I'm on the same page as you on this one, Amy. Only thing that surprises me is that Project Prevention got away with it for the equivalent of $300; I'd have thought that even a junkie would have more pride than to give up his ability to procreate for that paltry sum. Since it appears that it may be purchased so cheaply, perhaps the program will catch fire and we'll have far less problems in society about 20 years from now when a whole generation of junkies and criminals aren't wandering the streets.

I agree with your stance about the druggies, however your personal definition of eugenics is wrong, as shown by the accurate scientific definition you posted.

You said, "Eugenics is about trying to eliminate a race."

No, it isn't.

From the definition you posted: "applied science or the biosocial movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population."

Basically, it isn't about trying to eliminate an entire race (such as blacks, Caucasians, etc.). It's about using scientific means to make sure the undesirable elements are not continued in the race.

Perhaps these people believe that drug addiction includes a genetic component. Therefore, having drug addicts undergo sterilization would prevent the supposed "addictive behavior" gene from being perpetuated.

I suppose that if we determined that one race was inferior (and some bigots claim we have), and science was employed to prevent the perpetuation of this one race, eugenics could be about the elimination of a race, but to say that eugenics is about the removal of a race, as if that were it's only application or even it's most commonly used application, is not even close to accurate.

Oh, my. Guess I know where I'm going to comment when the kids go down to nap. Fucking IDIOTS! I give to project prevention quarterly, thanks soooo much for letting me know about them, Amy!

Patrick - put the kool-aid down.

You're presuming to know what the Project Prevention people believe, and then slagging them for it.

Of course, you could go with what they SAY - preventing druggies from bringing babies into this world addicted, damaged, or defective. And then completely failing to do anything to give them a shot at a life.

But that doesn't allow you to hyperventilate and whine.

Loved this one: "When is society going to treat addiction like every other illness? Lets start throwing some real $$$$ to help curing addiction instead of pushing people like us to the side?"

Riiiiight. Because my money that remains in my pocket, rather than being taken and spent on drug addicts, is *the* reason the drug addicts' misery continues.

So it is *our* fault for not spending enough on them, you see.

Oddly, there have existed on this planet untold billions of people, both living and dead, who were able to avoid addiction without recourse to my money. I wonder how?

I'm wondering what, besides an attitude, is required to decide how others are to lead their lives?

Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything, except the anti-choice crowd. Liberal is an oxymoron.

Anti-choice crowd? Anti-WHAT-choice? And what and how do they force people to do?

"Eugenics is about trying to eliminate a race." Did you forget a not here? This would explain the flame war that started for any number of reasons.

"When is society going to treat addiction like every other illness?" The fuck is this. Addicts and fatties aren't ill the exhibit maladaptive behavior. Yes there is some science behind a genetic predisposition for both but that's it. If mom/dad were a crack head then stands to reason that you have a predisposed to being one. So the simplest solution is DON'T TRY CRACK. I'm predisposed to liking the bottle. I know this so I abstain from booze during the week. I could always cry illness and get drunk as often as I want, but my greed and ethics won't allow that.

brian: You're presuming to know what the Project Prevention people believe, and then slagging them for it.

I have done nothing of the sort. I know nothing about what Project Prevention believe, nor do I care at this time. I'm correcting a misstatement. That is all.

Please note, I said "perhaps." I am suggesting that if these people do believe that addictive behaviors are caused by a gene, then sterilizing those with this gene could be called "eugenics," as they will not pass this gene to their hapless offspring.

It is no more to say that Project Prevention believe this, than it is to suggest that they believe the more repulsive scenario I suggested, that an entire race could be deemed inferior and therefore we could employ eugenics to remove this supposedly inferior race.

Another possibility that I hadn't considered is the mutagenic changes that may be wrought by an addicted mother while the child is in utero. So, perhaps the Project Prevention people are seeking to prevent these unfortunate children from being born in the first place, by requesting these addicts to undergo voluntary sterilization.

Perhaps that could be called eugenics, although it doesn't sound as if they're preventing undesirable elements from forming in the first place rather than "improving the genetic composition of a population."

MarkD: Liberal is an oxymoron.

Uh, what???

"Only thing that surprises me is that Project Prevention got away with it for the equivalent of $300; I'd have thought that even a junkie would have more pride than to give up his ability to procreate for that paltry sum."

It doesn't surprise me at all. Hasn't is occurred to anyone that these drug addicts would rather NOT have children at this point of their lives, and the money is just an added bonus?

It's about using scientific means to make sure the undesirable elements are not continued in the race.

Yes. If it where just that. But so often, it comes back to a particular ethnicity.

