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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Would it be immoral to secretly sterilise a person?

182 replies

Globaluser · 29/05/2021 20:39

A person you feel doesn’t deserve to have kids? A person who’s children are already in care? Would you, if you could?

So, in a nutshell:
Does anyone feel they could take away the right to have a baby from anyone who could potentially be a danger to a child?

Yabu - yes
Yanbu - no

FYI I’m asking because a friend thinks its wrong to make such a big decision on behalf of a person.

OP posts:
CindyTrevaskis · 30/05/2021 14:40

Churchill was into eugenics. He believed that you should sterilise those with mental health issues. If he had gotten his was I would not be here, and my
son certainly wouldn’t be.

Of course you cannot sterilise anyone. You don’t get to choose where the line is.

Penners99 · 30/05/2021 14:49

Not at all

OwlBeThere · 30/05/2021 14:59

I’m fucking APPALLED at this poll. What in the Nazi bullshit is this?

TheCanyon · 30/05/2021 15:08

All four of my dc were born early and needed nicu/scbu support for weeks at a time. Plenty of addicts babies in, frankly they should be steralised, a withdrawing baby is utterly horrendous.

OwlBeThere · 30/05/2021 15:08

@Hardertobreathe

Does anyone feel they could take away the right to have a baby from anyone who could potentially be a danger to a child?

Yabu - yes
Yanbu - no

I’m wondering if the voting results are because people are voting YABU to the thread title rather than ^

Oh that could be it, I hope that’s it!
OwlBeThere · 30/05/2021 15:12

@TheCanyon

All four of my dc were born early and needed nicu/scbu support for weeks at a time. Plenty of addicts babies in, frankly they should be steralised, a withdrawing baby is utterly horrendous.
But (and to be clear this is NOT my opinion, but I’ve heard it discussed many times) there are people who believe that having multiple preemies especially micro-prems is also immoral and those parents shouldnt be allowed to continue having babies. My point being everyone’s bar for what is acceptable and what isn’t is different and if we agree to one scenario, it brings it ever closer to eugenics. It’s a slippery slope.
SimonJT · 30/05/2021 15:13

@TheCanyon

All four of my dc were born early and needed nicu/scbu support for weeks at a time. Plenty of addicts babies in, frankly they should be steralised, a withdrawing baby is utterly horrendous.
You forget that by saying this you’re telling those babies/children/adults “you shouldn’t have been born”.
OwlBeThere · 30/05/2021 15:13

Also, these days we have many reliable long acting contraceptives that can protect those with severe learning disabilities from pregnancy. It doesnt need to be as definite as a sterilisation.

Sirzy · 30/05/2021 15:18

@TheCanyon

All four of my dc were born early and needed nicu/scbu support for weeks at a time. Plenty of addicts babies in, frankly they should be steralised, a withdrawing baby is utterly horrendous.
So someone is an addict at a young age and is forced to be sterilised against their will. What happens if they get support and turn their life around? Sterilisation is pretty permanent

Perhaps we should put the energy into helping those on drugs to rehabilitate (or even better look at the reasons people start taking drugs and work to tackle it before it’s a problem)

AlternativePerspective · 30/05/2021 15:21

While obviously it would be immoral to sterilise someone secretly, I do think that people who have children removed because of severe abuse/neglect should be sterilised.

My DP was seriously abused to the extent he has a life long disability, his siblings were also removed into the care system. His mother then left the area so as to slip under the radar and then went on to have 3 more children. And we’ve recently discovered that the father as well had children before DP who were removed for adoption.

As much as it is immoral for someone to be sterilised in secret, it is also immoral to watch idly by as parents who have been proven to be incapable bring more and more abused children into the world only for them to be removed to the care system which is far from an ideal place to be brought up.

And saying the message given to those children is that they shouldn’t be born is ridiculous. They’re alive now, but if they’d never been born they would never know they hadn’t been born or why.

Children should have the right not to be abused, not to be born in alcohol or drug withdrawal, but somehow the abusers are always put first.

Mousetown · 30/05/2021 15:23

@OwlBeThere

I’m fucking APPALLED at this poll. What in the Nazi bullshit is this?
Agreed. I actually feel a bit sick that someone would think like this and post a fucking poll about it.

Appalling

HollowTalk · 30/05/2021 15:25

@MignonLA

I’ve name changed to share an anecdote.

As a medical student I attended a C-section. This young woman had mild learning difficulties and had children already who were classed as ‘in need’ with social services and had significant behavioural problems. She had pregnancy complications before and was at serious risk. The dad was in prison and had abused her. No dad on scene for the others. She was not coping already.

The consultant did say in the staff room that for her and her kids sake he really wanted to tie her tubes when she was on the table.

Of course it would be immoral, what an affront to bodily autonomy. I felt sorry for her and her kids though and Christ knows she didn’t any more on her plate.

Just wanted to say something along similar lines. My friend's husband was a nurse back in the 70s and early 80s. My friend's sister was a heroin addict and went to the husband's hospital for an abortion. He said that they would probably sterilise her at the same time and that they often did this to addicts. I was really shocked - I don't even know enough about the procedures to know whether that's physically possible.

Not long after that, my friend's sister recovered from her habit and has since had a child.

AlternativePerspective · 30/05/2021 15:30

So how many children should people be allowed to abuse and have removed into care? Should baby P’s mother be able to have more children? But it’s ok because the system will take care of them?

I don’t really care if an addict turns their life around. You abuse any of your kids to the extent they are removed then turning your life around so you can have more should be too little too late.

