Sterilize the Unfit Says British Professor

LifeSiteNews ^ | 8/31/10 | Hilary White

[wagglebee]

LONDON, August 30, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The mentally and morally “unfit” should be sterilized, Professor David Marsland, a sociologist and health expert, said this weekend. The professor made the remarks on the BBC radio program Iconoclasts, which advertises itself as the place to “think the unthinkable.”

Pro-life advocates and disability rights campaigners have responded by saying that Marsland’s proposed system is a straightforward throwback to the coercive eugenics practices of the past.

Marsland, Emeritus Scholar of Sociology and Health Sciences at Brunel University, London and Professorial Research Fellow in Sociology at the University of Buckingham, told the BBC that “permanent sterilization” is the solution to child neglect and abuse.

“Children are abused or grossly neglected by a very small minority of inadequate parents.” Such parents, he said, are not distinguished by “disadvantage, poverty or exploitation,” he said, but by “a number or moral and mental inadequacies” caused by “serious mental defect,” “chronic mental illness” and drug addiction and alcoholism.

“Short of lifetime incarceration,” he said, the solution is “permanent sterilization.”

The debate, chaired by the BBC’s Edward Stourton, was held in response to a request by a local council in the West Midlands that wanted to force contraception on a 29-year-old woman who members of the council judged was mentally incapable of making decisions about childrearing. The judge in the case refused to permit it, saying such a decision would “raise profound questions about state intervention in private and family life.”

Children whose parents are alcoholics or drug addicts can be rescued from abusive situations, but, Marlsand said, “Why should we allow further predictable victims to be harmed by the same perpetrators? Here too, sterilization provides a dependable answer.”

He dismissed possible objections based on human rights, saying that “Rights is a grossly overused and fundamentally incoherent concept … Neither philosophers nor political activists can agree on the nature of human rights or on their extent.”

Complaints that court-ordered sterilization could be abused “should be ignored,” he added. “This argument would inhibit any and every action of social defense.”

Brian Clowes, director of research for Human Life International (HLI), told LifeSiteNews (LSN) that in his view Professor Marsland is just one more in a long line of eugenicists who want to solve human problems by erasing the humans who have them. Clowes compared Marsland to Lothrop Stoddard and Margaret Sanger, prominent early 20th century eugenicists who promoted contraception and sterilization for blacks, Catholics, the poor and the mentally ill and disabled whom they classified as “human weeds.”

He told LSN, “It does not seem to occur to Marsland that most severe child abuse is committed by people he might consider ‘perfectly normal,’ people like his elitist friends and neighbors.”

“Most frightening of all,” he said, “is Marsland’s dismissal of human rights. In essence, he is saying people have no rights whatsoever, because there is no universal agreement on what those rights actually are.”

The program, which aired on Saturday, August 28, also featured a professor of ethics and philosophy at Oxford, who expressed concern about Marland’s proposal, saying, “There are serious problems about who makes the decisions, and abuses.” Janet Radcliffe Richards, a Professor of Practical Philosophy at Oxford, continued, “I would dispute the argument that this is for the sake of the children.
 
“It’s curious case that if the child doesn’t exist, it can’t be harmed. And to say that it would be better for the child not to exist, you need to be able to say that its life is worse than nothing. Now I think that’s a difficult thing to do because most people are glad they exist.”

But Radcliffe Richards refused to reject categorically the notion of forced sterilization as a solution to social problems. She said there “is a really serious argument” about the “cost to the rest of society of allowing people to have children when you can pretty strongly predict that those children are going to be a nuisance.”

Marsland’s remarks also drew a response from Alison Davis, head of the campaign group No Less Human, who rejected his entire argument, saying that compulsory sterilization would itself be “an abuse of some of the most vulnerable people in society.”
 
Marsland’s closing comments, Davis said, were indicative of his anti-human perspective. In those remarks he said that nothing in the discussion had changed his mind, and that the reduction of births would be desirable since “there are too many people anyway.”

Davis commented, “As a disabled person myself I find his comments offensive, degrading and eugenic in content.