I'm sure that Jesse Jackson or the Reverand Sharpton will be along to accuse these folks of racism because they'll be cutting down on the number of black children because they disproprationaly target black junkies.

See how it works?

It doesn't surprise me at all. Hasn't is occurred to anyone that these drug addicts would rather NOT have children at this point of their lives, and the money is just an added bonus?

Could be. Most of the people I have known who have drug or alcohol problems have known their lives were fucked up.

>>Patrick - put the kool-aid down...

Brian,
Learn to read.

You seem to be tilting at something Patrick didn't remotely say.

Patrick & vlad are correct.

There should be a "not" in the statement: "Eugenics is about trying to eliminate a race."

It's almost always easier to begin with the meaning of the word's components - basically "well/good" and "born".

Its application has always been to produce better-than-average babies!

Either positively: encourage people to only pick superior mates so their kids, hopefully, turn out clever, healthy & blessed with the best inherited traits of both parents. Which is usually a crap shoot - even with our advanced understanding of genetics in the 21st century.!

Or negatively: force the wrong type of people - with "wrong" dictated by prevailing ideology - to stop breeding.

Race elimination can be the aim of negative eugenics, of course, but it's not the definition.

I'm all for this program. In fact, I'd like to see more incentives for voluntary sterilization, for more members of society. Most of the problems plaguing the world today stem from over-population & poor or nonexistent parenting skills. Think about it, you need a license to cut someones hair or drive a car but any idiot can make & raise a human? We need to take procreation more seriously.

Perhaps one way to shut up the detractors is to make this program available to non-drug users as well. It would be a great way to reduce unwanted pregnancies across the board. As long as everything is voluntary and they are using reversible methods such as implants, I can't see why anyone should have a problem with it.

Thanks so much, Jody.

I wasn't intending to imply anything about what Project Prevention believes, since I don't know anyway. Only to correct a misstatement about the nature of eugenics as Amy described it. I see how the "not" might have been dropped. I've been known to do that myself.

Robert writes: Only thing that surprises me is that Project Prevention got away with it for the equivalent of $300; I'd have thought that even a junkie would have more pride than to give up his ability to procreate for that paltry sum.

Like Karen, I'm not surprised at this at all. In fact, I'm sure a lot of them would do it for $20. Druggies only exist in the now. They want their fix now. They don't think about long-term consequences of their decisions. If they did, they wouldn't be drug addicts...or at least trying to get help. "I can have $315 now, get my fix now. Problem solved."

Never mind that by this definition, they can undergo this procedure only once.

If Project Prevention is doing this, I want to donate. I'll pay for some hophead to get fixed and never inflict their condition on a helpless newborn because they lack self-control.

The "it's forced" argument I've heard is that addicts are incapable of turning down the money, therefor offering cash is tantamount to putting a gun to their heads. My rebuttal is that if that same addict is incapable of turning down money and has a kid, what do you think is going to happen when someone offers her drug addict mom or dad money or drugs in return for sex with the kid?

"If Project Prevention is doing this, I want to donate. I'll pay for some hophead to get fixed and never inflict their condition on a helpless newborn because they lack self-control."

I have better place for you to donate. It is called the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement or MHEMT.

"The primary motivation of VHEMT as a movement is the belief that the Biosphere of the planet Earth would be better off without humans."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Movement

Chang, that's stupid. Are you just trying to be funny, or are you really comparing the two ideas?

I prefer to donate money to a cause with realistic goals.

Besides, I like humans. They write blogs.

Beth, I never thought of that. That's horrifying to think about, but it's an excellent point.

"Eugenics is the "applied science or the biosocial movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population," usually referring to human populations"

I agree that the program arguably falls into this definition, but I'm all for it. Babies born drug-addicted often have brain damage and other handicaps. It's stupid for a society to let this happen and degrade the overall quality of the population, and it's even worse to encourage it knowing the tragic lives these children will suffer.

The program is voluntary, and it doesn't target a particular race or ethnicity. White people are drug addicts too.

Dr. Phil just had a show where this family he's been following for awhile had their daughter give birth to a drug-addicted baby. It's her THIRD child and she's 22 or something. The poor baby had to be put on morphine his withdrawals were so prolonged and painful. Anybody watching that baby struggle through his first days of life would've gladly offered that mother $300 to have her tubes tied, and if she took it, great.

I find the easiest way to shut up the "but it's a DISEASE!!!!11!! is to tell them how to take care of such a disease...

Prevention. So, we figure out a good test for addiction. Then we test EVERYONE. Then, anyone who might be an addict, is prohibited forever from coming into contact with ANYTHING addictive.

