MPs call for addicts' children to be adopted (1 Viewer)

[katie_tully]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/addicts-kids-to-be-adopted-mps/2007/09/13/1189276899593.html

I think it's a fantastic idea.
Drug campaigners are saying it will do more harm than good. Harm to whom, the drug users?
A good point was made by Bronwyn Bishop today. The kids shouldn't be used as a prop for the users recovery. It shouldn't wait until the kid is taken off them for the 4th time for the user to want to get clean.


THOUGHTS?

 

[Billy Corgan]

I agree as well. As this proposal will lead to safer environments for the children. Screw the parents if they get clean in the end. It was their responsibilty to provide a safe environment for their children, they've failed to meet the requirement for proper parenting, and they should suffer both the physical and emotional repurcussions for drug use.

 

[katie_tully]

Absolutely.
The focus has been on the parents for far too long. No parent has a right to bring up a child in that sort of environment. All it does is lead to a cycle where more often than not, the child grows up to display similar behaviour.

They're also thinking of banning take away methadone as there have been too many child deaths linked to parents feeding their kid methadone or the kid finding it and ingesting it.

I think there was a case the other day where a mother fed her child something with traces of drugs still on the spoon and it put the kid in a coma. Unacceptable.

 

[Billy Corgan]

And instead of putting the children into foster care (where most children will get experience some sort of abuse), this proposal will guarantee the children a safe environment amongst an adopted family. I would personally be safer in an adopted family then be in a family where my mother spends all the food money on drugs and puts me in a position of vulnerability.

 

[katie_tully]

Yah. Back and forth between your drugged up mother and a foster family would be screwy. It provides no stability at all.

I really don't understand opposition to the idea. It seems some do gooders are more interested in the drugged up parents than the welfare of the child, which I would have thought was paramount.

 

[Billy Corgan]

But three Labor members of the committee dissented from the majority report and said the Government members had argued that addiction alone should determine whether a child was separated from parents rather than the more robust test of the best interests of the child as assessed by qualified people.

Tony Trimingham, who founded Family Drug Support in 1997 after his son Damien died of a heroin overdose, said "none of us that has a family member or a child using drugs supports or condones drug use, which is what Bronwyn Bishop seems to be implying". Mr Trimingham believes Damien would be alive if there had been better harm-reduction policies.

Pick the bullshit.

 

[katie_tully]

Bishop isn't saying that at all. What a dick.

Better harm reduction? What more do they want?
Drug users get free needles. Diabetics do not.
Drug users get a safe place to inject their drugs without fear of prosecution.
Drug users get free methadone.

What else can there possibly be?

 

[Billy Corgan]

Maybe the guys who are opposing the proposition are also on drugs. Explains the denial.

 

[katie_tully]

They're those idiots that seem to think this is a breach of the drug users civil liberties, as though it's a human right for a person to be able to abuse their child.

People like that shit me. It's your civil right to breathe, not to bring your kid up in a gutter.

 

[Billy Corgan]

They're those idiots that seem to think this is a breach of the drug users civil liberties, as though it's a human right for a person to be able to abuse their child.

What liberties? What right do they have to go and dope themselves up, causing trouble for the people around them?
I'm surprised DOCs hasn't stepped in and said something.

 

[katie_tully]

Nah DOCS wont coz they know they're in the shit for the latest examples where they sent the kid home to the mother and it died three days later.

 

[Billy Corgan]

It now seems to me that even the welfare agency that entrusts thousands of kids, is now, somewhat, corrupt with stupidity.

 

[katie_tully]

People became too scared to take the more drastic options. It's not ideal to remove a child from their birth parents obviously, but there really are cases when it's warranted.
People just need to stop being soft. DOCS are pretty pathetic though.

 

[Billy Corgan]

I'm not suprised.

Empthasise Katie and put your shoes in a drug addicted mother's shoes. Tell me where you would want your kids.

 

[katie_tully]

You know, I don't doubt that the mothers love their children and I don't doubt it's distressing for them to lose their children...but man, tough shit. The fact that many of these mothers probably do drugs DURING the pregnancy is appalling to begin with. What happens is they think they're clean so they go to court and the courts grant custody back to the mother. Rehash cycle.

If I were a drug addicted mother I would want the kids with me. Also if she doesn't have custody of the kids she doesn't get welfare $$ for them, so how is she going to get her drugs?

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

I think it's a good idea. Of course some addicted parents will make an effort to be clean so that they can have custody of their children, and good on them for trying, but drug addiction is a cycle that can be very hard to break. I think in terms of the child's long-term stabillity it would be better to adopt the child out straightaway and save everyone the anguish of having the kid constantly going back and forth between parents, foster homes, welfare agencies and the court system.

And then there's the dangers of bringing up a child in a house where drugs are present. Young kids especially have that oral fixation stage where they put things in their mouths all the time, and one day that thing might be methadone or an ecstasy tablet or god knows what else.

Drugs can also really, really fuck up your personality. It isnt fair for a kid to have to grow up with their parents constantly mood swinging and tripping out or high. How stressful. It doesnt set a good example either.

 

[PrinceHarry]

Great idea.

I think drug addicts should be put in animal cage at martin's place and anyone who walked nearby should be allowed to poke them with a stick.

 

[pattii]

the death of six-year-old girl in NSW after her mother and a boyfriend administered methadone to her and calls for withdrawal of prescription subsidies for takeaway supplies of methadone for drug-using parents.

wft, can you really get that fucked up :| thats worse than killing themselves

 

[williams180]

absolutely outrageous idea. The concept of taking children from their parents to integrate them into a 'better life' has been trialled before i need not remind ya'll. And didnt work makes me sick to think that a government would ever implement such a socially intrusive program. It will obviously never happen.

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

absolutely outrageous idea. The concept of taking children from their parents to integrate them into a 'better life' has been trialled before i need not remind ya'll. And didnt work makes me sick to think that a government would ever implement such a socially intrusive program. It will obviously never happen.

You have to think of the child's best interests. In the seventies they took kids away from single mums which obviously was a horrible thing to do as I would assume most of those mothers were more than capable of looking after their children. But when the parents are drug addicted and thus not able to provide the safe environment that a child needs for healthy development, there isn't anything particularly evil about adopting the child into a family where it will recieve that care. This sort of situation is never easy to resolve; whether you leave the child with its parents, or take the child away, it will still place stress on the child. The question to ask is which option makes that stress less, in the long run. I think letting drug addicted parents raise a child will screw the child up more than the child growing up with alternative parents. When the child is older the opportunity should be there for them to locate their real parents if they wish to.