MSP calls for forced birth control for addicts

It's moral panic time, courtesy of Duncan McNeil MSP:

"CONTRACEPTIVES should be added to methadone to stop drug addicts from having children, an MSP said yesterday.

Duncan McNeil, Labour MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, said there was a real problem of drug addicts having children and the Executive should look at adding some sort of oral contraception to the heroin substitute which is prescribed to thousands of addicts.

Mr McNeil did not say whether the contraceptive-laced methadone should be compulsory, but he argued that most addicts could probably be persuaded of the merits of the scheme.

The Labour MSP was speaking in the Scottish Parliament on the Executive's plans to make it easier for children to be taken away from drug-addicted parents."

The Executive has rejected his plan on the grounds that it is fairly silly but Duncan McNeil is adamant that Something Must be Done:

"He said the authorities had to look for solutions. "I don't think we can be afraid to be radical," he said.

"People in that situation, living in a chaotic lifestyle, are in no fit state to start a family."

Stop the undeserving poor from breeding: a sort of radical Victorianism, you could say. Sensible solutions like making sure heroin addicts drink the methadone at the chemist wouldn't be 'radical' enough, obviously.