“The BBC is supposed to stand against prejudicial comments against any minority group. As such it is against it’s own code of conduct, as well as a breach of basic human decency, to broadcast such inflammatory and ableist views.”

[rex regnum insanit]

He does look a little... oh... uh... “Frankensteinish” shall we say?

[GingisK]

Adolph Hitler thought the very same thing. He enforced the idea as well. Ah, progressives! When will it be “open season”?

[Lurker]

The left doesn't believe in human rights.

Sure they do. What don't believe in is individual rights. There's a darned big difference.

This monster certainly believes in all those new fangled 'human rights' like the 'right' to a job, the 'right' to medical care, the 'right' to housing, etc.

All of the 'rights' in this guys head come at the expense of someone else, hence they are not 'rights' but the demands of a grasping mob.

[goseminoles]

“We have a corn snake (Susan), a panther chameleon, two bearded dragons, three tropical anoles, two cats, a fish, a gerbil, and a greyhound. I?m nost sure how this happened!”

Low IQ? LOL!! Just kidding!! I love snakes and lizards. Best pets ever.

[Grizzled Bear]

Margaret Sanger would be proud.

From the article - Clowes compared Marsland to Lothrop Stoddard and Margaret Sanger, prominent early 20th century eugenicists who promoted contraception and sterilization for blacks, Catholics, the poor and the mentally ill and disabled whom they classified as “human weeds.”

Whenever I hear a Catholic voice support for Planned Parenthood (Sanger's "Baby") I scratch my head in puzzlement.

[Tax-chick]

House full of guys (husband, six sons). The snake is very low maintenance, which I like, and the dragons are pretty fun. Both males, so they constantly threaten one another from their cages on opposite ends of the dining room.

The chameleon is a female (the breeder made a mistake ;-), so she doesn't have the colors we'd hoped for. Mostly black and salmon pink.

[FrdmLvr]

Thinking...thinking...thinking...I KNOW I’ve heard this plan before. I just can’t place it. ....Wasn’t it tried somewhere in Europe not that long ago?

[goseminoles]

Cool picture. I want one!! Can you handle the guy in the pic?

[Grizzled Bear]

We have a corn snake (Susan), a panther chameleon, two bearded dragons, three tropical anoles, two cats, a fish, a gerbil, and a greyhound. I’m nost sure how this happened!

What about a Partridge in a Pear Tree?

[Tax-chick]

The snake ate it.

[Tax-chick]

I’ve been married to the guy for 21 years, so I think I have him pretty well under control ;-).

The panther chameleon is not as cuddly as some kinds of lizards, but she tolerates some handling. On a sunny day, my husband puts her on his arm or shoulder and walks around the yard, and she likes the body heat as well as the sun. We sometimes put her outside on the lilac bush, and she turns a muddy purple shade and zaps bugs out of the air.

Bearded dragons like being handled more, but they’re very prickly!

[Tolsti2]

Even then nazis didn’t include ‘morally unfit’ really. Is this considered acceptable thinking by the left now?

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the loons are heading towards stalinism again.

[muawiyah]

Professor David Marsland sounds rather extremely sociopathic. I'd recommend that he be FIRST.

Just cut 'em off in his case.

[goseminoles]

LOL! A husband and 6 sons, I think you can handle anything. I guess its better than throwing little girls in the mix. I’m single with no kids so the thought of children freak me out. I”ll stick with reptiles I think :o)

[RnMomof7]

Gee finally they come out of the closet, Margaret Sanger would be proud of them

[WyvernAK]

If man truly has no human rights.... can we take this guy and feed him feet first into a wood chipper... Saddam style ?

JK.... maybe

[redgolum]

Paging Mr. Chesterton!

We have forgotten the lessons of our grandfather’s time. Now we will repeat them. God have mercy on us.

[redgolum]

About the pets.

My friend found that as the kids grow up, you let them take one. Helps the situation!

[liberalism is suicide]

Sounds like Marsland’s views render *him* morally unfit. Would he submit to sterilization?

[Tax-chick]

Anoreth grew up, joined the Coast Guard, and left her dog with us. Big dog.