prisoners not having babies is againt their human rights

Convicts 'should be allowed IVF treatment while in jail'
By MATTHEW HICKLEY - More by this author »

Last updated at 18:41pm on 13th January 2008

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=508003&in_page_id=1770&ct=5

Prisoners should be allowed conjugal visits and IVF treatment to help them have children while behind bars, a new report claims.


Academics claim that helping prisoners to become parents during their sentences will assist their rehabilitation, as well as respecting their human rights - and those of their partners - to raise a family.

The call follows a landmark legal defeat for the Government last month in which the European Court of Human Rights ruled that it was unlawful to stop jailed murderer Kirk Dickson donating sperm for his wife to use in IVF treatment as it breached their right to marry and raise a family.


Unacceptable: The ruling from the EU Court of Human Rights permitting jailed murderer, Kirk Dickson, and his wife Lorraine to have IVF treatment has prompted other prisoners to look for the same rights as part of their rehabilitation

The latest study by researchers at De Montfort University in Leicester will add to the growing pressure on the Ministry of Justice to abandon its ban prohibiting IVF or conjugal visits for inmates in England and Wales, which many now see as unsustainable.

A ministry spokesman confirmed that the IVF ban is "under review" in the wake of the Dickson judgement, and insiders admit the ban is unsustainable.

But officials said the department would resist pressure to introduce conjugal visits - even though they are common in the U.S. and several European states, where inmates are allowed to have sex with visiting spouses or partners.

According to Prison Service the introduction of IVF in jails - dubbed "FedEx Sex" in the United States - could not legally be restricted to male prisoners donating sperm, but female inmates would also have to be allowed access to test-tube treatment to help them become pregnant.

Victoria Knight, a researcher at De Montfort University, said: "Inmates see a child and their role as a parent as a means of helping to rehabilitate and keep them on the straight and narrow.

"It is a subject which has been avoided as it challenges what the purpose of prison is.

"Obviously conjugal visits aren't permitted in this country, whereas in Europe they are widely accepted."

Fellow author Nicky Hudson said research had showed that prisoners were concerned that age could stop them or their partners from having children by they time they are released.

But she conceded: "We are in a very punitive society and giving prisoners rights doesn't seem to fit with that."

Family rights campaigner Helena Hayward of Family and Youth Concern said it was wrong to put the rights of prisoners above the needs of their potential children.

"Playing around with children's lives is unacceptable," she said.

"We seem to have forgotten that offenders are in prison because they have violated society's law.

"While rehabilitation is important, using children in the process is highly irresponsible.

"Innocent children who would have no say about their participation in such an 'experiment' would risk becoming fatherless if it failed.

"Children need two parents who are able to play an active part in their upbringing - and they should both be positive role models."

Last month senior judges in Strasbourg ruled that Kirk Dickson, 35 - serving 15 years for kicking a man to death in a row over a packet of cigarettes - should be allowed to donate sperm for IVF treatment on his wife Lorraine, 49, whom he met through a prison penpal network in 1999 and married while she was serving time for benefits fraud.

The couple argued she would be too old to have his baby by the time he is released, next year at the earliest.

They spent years - and more than £20,000 of taxpayers money - fighting through the British courts and initially lost at the European Court of Human Rights, but a month ago the court's Grand Chamber finally ruled in their favour.

The judgement has far-reaching implications for Government policy, although Dickson himself has been moved to an open prison where he is allowed home visits.

A Prison Service spokeswoman said: "In the light of a recent judgement, the policy on prisoners' access to artificial insemination facilities is currently under review.

"Conjugal visits are not permitted in any prison in England and Wales."

Conjugal visits are common in France, Spain, Russia, Canada and parts of the United States. California recently introduced same-sex conjugal visits in response to new anti-discrimination laws

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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

where is the damned punishment. they get free food, clothing, warm place to stay, now sex with their wives or girlfriends. hell its better than my life out side..

where is the punishment, you commit a crime against society then you have no rights in that society.. no right to vote, or ivf or anything, because you broke the law.

*********************************************************************************************************************************
I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

I thought the world was going mad, but holy shit, this is just more proof. See, this is why the West is doomed - shit like this where people in prison think they have the same rights as everyone else, despite the fact that they are fuckups to begin with (which is why they are in prison) and somehow think adding a child to the mix would magically solve things? Um, have they forgotten WHY they are in prison? You fuck up badly enough on the outside, you forfeit certain rights that the rest of society enjoys. Thems the rules.

Holy fuck... are the bleeding hearts who support this so blind? So, someone who is doing time for anything from fraud to rape has all their living expenses covered, doesn't have to work, gets three squares a day, a warm bed now also think they are entitled to IVF treatment (paid for by the tax payer, of course) because they -WANT- a child and it is their -HUMAN RIGHT-? I'm not saying prison is so great that I would rather be there than on the outside, but holy fuck, these pricks are getting used to having everything given to them, then some bleeding heart asshole comes along and fills their head with entitlement bullshit... thats all we need! And they want us to PAY for IVF to create the progeny of convicted felons?

Listen asshole, how about you do your time, prove you have rehabilitated and aren't going to fuck up again, and maybe then you can get a job and pay for your own goddam IVF if it is so important to you. All government sponsored IVF should be banned. If you can't afford IVF on your own, you probably can't afford to raise the child properly.

Unbelievable.

I was hoping this story came from The Onion. No such luck. This world is SO in the shitter.

Just watch. The next push will be to allow inmates who have sprogs this way early release or home visits to "parent".

The EU Court of Human Rights has made some really scary rulings in favor of criminals. The two boys who killed toddler James Bulger in Liverpool in the 1990s were released and given new identities as the result of one of its rulings. British authorities wanted to keep them incarcerated longer. Now the two are roaming British streets and no one in the public knows who they are. This latest ruling concerning inmates being allowed to have chyldren is more of the same.

Anyone know what states allow conjugal visits? My old home state of Virginia does not, nor does North Carolina. (I know: I worked in corrections.) It can't be more than a few. The rationale most states have for not allowing them is to prevent moos with inmate sprogs from having to go on welfare since duh cannot support them behind bars.

The bleeding hearts and religious right of this country (and world) are TRULY a scary lot. Like something you see on the Twilight Zone. Sad thing is, they are starting to really gain momentum and take over. They are leeching into government, positions of power within companies and anywhere they can get into to make things THEIR way. It's getting where politicians, etc., are afraid to challenge them. We're pretty much fucked at this point.