Cash for vasectomy....

[Tiberius]

Let me give you all a lesson that you will probably ignore anyway.

I won't ignore it, but I will attempt to refute it

This type of incentive is classist its core. It supports the idea that one group of privileged people can decide when and how underprivileged have children.

No, because that isn't happening. No group here is deciding when and how another group can have children. One group is offering to pay for sterilisation for another group who would cause (through their own actions) any children they conceived physical and mental problems, and possibly death.

Because, you know, the way to help drug addicts is to tell them they don't deserve children and give them more money for drugs.

Please present your evidence for your assertion that the charity tells people they don't deserve children. I can't find it in any media report. If anything, all interviews with the drug addicts who have been on this program show that the addict themselves have made this decision; that they do not deserve children (or should not have them).

I agree though, this isn't the way to help drug addicts, but the charity isn't trying to help them, it is trying to save potential children from harm if the drug addict is refusing to get help for themselves. All drug addicts have a choice; they can go to rehab (and there are free programs), they can use protection when having sex...they can do any of these things. They also now have a choice to get sterilised if they honestly can't get off the drugs, and don't want to harm anyone else.

Who do you honestly think this type of program will target the most? Poor people and people of color. It is not a slippery slope to say this has classist and racist implications, because it's there. It's right there in front of your face.

Y'know who I think it will target the most? Drug addicts. It is a complete non-sequitur to argue that a program will target specific groups of people, when those groups are only targeted by proxy. To give another example; suppose that a genre of music is listened to by 90% of black people, and a charity was set up to pay people to stop listening to that genre of music. Is such a charity being racist? No. We cannot possibly make that conclusion without taking a massive leap in reasoning. You are approaching this from the angle of "well, most of their clients will be poor and black, therefore the reasons for doing this must be classist and racist". This may well be true, but you have no evidence to back up this assertion, as the real case may be that the reasons for doing this are as they stated, and it just so happens that the majority of people it affects are poor and/or black.

I didn't think I'd have to use this argument on a fellow atheist, but it is exactly the same kind of reasoning as saying that the universe appears fine-tuned, therefore it was created *for* us, ignoring the perfectly valid reasoning that we exist solely as a by-product of the universe being the way it is.

This is coercive bribery and and an exercise in eugenics. It lets people who have a dystopian world view claim they are doing good. What is their tactic? "Think of the children". Where have we heard that before...hmmm....gay marriage anyone?

In that instance, there was no evidence linking abuse of children (or bad upbringing of children) to homosexual parents, or homosexual marriage. In this case, there is very good evidence linking physical and mental disorders in children of drug addicts, to the drug addicts. So yes, we should think of the children in this instance, because they are the ones who this will ultimately affect.

In this case you're trying to protect children that don't even exist instead of the real person who does exist.

Correction. We are trying to help protect children who could potentially exist. As I said in my previous post, we do this all the time. Whether it is by not having sex with our siblings, or by using a condom when having sex with your partner because you haven't the financial resources or drive to be a parent yet. No children exist there either, but we take measures to prevent them from being born into a life for which neither of the people involved are ready.

You want to help drug addicts? Then use that money for proven programs that actually help the person suffering from addiction and make available to them more reasonable birth control alternatives like the pill and condoms, like planned parenthood. Giving them $200 discriminates and simply feeds the problem. You're not helping, you're hurting.

What happens when the drug addict doesn't want to quit, or when both of them are in such a drug-induced state that they completely forget about condoms, or the woman forgets about the pill. We are talking about drug addicts here; they aren't exactly thought of as the most organised and forward planning of people. Birth control works when people use it, and people only use it when they are in the right state of mind to remember it.

The drug addict has the choice at the end of the day, and that is not discrimination. Discrimination would be to deny them that choice.

This type of behavior is no better than those who would try to enforce pro-life legislation. You do not get to make reproductive decisions for another individual.

Nobody is. The decision is down to the addict.

This is at the core of the pro-choice movement, and what is most important is that to be pro-choice means you support a persons right to have or not have children. It is THEIR choice. It's a two way street, and this type of program attempts to control someone else's reproductive choices through coerced sterilization of people at their most vulnerable.

No, this program depends on THEIR choice. The charity isn't trying to control someone else's reproductive choices; they are trying to prevent suffering to children, and they are doing it by giving drug addicts the option of having a free sterilisation.

It's disgusting. It's bribery. It's eugenics. It's discrimination. You all should be ashamed.

I don't think it is disgusting, assuming the aims of the charity are honest. It may border on bribery, but I do not think that is a bad think in the circumstances, again, assuming that the aims are honest. I agree that it is eugenics, and as I said in my previous post, this is no reason to be opposed to it. I disagree that it is discrimination, since nobody is forcing something against another's will, and I think it would be very much discrimination if drug addicts weren't given the choice, as the rest of us are.

Oh yeah, and I'm not ashamed of my position. There is nothing in your reasoning which has convinced me (thus far) that this type of charity is doing anything unethical.