Simple, easy.
"But what about their RIGHTS?!?"

well, make up your mind... if it's preventable disease that causes criminal activity, and the potential destruction of children, then the negatives far outweigh the rights...

If it's a choice, well then their may be punishments when it negatively affects others...

"Which is usually a crap shoot - even with our advanced understanding of genetics in the 21st century"

Blonde bimbo to Einstein: "We should get married! Then we can have a kid with my looks and your brains!"

Einstein: "What if our kid has my looks and your brains?"

Hey, LS! Nice to see you again. How have you been?

How's your adoptive daughter doing, meaning the girl whose mother kicked out of the house when she revealed that she was a lesbian?

Addiction treatment specialist Stanton Peele feels addiction is not a disease but a choice -- for short-term over longterm goals. I can't get high on smack on Sunday night because I have a column to write starting at 5 a.m. Monday morning.

"Are you just trying to be funny, or are you really comparing the two ideas?"

Nope. Comic skills are not my cup of tea.

I simply turned the table on you. Have you ever considered a view point of what the endangered species like the one horned rhinos thought of humans? I don't think their views are much different from your point of view on drug addicts.

Would you accept 315 dollars from VHEM, so you can sterilize yourself for the benefits of endangered rhinos?

If you cannot do that, why do you think the drug addicts should accept 315 dollars to sterilize themselves for the rest of us?

Hey, Patrick. I was wondering where you were. Glad you're still here.

Things have settled down for my daughter's friend. Her mom has become more accepting of her sexual orientation, so she went back home. She's dropped out of school (supposedly homeschooling)but she seems to be doing ok. She was here for dinner last night and in a very happy mood, which with all that's happened with gay teens lately, is the thing I most like to see. Thanks for asking about her.

Would I accept $315 dollars to sterilize myself? Hell yes, because I don't want any more children. That would also save me the $150 per year I spend on birth control. And it wouldn't even bother me that the money came from a bunch of lunatics that believe animals are equal to humans.

"Alcoholism is a disease, but it's the only disease that you can get yelled at for having. Goddammit Otto, you're an alcoholic! Goddammit Otto, you have lupus! One of those two doesn't sound right." - Mitch Hedberg

Since the sterilization is voluntary, and no one is being forced, eugenics does not apply. However, I would like to point out that the "population" being referenced is not the addict, but the offspring. If you have ever been in any contact with a child born addicted to crack or with fetal alcohol syndrome, I doubt it is a population one can understand just through written articles.
NY State has recently convicted women of drinking to excess while pregnant causing fetal alcohol syndrome. If one can be convicted of a crime, then the prevention of it through sterilization should also be available.

Right on, Amy!

And for those pinheads who disagree with this approach, please ask them to talk to my best friend's father, who is a neonatologist in Philadelphia. He specializes in drug addicted babies. And he has told me that countless times he and his nurses have spent weeks saving those babies, only to have their mothers come in higher than a kite to take the baby home. And thanks to all the "but addicts have rights too!" morons, there was nothing that he could do to stop this.

Or how about I tell them about the Saturday night last winter in the ER when the police brought in a baby they found shoved in a duffle bag in an addict's house. The baby was pronounced DOA. Or how about I tell them about the little girl who's mother was a drug addict and beat her daughter so violently, that the doctor and I pulled a barrett out of the girl's skull because it had become logged in there from her mother striking her little head with a bat.

One night in an ER, and I guarantee you that those idiots would fully support voluntary sterelization!!!

"And it wouldn't even bother me that the money came from a bunch of lunatics that believe animals are equal to humans."

O.K. I got it. So, animals are not equal to humans. So, they have to be either superior or inferior to humans.

Let me guess. What do I think your answer would be? I think your answer should be the animals are superior to humans.

If you don't believe me, go out for one night camping to a remote mountain area where another humans are not around. Listen to the wolves howls and sound of crickets in the middle of changing fall colors of bloody red maple trees. And watch the migrating Canadian geese and marble at their ability of going home South without GPS.

Then blast out the latest Britney Spears hit song from your i pod and trash the place with beer cans and sandwich leftover. Then, call the park ranger with your cell phone because you cannot find your key to your car.

"The British elite prefers *polite* Malthusianism:
The American woman paying British drug addicts to stop breeding is only saying out loud what respectable people normally say in code."

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/9800/

Recovering alcoholic/addict here: I often have trouble reconciling my libertarian desire to legalize drugs with the mountains of evidence that it is not a victimless "crime." Even addicts without children cause untold suffering to the friends and family who love them, as well as the employers who expect them to be productive; what happens to their children is almost unspeakable. Most of them will grow up to do the same unto another generation. PLENTY of folks from intact, functional homes become addicts. It's not just the effect of broken homes and poverty.

