To say we should sterilise people with repeated child neglect or abuse cases?

[BeHardyGoldPeer]

If you’ve failed multiple children, shouldn’t society step in to prevent further harm?

No matter what ...noone has the right to dictate what happens to another's body

I do sometimes think that, for certain offenders, continued receipt of benefits should be conditional upon acceptance of long-acting reversible contraception. The only problem is, we currently only have LARC for women. Somebody needs to invent one for men too!

I don't have an answer, but forcing medication on people it's contraindicated for (would doctors even do it?) isn't right.

And if we're doing that, which lets be honest would be relatively cheap, why would the government then address the complicated, hard and expensive to address underlying issues?

It's a tricky one.

On the one hand, I agree. On the other hand, do I think that we should be holding people down and forcing them to undergo operations they haven't consented to?

Also, we have to bear in mind that many people with mental health or learning difficulties might have failed to look after children well and we know from history that sterilising people with mental disabilities is a dangerous path to go down.

I think we could start by making it easier for people who actually want to get sterilised, rather than forcing them to jump through hoops to prove they won't change their mind.

Maybe from there we could make it more socially acceptable to open up conversations with people who already have children they haven't adequately cared for. Explaining to someone that if they fall pregnant again, their child will be removed at birth, and they can avoid this extremely traumatic event by agreeing to undergo sterilisation might lead to an increase in voluntary sterilisations of people who are not able to take care of children, and this would be a good thing.

I understand the thinking behind this and why it appeals.

However, allowing the state this level of control of bodily autonomy has a horrifying history already.

Would be illegal under the European Convention on Human Rights, the ECHR, which UK is still signed up to. The ECHR is a Council of Europe thing, of which UK is still a member.

It’s a slippery slope, but I do think we should a be a lot stricter with removing parental rights at birth once someone has shown they are incapable . I once worked with a woman who had 3 kids in care. She got pregnant and was insistent that this one would stay with her. Of course it was taken into care at birth, but because she wanted to be involved the poor thing was in foster care for about 18 months and only once it had been through the courts etc that she could not care for him he was able to be adopted by another family. So he was taken from the foster family which was all he knew and placed with his new family, it must have been traumatic for him. All because they had this process again, even tho it had been shown before she could not be trusted. In these cases there is no second chances with a child’s life, adoption at birth is the best option.

I think we could start by making it easier for people who actually want to get sterilised, rather than forcing them to jump through hoops to prove they won't change their mind.

This as well. Start by actually allowing women who DO want to be sterilised to actually be able to do so, in a timely manner.

Idk if this would make a difference in regards to reducing child neglect. Its my experience that 90% of child neglect stems from drug addiction and I know loads of heroin addicts on a personal level (don't ask) most of them don't have the self awareness to get sterilised. Its actually disheartening how so many have got pregnant intentionally while in active addiction and go on like they're going to be mother of the year.

Sadly I see this getting worse when the synthetic opiates like fentanyl hit the UK like they have the US

Agree with this thread. They should be put on some kind of long term contraception/be sterilised. Someone i know had four kids, all taken off her because she was a heroin addict/alcoholic. Pumping out child after child. One born a heroin addict. The neglect was awful but all of them now are thriving with different families (which is sad in itself- although they all make the effort to keep the bond).

also, anyone knowingly drinking excess alcohol/taking harmful medication or illegal drugs whilst pregnant, should be done for child neglect

I believe there's a shortage of foster carers currently, I'm not sure about adopters. So I think something voluntary (with a reversible option) would make sense. Possibly incentivised but not in the region of £20k. I've also heard of the Pause programme or something similar, funding could be increased to things like that. I might be in favour of compulsory sterilisation in really extreme cases but this might only be a few people a year. They would need to be convicted in my opinion, but I believe most people who have their children removed aren't actually charged with anything.

I'd be happily sterilised voluntarily, and i don't even have kids.

right. I'm 44 and only recently managed to get a referral. when they changed my contraception, they asked if I'd had sex in the past two weeks, which I hadn't, and the doctor charmingly asked "do you even NEED contraception?"

and even within this thread, there are people saying that people on benefits should be put on long term contraception,

Absolutely not. Who decides what's bad enough to warrant it? Who decides how far that treatment should go?