HollowTalk · 30/05/2021 15:36

A long time ago I remember watching the news here in Liverpool and there was a piece about an 18 year old young man who'd just fathered his 19th child. And no, of course he wasn't paying CM, never mind even seeing any of them. I don't know what you do with people like that. Of course the women sleeping with him should have used contraception too.

Seeing that guy on Long Last Family was similar - he has seven children to seven different women.

Jellycatspyjamas · 30/05/2021 15:41

There needs to be much more support for parents after their child has been removed, there’s very little available at the moment and what does exist is patchy in the extreme. So mums go on to have more children in the hope that this time it’ll work out, with little understanding of what went wrong in the first place.

Enforced sterilisation isn’t remotely an acceptable option - especially when there’s little in the way of early support and intervention. I can count on one hand the number of people I’ve come across who purposefully, knowingly set out to hurt their children, and many, many for whom the dice was loaded from the start. It’s easy to sit in judgement and to think you have the right to decide whether someone can control their own fertility but it’s almost always way more complicated than it appears.

Stronger intervention, better parenting support, financial help and choices around living circumstances yes, enforced sterilisation, no.

MrsTerryPratchett · 30/05/2021 15:54

Strange how discussion on this topic tends to revolve around the women's fertility, and not the men that play at least an equal part in the creation of an embryo (may be more responsible if there are rape/ coerced consent issues) and there are probably more men that are a hazard to society in this regard.

It's almost always women being sterilised. In some cases men and women but women are always there. Which is interesting because IM (extensive) E none of these women have babies in a vacuum. There is always abuse. Generally how it goes is... Girl born into a crap family with an abusive father/mum's boyfriend and neglectful mother. Girl is abused, sees her mother abused, if the man in the house is the mum's boyfriend she is often sexually abused. Sometimes if it's her father. She leaves, tries to heal, fails, gets addicted, meets a man just like she's used to. Tries to replace her shit birth family with her own, has a baby. Wants to believe she can heal her past but she has no skills and a shit man around. Man carries on abusing her, she carries on using, baby born addicted, cycle carries on.

The one thing which is almost always present is male violence. But it's female fertility that we consider.

In Canada there is a program where pregnant, addicted women are given housing, healthcare, counselling and care without an expectation of stopping use. Abusive partners cannot enter the housing and they do family/couples counselling if a supportive partner is present. What they found is that addicted mother's babies do better when the abuse, homelessness, lack of healthcare, sex work and violence stop than if you stop the drugs and leave all the abuse and neglect. Better outcomes and healthier babies.

But we don't do that. Because stopping male violence is just too difficult. So we leave women in these situations, let them become damaged by them and them when they try to heal themselves with families, blame them for it. Up to considering sterilisation for them rather than vasectomies for men like this.

I helped out in a program for vulnerable teenage mums once that had THREE young mums being abused and pregnant by the same father. He was horribly violent to these girls. And they were girls when he got involved with them. But yeah, sterilise the girls. Hmm

Wearywithteens · 30/05/2021 15:57

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn at the poster's request.

NameyNameyNameChangey · 30/05/2021 15:59

@AlternativePerspective

So how many children should people be allowed to abuse and have removed into care? Should baby P’s mother be able to have more children? But it’s ok because the system will take care of them?

I don’t really care if an addict turns their life around. You abuse any of your kids to the extent they are removed then turning your life around so you can have more should be too little too late.

Yes, she should be able to. The human right to bodily autonomy apply to everybody. I don't think she should have any more children. She shouldn't have had any. If she has any sense, she won't get pregnant again. But I don't think the state should decide who is worthy of bearing children.
BadMotherLover · 30/05/2021 16:01

I'll get burned for this. YANBU.

SimonJT · 30/05/2021 16:02

There needs to be much more support for parents after their child has been removed, there’s very little available at the moment and what does exist is patchy in the extreme. So mums go on to have more children in the hope that this time it’ll work out, with little understanding of what went wrong in the first place.

This is true, support is very very poor. My sons birth mum was supported in a sense before her children were removed, but none of this support was actually focused on helping her, getting to the route of the problem etc. She needs easy to access intensive therapy and intensive support to help her build a life that doesn’t include certain people or substances.

No matter the intervention they would have still been removed as she would not be capable of meeting the needs of the children due to what she had exposed them to. However with the right support she could potentially recover enough to successfully raise a child who hasn’t been subjected to abuse etc.

NameyNameyNameChangey · 30/05/2021 16:02

@OwlBeThere

I’m fucking APPALLED at this poll. What in the Nazi bullshit is this?
The thread title and OP is really unclear. I didn't vote because I was very unsure what the options were asking!
Hawkins001 · 30/05/2021 16:04

This topic certainly is a contentious issue

DrSbaitso · 30/05/2021 16:05

@Globaluser

Oh my god! I can’t believe you people are actually comparing nazis sterilising for supremacy to a convicted child abuser/neglecter being forced to stop from having children. That’s actually fucked up. But thank you to all that have given answers based on experience.
How on earth did you ask such a question and not imagine that that's what people would think of?
Anotherlovelybitofsquirrel · 30/05/2021 16:09

YANBU.

Plenty of people should never have children/any more.

NameyNameyNameChangey · 30/05/2021 16:09

@HollowTalk

A long time ago I remember watching the news here in Liverpool and there was a piece about an 18 year old young man who'd just fathered his 19th child. And no, of course he wasn't paying CM, never mind even seeing any of them. I don't know what you do with people like that. Of course the women sleeping with him should have used contraception too.

Seeing that guy on Long Last Family was similar - he has seven children to seven different women.

Forcing him to pay the CM- somehow*- would put a stop to his gallop and make him more careful I bet.

*Don't ask me how. I don't have the answer.