The idea that The Disease renders addicts incapable of informed consent is clearly nonsense to "personal responsibilitarians." Love Amy's turn of phrase there. Personally I couldn't recover until I quit making excuses for my bad behavior.

In my uncredentialed opinion alcoholism/addiction is more like a mental illness than a disease, but it does have a physical component. It messes with the ability to reason. Addicts can't draw a straight line between shooting up Sunday night and having to write a column Monday morning. The ability to reason doesn't return until radical changes in action and attitude have been made.

It's probably best that people who aren't interested in making those radical changes prevent themselves from having children.

I don't get it. All it takes to get the most ludicrous and or unconstitutional/discriminatory rules, regulations, and laws passed at any level of government is to say "Think of the children"/"Its for the children" or "Our opponents are anti children" or some variation thereof...but here is a private organization that is doing something that solidly benefits children and the larger society...and people are opposed to it because drug users voluntarily use it?

WTF?!

I don't get it....

We worship children. Not the care and feeding, of course, just the manufacturing.

I have been following Barbara Harris' work for a long time (the founder of project prevention) and donated to her organization. She is really amazing. Check out project prevention on youtube to see some of her interviews and videos.

Some points to consider
-While Harris has led to the long term birth control of over 3500 women she has only sterilized 51 men in the US so the one UK addict who is getting all the media attention isn't really representative
-The UK addict had to wait 30 days before he could get the surgery or the cash. Latent rewards are much less coercive
-People can recover from the disease of alcoholism or drug abuse much more easily without the added complications and responsibilities of children or, in the case of women who have their children in foster care, the guilt and anguish of not knowing anything about where your children have gone. Just because fertility is the default doesn't mean it is best for those involved
-Harris states that of the last 20 women who chose tubal ligation, they had an average of 4 children each

I support VHEMT by carrying jacketed hollow points. Why just sterilize my self when I can cull the crack heads at the same time? Same goes for home invaders, Beretta 92 takes a lovely laser on the finger guard.

The one problem with eugenics is it's very ugly checkered past. "For the betterment of man" has been used to justify all sorts of shit, shit that no rational human could support. So I can get why the less literate more foamy mouth posters get all riled up. Look up Alfred Ploetz, he unified (wrongly) eugenics with "Racial Hygiene". Also if your mom was a crack head you may see this differently. However since this is NOT a government program I'm not sure what all the pissing and moaning is about.

I'm absolutely certain that those right wing bigots will implement the same thing for gays and lesbians if a "gay" gene were discovered. I'd imagine that such a program would draw ire from my friends at pink pistols.

LS: I applaud your actions, must have missed the posts.

"Would you accept 315 dollars from VHEM, so you can sterilize yourself for the benefits of endangered rhinos?

If you cannot do that, why do you think the drug addicts should accept 315 dollars to sterilize themselves for the rest of us?"

I'd accept their right to offer it to me. You do get the program is voluntary, right?

Vlad, so what if someone DID offer homosexuals money to sterilize themselves? At the original site, someone (jokingly, they thought) said they would start a program to get christians to choose sterilization. I told them please do, as I had to pay quite a lot for mine.

We're a free country (still, barely) so anyone can start up any voluntary program they wish, that doesn't end in the death of others.

I was explaining the ire garnered for the current program. I'm all for anyone doing anything with consenting adults, you go have at it. I'd imagine it would draw far more heat and get far less support. Also if I have to listen to those fucking idiots outside clinics then that organization would have to tolerate protesters as well. That's my masterful matron of offense.

"That's my masterful matron of offense." Should read "That's all my masterful matron of offense. (bowing in supplication for the unintended offense).

BTW sort of shows you as not anti gay marriage but outright anti gay.

"People who advocate freedom only when it benefits them are dangerously short-sighted."
Was that seriously aimed at me?

I support the right for bigots to be bigots so long as they do not use government to promulgate that bigotry. Though the government does have a duty to protect their right to be bigots.

BTW love how she added in that last part to justify her views on abortion bans.

I think your answer should be the animals are superior to humans.

I've never heard of any other kind of life form that killed six million of its own kind in gas chambers. Humans are not special little miracles any more than any other living thing on this planet.

Of COURSE we're inclined to favor humans over other forms of life, because that's what we ARE. But whales don't wish they were human beings. Neither do dolphins, owls, grasshoppers, or even the smallest mouse. Even dogs don't want to be human - they'd just like to have opposable thumbs so they could sneak into the pantry.

I'm reminded of an Einstein quote:

A human being is a part of a whole, called by us "universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

The rest of the universe doesn't exist for our benefit.

