Throwing people in prison- or a psychiatric hospital - is an even graver violation of human dignity and yet we do that every day.
I would not throw a man in cell or hospital room lightly but there are times where such is necessary for his safety and the safety of the public. Same with quarantining people with infectious diseases.
I equally do not casually suggest forcing this measure on certain people who have either committed a crime against their children to take birth control. Such is, nevertheless, in my mind a legitimate public health measure.
I would certainly make an exception for someone with strong religious or ethical objections to birth control. I would prefer that people behave with personal responsibility and would not use such measures except in extraordinary situations.
I agree that to inflict harms on babies before birth, is heinous, and so I understand what would motivate you to impose reversible long-term contraception (such as Norplant) on female drug addicts.
Its even predictable that such women, faced with the option of either an endocrine disruptor or incarceration, would choose Norplant over jail.
Plus, she might have other kids to take care of and be carergiver for other family members well (I’m thinking of a middle-aged opioid user, mother of two, who comes to our parish for assistance, who also takes care of her disabled parents)-— so jailing her would throw four other people into a desperate situation.
She takes care of her family very well, by the way: her addiction doesn’t seem to interfere with that. It’s certainly better then throwing her kids into the wretched foster care system, and her parents into God-knows-what state of abandonment and misery.
As far as I know, by the way, her children are “legitimate” -— it’s just that her husband is in and out of jail. She supports herself by cleaning houses, off the books, plus various kinds of assistance. Her parents are on SS.
Would Norplant help her? It’s tempting, when you look at one woman’s situation. But when you look at it as a social policy, I think it opens the door to government control of human reproduction -— people’s bodies belonging in effect to the state -— next step, govt pharmaceutical control of its citizens.
What’s needed is to help her get free of her addiction, meanwhile a bit of wise abstaining from sex. Don’t go the route of forcing injections and implants on hundreds of thousands of women. You won’t like where that ends up. Unless you like North Korea as a model for socual order and dignity.