Barbara Harris has seen the effects of drug withdrawal on her four foster children born of the same drug-addicted mother, and it was that trauma that led her to lobby California's government to require the sterilisation of women who give birth to a drug-affected baby. That failed but it led to the creation of a charity, Project Prevention, to entice such women, and alcoholics, to undergo sterilisation voluntarily. In its 12 years to the end of April the charity has paid more than 3400 people, almost all of them women, to be sterilised or accept long-term contraception. They get a lump sum if they're sterilised, about $360, or regular instalments when they establish that the contraception is in place. Most women go for the sterilisation, probably because they want the bundle of cash to buy drugs. The charity operates in every US state and early this year moved to Britain when it received a big donation from a British man who'd heard a radio interview with Mrs Harris.

Critics of the program argue that by targeting addicts it is engaging in a form of eugenics, or social engineering. If it is, good, I say, but Mrs Harris says simply that the program is seeking to spare babies the distress of being born drug affected and with a very uncertain future. Critics argue also that the money should be spent trying to dissuade the woman from using drugs, a course that would be highly unlikely to achieve anything.

It is hard to see how this program can be regarded as anything less than wonderful, and so extending it to other people likely to produce distressed children would be extending the benefit. Prime among the other people I had in mind would be those who've established that they are predatory, abusive or neglectful parents. Remember the father fined in Newcastle court a fortnight ago for allowing his three children to live in home with human faeces stored in plastic bags and strewn with dog faeces? Why should he be permitted to inflict himself as a father on more children? Then people who've committed serious crime, included pedophilia and domestic violence, and next people who have established that they cannot support children financially.

Would you welcome Project Prevention to Australia? Do you believe that the fact that the baby bonus, at $5294, is 15 times the $360 sterilisation payment would be a problem?