And if we aren't smart enough to control our own behavior and our own breeding, such that we produce crack-addicted babies and befoul our own surroundings, then we deserve whatever negative consequences that come as a result of it. It doesn't HAVE to be that way, but it will be if that's what we (collectively) do.

A crack-addicted infant isn't a miracle from "God," it's the result (and the victim) of the worst side of human behavior, coming from the two people it should have been able to rely upon most. Honestly, when I read about this stuff, or what UW Girl was talking about above, I wonder if those VHEMT people have it right.

That's a great idea! It may just help prevent the US from turning into an idiocracy.

UW Girl nailed it at 10:39 a.m.

My hospital has the top NICU in the region. Not all the babies are from addicts, but a heartbreaking number of them are. When you're watching a baby that has agonal breathing; taking meconium samples or drawing labs from a vein no bigger than a hair's breadth and sending them to the lab to assist in his mother's prosecution; or when you're dampening his environment because a regular level of noise sounds to him like a jet engine taking off next to his head. Watching him eventually be transported to a lifetime at the children's home because his needs will be far more than any non-professional can handle. Hugging his crying grandmother because she blames herself for this terrible disaster; because her daughter never comes to see the baby; that she envisioned taking her grandbaby to Shedd's Aquarium, rather than learning how difficult it would be to perform round-the-clock care to clean his trache, perform a G-tube feeding, perform range-of-motion exercises three times a day, tend to his toileting, administer his medications, and then start all over again.

Chang, come to my NICU sometime and get a REAL look at the actual consequences that this movement addresses. Until then, please refrain from prattling with whatever contrived nonsense you'd strung together for whatever that pathetic argument is that you're trying to foist on us. They're not related.

Well said, Juliana.

My adoptive parents were foster parents when I was growing up, and they took in a lot of babies that never should have been conceived. My mother even had to send one crack-addicted baby back -- something she never did before or after -- because the baby never slept, thus my mother never slept, and she came very close to hurting the baby herself before her first husband forced her to give the kid back to the foster agency. Other kids spent their lives in group homes or returned to the drug-infested homes they came from.

This is a great project.

"Humans are not special little miracles..."
Um...yeah guy, we are. We can think, reason, pass on knowledge, and discover.

Animals just breed and die until they become extinct. They can't wish for anything more than their next meal. They lack sentience or the capacity to grow and change as humans can and do on a daily basis. They do not develop cultures nor write books, they cannot articulate in any way their own experiences, their lives are a thousand times more transient than ours, because they can offer nothing to the future of their species but the perpetuation of their species. They lack even the capacity to make "mistakes" in any meaningful human sense, for the same reason they can never make themselves great. What allows humans to destroy themselves as groups or as individuals, is what also allows us to elevate ourselves. Awareness and sentience...those are rather like a double edged sword.

Perhaps the universe does not exist "for our benefit" but benefit from it we do, and in all the world there is no other living species, that is able to look up at the stars and wonder about our place in that universe, or if anything out there exists that is like ourselves or radically different, we alone can appreciate and describe the remarkable thing that is nature and the universe. The dog, for all its noble nature in relation to its master, will die without even a moment of such comprehension, and neither it nor the cow we eat nor the swiming fish, has ever or will ever do what even our small children are capable of.

Their potential is limited, ours is not.

vlad:

I'm absolutely certain that those right wing bigots will implement the same thing for gays and lesbians if a "gay" gene were discovered. I'd imagine that such a program would draw ire from my friends at pink pistols.

Actually, I think you'd find your friends at Pink Pistols and pretty much every other gay advocacy group would split with their Democrat brethren and become staunchly anti-abortion if that happened.

Oh, and for old time's sake: Chang, you ignorant slut. VHEMT is made up of imbecilic misanthropes. If they think humans are such a scourge, let them try to take us out themselves. I guarantee you I'm a better shot than any of them. But they (and you) are welcome to try.

PJ writes: "The rest of the universe doesn't exist for our benefit."

No no no; wrong sentiment. It's true that the universe does not exist specifically to "help" or "take care" of us; thinking otherwise is engaging in utopianism. But don't let that knowledge trick you into thinking that we are, or should be, confined. The universe, like the Earth, has lots of resources that we can make good use of if we are smart about it. Provided that we are good stewards of what we have inherited, it is ours to make use of as we wish. The universe really is our oyster. (Until we bump into another intelligent species -- but my personal guesstimate is that the odds of that happening are lower than commonly supposed today.)

I'm not a guy!

And I am my dog's servant, not her master. There isn't a thing I wouldn't do for her.

