Wednesday 5 November 2008

"Unfit Mothers" in for forced contraception in the Netherlands



One commentator on the article below makes a very salient point: "What happened to 'pro-choice' and "control over your own body" here? Forced sterilisation or contraception for "unfit" mothers (remember Marie Stopes?!) really means that those deemed of less worth by society such as the poor or those on benefits do not deserve to have children. The right to a family life is enshrined in the UN Convention of Human Rights. Still, see what you make of the article below. I would imagine this is the beginning of the new eugenics movement which will soon gain more popularity the world over. Its bad news all round really.

Click here for the article.

Women in the Netherlands who are deemed by the state to be unfit mothers should be sentenced to take contraception for a prescribed period of two years, according to a draft bill before the Dutch parliament.

The proposed legislation would further punish parents who defied it by taking away their newborn infant. “It targets people who have been the subject of judicial intervention because of their bad parenting,” explained the author of the bill Marjo Van Dijken of the socialist PvDA. “If someone refuses the contraception and becomes pregnant, the child must be taken away directly after birth.”

When I see how some parents treat their children and come across adults who wish they’d never been born because of the abuse they endured as kids, I get some idea of where Van Dijken is coming from, but her proposed solution strikes me as far too draconian.

In fact, I have serious misgivings about the implications of this proposed law, and it raises a torrent of questions in my mind. Is it really the state’s role to protect the unborn and does it have the right to control people’s bodies in such a way and to deprive them of the basic right to procreate? Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence? Just because a parent was bad with one child, does it mean (s)he will repeat the offence?

Oh and by the way, newly elect President Obama is snuggling up warm with Planned Parenthood, a US organisation responsible for abortion clinics in some of the poorest black neighbourhoods in the US. I would imagine therefore, he will be thrilled with this development. The promotion of abortion, euthanasia and forced contraception is about eroding respect for human life and extending the culture of death to as many as possible. Planned Parenthood were born out of the eugenics movements of the 1930s and I would imagine that part of the 'plan' for parenthood, is that people who are deemed "unfit" by society are stopped from having children. Its sick and evil and we have to speak out against it when we see it happening before our eyes.

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