Barbara Harris runs a eugenically minded American charity which offers drug addicts desperate for their next fix £200 to be sterilised.

Her aim is to permanently prevent drug addicts having children that she believes they are not fit to raise. Ever.

So far she had bribed 1,253 American addicts in the throes of their cash dependant habit to voluntarily undergo surgery which will ensure that even if they recover, they will never have a family.

She is not just an American based eugenicist though, last week she flew to London in eager anticipation of expanding her charity after receiving a reported 400 e-mails from Britons desperate to see this project in action in the UK, and a £13,000 donation from the UK.

Whether they were all fellow eugenicists or addicts desperate for the £200 she was offering is not reported.

Nicotine is a drug – when will she start offering smokers a month’s supply of cigarettes to undergo permanent sterilisation?

This is just so wrong I don’t know where to start.

PJH
April 19, 2010 at 08:14

She’ll be setting up a charity to euthanise all the kids they’ve had already next…

PT
April 19, 2010 at 08:22

Alcohol too is a drug. Caffeine? Maybe foods containing fat or sugar could join the list if the health Nazis have their way. I wonder how much money this lady has got.

Kevin Monk
April 19, 2010 at 08:25

Sterilisation of eugenicists. Now, there’s something I might support. I don’t have any fancy drugs but have two bricks and a rusty pair of scissors.

David Chiverton
April 19, 2010 at 08:26

Words fail me.

Pericles
April 19, 2010 at 08:50

Interesting to consider that a century ago eugenics commanded the respect in polite society that anthropogenic global warming does to-day.

??

Antisthenes
April 19, 2010 at 08:59

Appalling.

However it does set my mind thinking about our actions in the opposite direction and the future consequences.

Humans are animals and are therefore subject to the same laws inherent in evolution, primarily survival of the fittest and natural selection. Due to our technical advances human life is being extended beyond that which nature intended. So genes are remaining in the human gene pool that aught not to be. So I ask the question what is that going to mean for the future of the human race? If the answer is a negative one where will we stand morally and ethically then?

JuliaM
April 19, 2010 at 09:19

Pericles raises an important point. This may well prove popular with the Righteous…

Uncle Marvo
April 19, 2010 at 09:21

It is, of course, wrong. It isn’t really scary. The only two things that are scary about it are that it is possible to register a charity to do it, and that the target is “drug addicts”.

The rest of it is not only predictable but really, you know worse goes on, all the time.

Luckily the numbers are pretty low. As is Barbara Harris.

Hitler nearly got away with this, many years ago.

Newgates Knocker
April 19, 2010 at 10:32

It’s wrong, of course it is, but having looked after a screaming, small bundle of humanity, born addicted, I can see the other side of the argument. If a drug addicted mother will not stop, and the resulting children (8!) are born with various degrees of mental damage (some of which can never be put right with all the love in the world) Just what do you do?

Anna Raccoon
April 19, 2010 at 10:53

Newgates Knocker,
Advocating birth control is one thing – and in the UK it is already freely available, but advocating sterilisation to people who are in no condition to make informed choices is quite wrong.
I can see the arguement in favour of birth control for addicted mothers, but sterilisation is a punishment for life, even when not addicted – and some people do make that journey – you are ensuring that they cannot ever fully take their place in society, and that they will have made that permanent decision at a time when their need for the ‘carrot’, money, was at an all time high.

Old Slaughter
April 19, 2010 at 10:34

The Hitler comparisons are only so good. He never considered anything other than the stick, at least this woman is using a carrot.

There is no real coercion here.

Not that this is something I advocate.

Alan
April 19, 2010 at 11:14

“Alcohol too is a drug. Caffeine?”

And power.

a n other
April 19, 2010 at 13:12

It’s a free country with a free market. If people want to sell their fertility for $200, who are you to criticize?

Biffo
April 19, 2010 at 13:28

Have to say I’m torn on this one. I live near by a ‘sink’ estate where too many young girls have made single parenthood a career choice. I’m not taking a moral stand on that, but you then hear them shouting at the poor little kids in the shops, on the streets, in the buses – and often using the foulest of language to them. What hope do these kids have of a happy, loved childhood & a productive & enjoyable adulthood? Just about zilch IMHO. They are only there so that the Mums don’t have to work, can apply for better housing & can get their alcohol, ciggies & anything else th