Robert, youre comments are interesting, and uplifting, but I am skeptical. Can we discuss?

Let me throw this out: Does any other thing on this planet, or any other planet, give a shit that we look up at the stars and wonder about our own existence, or write books? Who does it make a difference to, except ourselves? Storing nuts means everything to a squirrel, but we don't care what they do. In fact, if our own interests were at stake, we'd let every squirrel go extinct.

If Voluntary Human Extinction Movement really wants humans to all kill themselves, why they don't start with themselves? Obviously they don't, if there is still a group, right?

There's a similar argument for suicide bombers. Ever notice how the people who do this are never the ones that are at the top of the hierarchy?

Fetal alchohol syndrome and being born having ingested meth in the womb can do terrible things to a baby. It's not fair to them.

Completely agree with you, Cousin Dave.

I see nothing wrong with people enjoying the lives we are lucky enough to have.

What I'm saying is that it comes down to whether we choose to shit in our nest or not.

Well KrisL, I don't want people to go extinct. As Robert points out, they have their good points.

But we have to take ownership of that - do I think a bunch of crack-addicted people should be having kids? No, that just hurts everybody.

What really irritates me is that the people foisting their own irresponsibility upon everyone else are taking advantage of the fact that the rest of us care. We'll fork over our own money to keep that kid in NICU, because it's not that kid's fault that he has to succumb to the things Juliana describes, just to survive.

That's the cool thing about people. But it can be exploited, and we shouldn't let the good things about ourselves be used against us.

Yeah, I have a soft heart, but I want that to continue to be something I am proud of, not a "chump" sticker taped across my butt.

Aren't vasectomies reversible?

So the drug addict who gets his shit together later in life and wants the family still can in most cases.

Am I wrong? A quick google says they can be reversed, but maybe not...

Vasectomies are technically reversible, but statistically unlikely (my resource on reproduction says

"BTW love how she added in that last part to justify her views on abortion bans."

No, actually, I added it to counter the probable mention by someone that you can't start a voluntary group for assisted sucide for example. Abortion is legal. I'm working tirelessly on that, but in the meantime, it is, and yes you can start a group to promote abortions if you want.

"BTW sort of shows you as not anti gay marriage but outright anti gay."

Am I anti-christian? Because I clearly said it's fine to start up a group aimed at ANY other group, including christians. But yeah, because I support freedoms for ALL views, I'm anti-gay. Brilliant argument you've got there.

Vasectomy reversals have varying success rates depending on the technique used in the vasectomy, the skill of the reversing surgeon, and (some believe) the amount of time since the vasectomy was performed. The ranges usually used go from 97% chance of sperm returning to the ejaculate with a 76% pregnancy rate (with a fertile partner) if the vasectomy was performed less than 3 years ago, to a 71% chance of sperm return and 30% pregnancy rate if the vasectomy was performed more than 15 years ago. More details here: http://www.vasectomy.com/ArticleDetail.asp?siteid=R&ArticleId=5 If you get a really good surgeon, your success rates will be higher -- Google "Sherman Silber vasectomy reversal" for one example. HOWEVER, the advice of the medical community is to avoid having a vasectomy or tubal ligation UNLESS you feel 100% certain you are done having biological children.

IVF can be used in cases in which vasectomy/tubal ligation reversal doesn't work, though guys who have undergone non-reversed vasectomies will have to have sperm removed with a needle or through surgery. The NHS in the UK covers IVF...but with a whole lot of conditions. Not everyone may qualify.

Does this count as eugenics? I'd say no. I notice they're not targeting addicts who have been clean for 10+ years -- i.e. people who, if there is a gene predisposing you to drug addiction, would be capable of creating children with the propensity to become addicts. They're targeting people who are at high, high risk of creating sick children for whom they cannot care, BUT who could create healthy children if they changed their behavior. Drug addicts aren't defined by their genes, their ethnicity or any other sort of inborn trait -- they're defined by their behavior. Eugenics, to me anyway, is about discouraging and encouraging reproduction based on some sort of inborn trait. YMMV.

And hey, if Richard Dawkins wants to offer to pay Christians to sterilize themselves, I will defend to the death his right to do it. I would think he was being silly, and would expect that most of the people who would take him up on the offer would be those who were done with their families anyway, but hey, he has the right.

"Actually, I think you'd find your friends at Pink Pistols and pretty much every other gay advocacy group would split with their Democrat brethren and become staunchly anti-abortion if that happened." Actually most of them are fairly conservative and with the exception of gay marriage tend to vote republican, or at least libertarian. Think log cabin republicans.

