The show that was playing was called "Taking a Stand", in which Fergal Keane (whom I have never heard of) talks to people who have unusual and outrageous views. Today he spoke to Barbara Harris.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qvbj
(I'm sorry, this is a link to the programme site, and not the interview itself. I am hoping someone will find a link to you tube, for people outside the UK)
I have never heard of Barbara Harris or Project Prevention, and at first this seemed like another crazy they had dragged out of some corner, and she was going to talk about how the inner-city crime problems will get resolved if we all catch the red admiral butterflies for two hours every Tuesday.
What I did hear was a truly astonishing woman, with an outrageous set of ideas. Well, specifically one idea. Pay drug addicts to get sterilized. At first, my set of liberal values jumped up and cried, "How dare she... These people are victims of our society... They are under the influence of a terrible drug and can't be expected to make decisions for themselves... What happens when they come off drugs... sterilization can't be turned back... Isn't this close to eugenics, the idea of weeding out certain races that the nazi's so vehemently pursued"
As I continued to listen though, the answers to the tough questions about the rights of individuals, the abuse of people under the influence, the inherent racism, the right winged sponsorship, I was slowly won over by her straightforwardness.
She is a focused woman, that much is clear, and when you see the world through her eyes, you can't deny her points. Her argument is simple. Society has rights, and there are too many babies who have been dumped on the state, by single mothers who have taken no care to use birth control, and are totally incapable of caring for their offspring. These women have produced many babies. Some individuals have had over ten. All of which get swept into the adoption circuit, put into care homes and hostels, or orphanages where they often grow up with rejection issues and anger management problems and drug problems.
The women if, and when, they get themselves out of the drugs problems often express huge regret and guilt at having had the babies and not cared enough for them. The state has no choice but to take responsibility for them.
The drug addict has had a choice. The baby has not. As she expressed in the fascinating interview, she does have empathy for these women, and often offers to keeps in touch with them, but her duty is to the society she lives in, and to the babies that would have been born into a hash careless environment had she not done her work. There are other people who will care for the drug addict.
http://www.projectprevention.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Prevention
I was stunned by this interview and it instantly reminded me of "Freakonomics" by Steven Levitt. A truly remarkable book about statistics. And specifically his chapter on the effect of legalised abortion on crime.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effect
In this he discusses a very direct correlation to the fall in crime figures after the Roe vs Wade case.
The truth is, I have always believed the rights of a society should outweigh the rights of an individual. That's not to say we should ignore the rights of an individual, but for too long we have worried about these individual rights and almost forgotten how these privileges have damaged our society. You just have to look around at the protections we give our children and the way they use and abuse the system against us or the way that religious rights are used to defend racist and anti-social behaviour.
Drugs have seeped into every crack in our society, and has pushed a wave of crime further and further, tearing down our walls of social understanding and respect. We are bewildered by its impact and helpless in its aftermath. Barbara Harris is taking a stand to try to limit this tide at its source, just as Roe vs Wade did by accident in the 70's, and I for one applaud her efforts.
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