A controversial scheme which has been put in to action in America is being suggested for the UK.
After adopting four crack-addicted babies, born one after the other to the same mother, Barbara Harris came up with a big idea. 'All I ever heard was people talking about the rights of the addict,' she says. 'No one was talking about the rights of babies born to those addicted mothers.'
Her plan was to pay addicts to to be either sterilised or to commit to long-term contraception. It's an initiative that has appalled those of a liberal bent.
But, at the same time, it has garnered support from those who believe such drastic action is the only way to combat the crippling social problems that come with drug abuse.
So far, about 1,200 women and 50 men have accepted money to be sterilised in America. This week, 20 years on, Harris has brought her charity Project Prevention to Britain. Addicts who want to accept her offer of £200 must be sterilised or fitted with a contraceptive implant - anything that will assure her they will not be able to get pregnant.
'It's a very common-sense, simple approach to a serious problem,' the 57-year old says. If you are going to pay a woman not to abuse a child, this is the best £200 you can spend. Money is a great motivator for these addicts,' she acknowledges.
'These women made a conscious choice at one point in their lives to do drugs; these babies did not get offered that choice. Nobody has the right to force their drug addiction on an innocent child.'
This week, she was whipping up a storm of controversy in the UK, leading the head of one of Britain's largest drug charities to call her practices 'morally reprehensible and irrelevant'.
Yet Barbara claims to have been inundated with emails from Britons praising her approach - not least from social workers overloaded with case files of drug addicts' children.
For more on this story follow the link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1269355/BARBARA-DAVIES-Should-drug-addicts-paid-sterilised.html
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