"I'm working tirelessly on that," So yes you want them banned. Leaving me to have to pay for all the fucked up kids. You being shielded from this by having 4 children. Hah fucking funny there. The best part is that my class will still be able to have them just not the destitute. It's called a plane ticket.

What is jaw-dropping is to think about what Juliana and UW Girl described as the extensive care these addicted babies require. Round-the-clock care? A trache? G-tube feeding? Physical therapy, medications? These things don't grow on trees, and they aren't cheap. Since it seems likely that the kid's parents aren't footing the bills, gee, guess who is?

To look at this in terms of the staggering burden it puts on a person's neighbors, it's screamingly obvious that these crack addicts should not be having kids. To hear anyone even begin to dispute this, I can only shake my head.

Vlad, I don't know why you even brought abortion into this thread. And yes, it was you, no one else. I think you've a wee obsession there. But I am not going to answer any more of your baseless accusations about something that isn't even relevent to the thread. There will be an abortion thread soon enough, I'm sure. See you there.

"VHEMT is made up of imbecilic misanthropes. If they think humans are such a scourge, let them try to take us out themselves. I guarantee you I'm a better shot than any of them."

I hate to break this news to you but you are a volunteer of VHEMT. I am not making this up. This is from Wikipedia.

"Anyone who decides not to procreate whether or not they are aware of VHEMT is considered a volunteer."

So, you are telling me you are better shot than yourself?

Chang, you pig-ignorant bucket of human waste, I am not a volunteer of any group that simply claims me. Neither have I concluded that I won't reproduce. In fact, with more and more of these anti-human groups feeling free to spout their agenda, I've considered finding an appropriate mate and having several children just to spite them.

Every member of every group that thinks the world would be better off without humans should feel free to kill themselves post-haste. We'll even mulch them so they don't have any more impact on the planet through cremation or burial.

Feed 'em to the pigs, Errol.

Sheesh, Brian. Are you the pot or the kettle in this conversation? You condemn others as being anti-human in the same breath that you advise people to kill themselves?

Anyway, it's silly to talk about whether the "world" would be better off without humans or not. The "world" simply doesn't care one way or the other about us. What it really comes down to is a circular argument about whether human beings would be better off without as many other human beings around. And I've heard you bitch more than just about anyone about those who make dumb choices and then expect everyone else to haul water while they ride in the wagon. Does it make me "anti-human" to say we'd be better off without these mooches?

Please, read it again, more slowly.

People who want me to die for their political agenda should prove to me that they are serious, and die for their agenda first.

Otherwise, how do I know it isn't just some plot to get rid of everyone they don't like so they can have the planet to themselves?

I'm not anti-human. I'm anti-douchebag, and anti-idiot.

And the idiots will take care of themselves one Darwin Award at a time, so all that's left is to convince the douchebags that we don't need them around, and my job here is done.

Then I can go retire on some island where girls in grass skirts bring me drinks on the beach.

Besides, Jo - as inconvenient or unpleasant as you or I may find it, we are precisely the kind of people who SHOULD be procreating so we might have a chance to finally outnumber the stupids.

"In fact, with more and more of these anti-human groups feeling free to spout their agenda, I've considered finding an appropriate mate and having several children just to spite them."

I cannot wait to hear your pick up line.

"Baby, how do you feel about a guy, who is a fast draw and want to have children to just piss some people off?"

Let me know how that worked out for you.

I dunno, Chang - he's almost got me talked into bed! I've always liked Brian, and besides nothing gets me worked up like the prospect of having ten kids, just so my offspring can outnumber those of ONE welfare queen on food stamps! ;-D (Of course if I had ten kids I would be on food stamps myself.)

Brian, I don't think we have any chance of outnumbering the stupids at this point. Part of what makes smart people smart is being thoughtful about parenting. Part of what makes stupid people stupid is that they simply breed without thinking about the implications for themselves or their offspring. They start a lot sooner, too. By the time the average sane person is just starting to think about having kids, your typical mouth-breathing dullard is already a grandma or grandpa. Our many welfare programs, although initiated with the best of intentions, simply incentivize this behavior.

The movie Ideocracy was supposed to be satire. But a few decades down the road, it's not so funny anymore. Maybe the most merciful thing we can do for these people is non-reproduce ourselves from the gene pool. Enjoy our lives without any screaming brats around, and then, when all the people carrying the water have died out, and all that's left is a bunch of morons sitting in a wagon that no one is left to pull, well then I guess they'll finally have to get off their asses, won't they!

Heh, sorry Jo, my fault!

No, other things on this planet do not...not least of all because they are incapable of it. They have no capacity to do anything more than perpetuate their existence. As to other planets, hell if I know, not now, but one day if we should encounter some other sentient form of life, they might.

