of meeting their parental duties.

Floggingmolly I think it's highly unlikely, but not impossible. Although I agree that even if she did, having more children shouldn't be a priority but doing something for the ones she already has. So either way more children would be a bad idea.

I disagree with forced sterilisation for the same reason I disagree with euthanasia - because it's morally wrong and a 'slippery slope' to all kinds of people being sterilised.

The Nazis sterilised maybe thousands of people just for being mixed race, disabled, chronically ill or 'socially unacceptable'; they also carried out experiments into mass sterilisation in Auschwitz and other places.

In the UK, US and Sweden up until not so long ago forced sterilisation was carried out for those who had mental illnesses and epilepsy and other problems but it's not so widely known about as the Nazi's Eugenics programme. I would be interested to find out more about the history of forced sterilisation in the UK; it's quite scary to think that it happened as late as the 1960s.

Chaz there never is because despite efforts to change things there is still an attitude in society that a woman who does this is a slag, a slapper, a slut.....you name it. A man that does is is just sowing his wild oats, boys will be boys, being a bit of a lad.

In a patriarchal society, that we sadly live in despite assertions by the powers that be to contrary, men will never be truly brought to book for siring and abandoning multiple children because men have each others backs.

That's the trouble isn't it, what's socially is a grey area.

Ok so 8 children is clear cut. Some situations are not so.

What about 11 children, all loved and cared for but with no means to financially support them and heavily relying on the state.

What about somebody allows their partner to abuse their child in a domestic abuse situation? What if the mother was unknowing but SS decided that she did know?

Drug addicts, alcoholics who bring children into the world, should they be given a second chance so to speak?

What about then mental health conditions?

Where does it stop? Where exactly do you draw the line at extreme and not so extreme situations?

Jacks has summed it up perfectly.

Eugenics, anyone?

I see you point totally op but I worked in a mental Heath hospital in the early 80s and read notes.

some of the women there had been in the place since just after the war. sectioned and sterilised for postnatal depression and illegitimate babies.

so bloody sad. you can't leave these decisions to doctors I am afraid and yes the slope is too slippy.

second chance? She's had 8 and has fucked up the lot. She's had her chances, and then some. Those children will, one way or another, almost certainly carry the damage she did in bringing them into the world for the rest of their lives. Even the new baby who will have no connection with her may well be damaged.

In this instance I think it would be justified, she has proved over and over again she cannot parent. In a way, no different to the serial offender who ends up with a 'life-is-life' sentence.

They should give her the chance to do it herself, though - make it crystal clear that every single baby she has will be removed from her and she will never have any contact - that knowledge any well persuade her to get it done herself. But if she says no? - well, tough.

I don't agree with forced steralisation. Because it's a slippery slope.

Easy, open-and-shut, well-it's-bloody-obvious cases make exceedingly bad precedents. The kind of precedents that are most likely to lead to "slippery slopes", because the people making that first decision are so intent on the minutiae of that initial case, that they can't think about how their judgment would fit a case with different facts.

You cannot give governments the power to carry out compulsory sterilisations because the misuse of that power is just too horrible to contemplate. History gives ample examples of such laws being horribly misused.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13700490
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization

While forced sterilisation may seem appealing in some cases, it's basically giving the State the power to decide who can reproduce and who can't. That terrifies me.

No of course she should not be forcibly sterilised, nor will she be. We don't do that here!
I think there has to be a legal procedure before women with learning difficulties can be sterilised. I wonder if this particular woman has some learning disability? Possibly mental health issue?
I hope that medical staff caring for her through this pregnancy can persuade her to get contraceptive implants which are easier to cope with and not invasive surgery.

Who would perform the sterilization? I'm sure it would be against the doctors hippocratic oath. So it would be a forced operation performed by non medical professionals.....

I know it's trite, but remember this conundrum?

A mother has just had her 14th child. Her husband the father of all 14 of these children has a history of alcohol abuse and mental disorders which frequently cause him to abuse his other children. The mother is absolutely worn out from trying to care single-handedly for her large family and it appears very unlikely that she can care for another child. Two sons in the family have a history of alcohol abuse, and one of the children is in a mental institution. Should the mother or father be forcibly sterilised?

If the answer is yes, Beethoven wouldn't be born.

The point being, I suppose, that your dp can't in fact claim that the lives of the children in care are inevitably ruined. I'm with OP, if you start going for forced sterilisation in cases like this it's the top of a very slippery slope.

Why wasnt she (and the fathers) imprisoned for neglect and abuse? We already have a legal system, why isnt it used in cases like this?

The impression that I get (which may or may not be accurate) is that no one does much until it gets really serious and then they come down harder than they'd have had to if they'd got involved earlier.

Icimoi great example.

Asheth some doctors would. They do when it's someone who has been sectioned.

I don't agree with forced steralisation
I only know 2 people who do and they both work in SCBU, they said that seeing a baby withdraw from heroin is the most harrowing thing they have ever seen and they have got more extreme in their views
I would happily pay £50 a go to drug addicts to have the pill injection
I would do the same for men who father lots of children and just walk away, I don't know how this could be enforced with men though

I don't agree with the 'slippery slope' argument on anything though. It is a ridiculous argument and could be used anything

I agree that some women should not have children just because they can some children grow u in terrible households and that is not fair, however you cant force a woman to be steriilised so i can see both sides but the childrens needs should always come first

Sorry am pmsl at

"I don't agree with the 'slippery slope' argument on anything though. It is a ridiculous argument and could be used anything"

I know what you mean (and agree) but :o

I agree with your boyfriend, someone who has eight children that they have neglected and abused will never be capable of being a parent. The existing children should be adopted and her tubes tied.

The type of people who behave like this are the last people the world needs contributing to the gene pool. At some point society needs to accept it's responsibility to future generations, do we allow a certain type to out breed everybody else creating something similar to Idiocracy? Or do we try to create a future generation that can have some hope of developing civilisation?

Personally I go for the latter. She's already 'contributed' far too much.

I agree with your boyfriend.

I've been a foster carer for many years. I absolutely agree with your OH. Many of the children I have fostered have had a huge amount of siblings and the parents were still having babies every year. The children I've fostered have all , without exception, been disgusted that their mothers (and fathers) have been allowed to continue bringing children into the world, and have voiced this vehemently to their social workers.

StealthPolarBear glad you understood, badly worded
Can't even blame phone as am on a lap top, long day at work

Sorry was laughing because it is itself a slippery slope argument! If we stop doing things because we listen to slippery slope arguments, where will it all end? :o