It wasn't that long ago we were forcing homosexual men to go through chemical castration when they were found guilty.

Sounds like a great argument for supporting women who are in that situation. Were the children removed because of abuse? Or neglect? Because if it is the latter, it sounds like a woman who has some issues which need to be supported.

I know of a couple who have learning disabilities, and have had several children taken from them.
Who would be the one to be sterilised? The man or woman? And they both really want kids... so how do you square that with them?

@BoredZelda I've no idea. If it was neglect then the mother may well require support but that doesn't necessarily mean keeping the children with her, does it?

I wish this were doable and I agree with it. I don't think a woman's body autonomy comes above the right to protect repeated children from being born and neglected.

There are also lots of things thar are slippery slopes but we still do them e.g. abortion (& hopefully soon assisted dying).

That all said I don't think this is a practical solution & I think there are other options.

I've never understood why people aren't convicted for neglect when their children are removed. Also I've never understood why a pregnant woman who is known to social services already and is taking drugs or alcohol is not put into a mandatory hospitalisation programme to prevent continued substance abuse during pregnancy.

I think what these people need is support and rehab to break the cycle.

Fucking hell.

No.

Because systems are imperfect and get things wrong.

I've posted on here about my experience with SS.

I was told my case was the second worst case of child abuse in my county thirty years ago. Metaphyseal fractures, so plenty of "evidence" by balance of probability standards. Fought tooth and nail and got my DS back. Took 3 years. No follow up no support no further "abuse" and all framed as an intervention success story when actually I didn't do what they said.

DS is an only child. I was warned at the final hearing that having any more children would be stupid and trigger intervention. I fell pregnant once after that and had a termination - which I was forced to pay for. I asked for sterilisation and it was refused.

When they "profiled" me, they used all sorts of earnestly considered markers such as "attention seeking" because I had studied andworked in theatre - backstage.

From my experience of the system it would be a slippery slope riddled with bias and personal opinion.

If the current system isn't working as well as it should to prevent child abuse then look at why and so much is due to the shitty economic landscape and disregard for the vulnerable as it is.

By your metric, I would fall into your cohort, but should I?

My experience of the system scared me shitless and I have lifelong CPTSD as a result.

I also suspect I will never be a grandmother, due to my DS personal choice. But if he did reproduce he would be flagged. There would be assessment, because of the mere fact of having been in the system. I would never be alone with any child he produced, not because I develop an insane urge to produce occult fractures in infants, but because if anything happened..... my blood runs cold at the thought because once the system wakes up it's a juggernaut that is hard to stop.

We need to do better as a species to prevent genuine tragedies, but simply tying tubes doesn't come close to that unless you ascribe to the idea that women are just vessels and feckless breeders.

So no. A thousand fucking times, no.

The two things you mention are about having choice and bodily autonomy .

Completely different things.

I'm not sure what you mean by contraindicated as contraception is indicated for contraceptive purposes. Lots of people have medication forced on them. If they're under section, or under a community treatment order for example. If the patient refuses, they will be held down while they struggle and forcibly injected. There is no shortage of doctors willing to do this to people who don't even have a criminal record. Ironically many of these patients will find themselves in this position as a result of abuse and neglect they experienced in childhood.

My original point was that some people can't use the LARC. Hormonal contraception is not suitable for many people, and can cause major side effects. The non-hormonal IUD is also not suitable for everyone, and can cause severe pain and long term bleeding for some people.

For example, the implant is contraindicated for anyone with a history of blood clots.

I understand your point, but psychotropic medicines can (and frequently do) also cause major side effects which in some cases can be irreversible. They can cause rapid and uncontrollable weight gain, heart problems, neutropenia, metabolic syndrome, blood disorders, clots, seizures, retinopathies, permanent uncontrollable eye movements, glaucoma etc.

So what I struggle to understand is how one form of forced medicine can be perceived as unethical and outrageous but not the other.

Generally we only force treatment if someone is considered to lack capacity - and it's well established that making unwise decisions is not proof of that, and deciding that it was would definitely be a slippery slope.

Even for severe mental health issues you can only be forced to receive treatment under certain limited conditions. If your condition stabilises or improves enough that those conditions no longer apply, your consent is needed.