But we don't need any other species to care about our capabilities and potential, it is we alone on this planet that must concern ourselves with that. The squirrel just wants to eat, mate, and avoid danger until it becomes bird food. It has no potential to do anything else. It can't reflect, and yes, between the welfare of the squirrel and the welfare of human beings, I pick human beings. Though were such a circumstance to occur, we also have the means to preserve that species against extinction. If you want to place a value on the life of various species, then the measure should be its potential, not its mere existence. If the only thing you value is existence, then bacteria, squirrels, and people all fall into the same category with the exact same value. What possible use or meaning could such a standard have?

Hence I say, measure life by its potential, and the superiority and uniqueness of human beings becomes self evident. As to its purpose...call it a call to personal action, to live up to some of that potential, and contribute to the improvement of the next generation. And if improving life for the next generation has no meaning...well I cannot imagine what else I can say.

Who is paying for all the care these kids require? Quite obviously, it's all of us who pay taxes. I can only speak for the ER, but I have yet to see a drug addict or a child of an addict with private insurance. They are ALWAYS on Medicare.
Even if the baby of an addict winds up health (and that's a huge IF), chances are that they will be wards of the state before they are 5. And then they're in the foster system...funded by taxpayers. And don't even get me going on the abuse that goes on the foster system.
I hate to say this because as a Catholic I do believe life begins at conception, but after you have seen first hand what happens to the kids of addicts, I do believe they would have been better off not being born at all.

"Vlad, so what if someone DID offer homosexuals money to sterilize themselves?"

Uhh, nothing would happen. The percentage of gays in the population does depend on their reproduction. I remind you again to seek the term, "androgen insensitivity", and read the result at length. No, you do not have a choice about how you were built. Gender, even physical gender, is NOT BINARY.

-----

On a seperate note, those of you fond of the idea of drug legalization will please note that this entire thread shows that the assertion that drug users will simply act responsibly if drugs are legal - is wrong.

Raise availability - raise addiction rate. Fuel this fire!

Tsk. "...does NOT depend..."

I'd be willing to have Brian's brainchild....

Chang, I still want to crush you like a crunchy bug for your blatant disregard for the primary concern of this thread and trying to hijack it for your vacuous tripe.

As to who pays for all the care these kids require, locally the hospital racks it up as "charity care", and end up not paying any taxes ever as balance.

Robert, I think you nailed it with this one:

What allows humans to destroy themselves as groups or as individuals, is what also allows us to elevate ourselves. Awareness and sentience...those are rather like a double edged sword.

You never see a bird simply decide it's not going to bother getting out of bed in the morning, stop looking for worms, and stop feeding its young. It is unique to humans to behave in a completely self-destructive way.

You refer to measuring life by its potential, and that almost makes the case for human beings more damning. Because if you look at one life form (like the squirrel) that, as you say, really has no potential beyond what its instincts tell it to do, and by jove it still manages to take care of itself - and compare that to a human being that HAS potential to think outside itself, and then squanders it. What does that say about us?

We understand the math, and what do we do with it? Invent air conditioning (good), explore space (good), and ... manufacture meth and produce addicted babies. A double-edged sword, as you say. I think it makes more sense to judge a species not so much by the potential it has, but by what it chooses to do with the potential it DOES have. And I am, admittedly, in light of current events, a little down on humans at the moment.

WOO HOO! Two women on one thread! We could start an army and take over the world!

And I am, admittedly, in light of current events, a little down on humans at the moment.

But in that British tradition, we soldier on.

"We could start an army and take over the world!"

Who says I haven't already?

"crush you like a crunchy bug"

I am totally stealing this line from Juliana. Awesomesauce.

Haven't read through the comments yet, but I was just talking about this the other day with my SO. I think it's a wonderful idea. If you are willing to sell your reproductive rights, then you should not be having children. I'd take the money in a minute; since I'm not a drug addict I have to save and pay for it myself. Oh well what are you gonna do

Late to the party again...

Brian, let me clear it with my fiance and I'll be you're baby mama #3. He's cool. We shouldn't have a problem.

On the whole "what if they offere gays money to be sterilized" argument. Really? Wouldn't that be kind of a waste of money? I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure two men or two women cannot make a baby.

I don't see the problem with the program. I think it's a brilliant idea. Of course, I also think that you should have to get a depo shot and take a drug test to pick up your welfare check each month, so take from that what you will.

Hey there! This is kind of off topic but I need some guidance from an established blog. Is it hard to set up your own blog? I'm not very techincal but I can figure things out pretty quick. I'm thinking about setting up my own but I'm not sure where to begin. Do you have any points or suggestions? Many thanks