Report to the People
22nd March 2004
The Right Debate
If
it doesn’t degenerate into a pretentious ramble about the “harm
principle”, “relativism” and other pop-philosophy soundbites, a public
discussion on the subject of “rights” is likely to inflame passions on both
sides.
Whether
you’re talking about the right to life, the right to free speech, or the right
to security, people will have widely differing – but just as deeply held –
views on what such rights should mean and to whom they should apply.
Consider
the arguments around the right to reproduce.
Every
time a scientist helps a woman in her 60s become pregnant, for example, I get
letters saying it’s a disgrace; that it’s playing God; that the mother will
be in her 80s by the time the child is 20.
At the same time, I get equally vociferous letters from others demanding
to know why they were turned down for such treatment on the NHS.
What
can sometimes get lost in perfectly legitimate debates such as this, however,
are the interests of the children who may or may not be brought into the world.
Shouldn’t we consider their right to quality of life alongside an
adult’s right to reproduce?
Perhaps
these considerations were in Professor Neil McKeganey’s mind when he made his
controversial comments last week. The
drugs expert suggested, in case you missed it, that female drug addicts should
be paid to take long-term contraception, thus stopping them having children.
You
can imagine the chaotic and dangerous world into which the baby of drug addicted
parents is going to be born. And
why, it is argued by some, should we stand by while these innocent children are
condemned to their fate? Indeed, I
notice that drug treatment projects in Inverclyde received an extra quarter of a
million pounds last week. Could it
not be maintained that these projects would have a better chance of effectively
using such funds to help addicts sort themselves out if their clients did not
have, on top of everything else, children to look after?
But
who, counter others, are we to say who should and should not give birth?
Isn’t this social engineering on a grand scale?
There
can never be a simple answer when you set out to balance two competing sets of
rights and I’m not saying Prof. McKeganey has got it right.
What
I am saying, however, is that in such an emotive area of policy, I’m glad that
someone has tried to start a serious, if difficult, debate.
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