Thursday, October 26, 2006

Rip 'Em Out

Between 1907 and 1983, approximately 65,000 peopel were forcibly sterilized in 33 States across the nation. Some criminals were sterilized but most sterilizations were forced upon mental patients and Native Americans. Starting in 1942 provisions of compulsory sterilization laws were declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. The last forced sterilization occurred in 1981 in Oregon.

You may agree with the abolition of compulsory sterilization until you read this story about an Aussie mom who stopped performing CPR on her six month old son so she could have a cigarette break.
A methadone-addicted mother stopped for a cigarette while attempting to resuscitate her baby as instructions were relayed on the phone from a triple 0 operator, a Supreme Court jury was told yesterday.
Triple o must be similar to our 911 emergency communications system here in the States.

The child was born with a host of problems brought about by his mother's substance abuse:
Opiate-dependent at birth - his mother was a registered methadone user before and during her pregnancy - the baby spent his first six weeks in the neo-natal intensive care unit of Nepean Hospital, [...] Medical evidence would show that the baby died of methadone poisoning exacerbated by benzodiazepines ...
The last category of drugs are sedatives in the same family such as Valium and Halcion.

At least sterilization would stop crack whores and the like from having more kids. I have never believed that they should retain custody of these poor little children. So many boys grow up to be troubled adults, criminals and substance abusers themselves. As for some of the girls, their mothers' boyfriends rape and sodomize them even as young as one year old. Or they turn up dead at an early age like this one.

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