having had a child removed from me while using drugs and put up for adoption i can say that these very lonely, damaged women are just looking for love, all be it in ALL the wrong places. We want to be saved by something external, such as a man or a baby, when the reality is until we love ourselves thats not gonna happen. Also chaotic drug users have problems accessing contraception. How do you get to a GP appt on time when your main priority is your next fix? Some outreach contraception workers would help.
Addicts ALL have self esteem and abandonment issues and we repeat the same mistakes thinking THIS time it will be different. Helping them with their core issues would help.
Drug rehabilitation for pregnant women should become a priority. What is possibly more important than giving the mother every chance and supporting her and the child together?

R Alexander, Portsmouth, England

It's sad that these women view their children as expendable. One gets taken away? Oh, well. Just have another! One's the same as the next, right? Meanwhile, the population of neglected and possibly drug-damaged children just keeps growing.

Having children should be a privilege, not a right. Especially when you're so screwed up you can't even take care of yourself properly!

S, Vancouver, Canada

This is a problem of poverty and class and treating women like animals is hardly the solution. Babies are removed all too readily to meet the demand for adoptions from richer childless couples, denying children the right to know their natural family including their siblings and setting them up for identity problems in the future.

Once a Mother has her child removed, the grief makes it harder for her to bond with subsequent children and so the cycle continues, as she attempts to replace the babies she has lost. The practice of severing ties in this way is barbaric.

With a bill to the taxpayer of £25k a time for the privilege of scrutinising Mothers and assessing them in a process which for so many years had a foregone conclusion, cutting lawyers out of the equation altogether looks like it might be the best solution to release more cash to help women escape this trap and keep families together.

IW, London,

Instead of allowing them to breed at huge cost to the children, and society, just sterilize these people.
Not 2 million, just a few thousand pounds, per case. And no more overpaid consultants, government officials etc.

K Dobson, Manchester, UK

Sorry, but these women should have been sterilised a long time ago, or at the least been given mandatory birth control by injection or something, until they are rehabilitated and have rejoined society in a productive way other than breeding disturbed people and at someone else's expense.

Victor, Amsterdam, Netherlands

As a solicitor dealing with many child care cases involving similar issues, I have been aware of Nick Crighton's plans for a scheme based upon the Californian model and wish him the very best of success in an attempt to address a problem which is chronic and hugely expensive to the public purse.

I sound a note of caution.

When we are impressed by another country's success we sometimes fail to understand the full range other cultural factors.

I believe that since 1996 in the USA, there has been a 5 year limit to benefit claiming, so that any mother entering their project may have a powerful additional economic pressure/incentive to succeed. It may really be the last chance on a range of fronts for a mother facing the Wefare Benefit cut off as well as loss of her family. We may not see the same results here in the absence of that factor.

The interesting question is whether we would be willing to try this here if that proved to be the difference between sucess and failure

Martin Sewell, gravesend, Kent

Every day we see more and more that, as far as drug dealers are concerned, the Singapore solution is the only way to eliminate this curse from Britain.

B J Deller, Marbella, Spain

Children in care are not necessarily "safe". The evidence is quite clear that putting a child in care causes damage (on average). This factor is frequently ignored.

Otherwise this is a good article.

John Hemming, Birmingham,

There should be a ways of temporarily sterilising parents that continue to have kids while cultivating their drug habit. Perhaps an implant would be the solution - at least until they sort themselves out. Why should children suffer under these circumstances, and be put into foster care, when all they really need is their parents - sober?

Paulina, London, UK

I am not surprised by the actions of these mothers. Social Services do nothing to help them when they first identify the problem, but allow it to escalate until removal becomes the only option. And then they provide no support or help to the mother, but are just there to remove future children as quickly as possible. I write as the father of two adopted children who were left with their alcoholic birth parents for years before finally being removed. Social Services knew what was going on for years and did nothing to help the situation. End result: birth mother loses children, and children are left severly damaged by years of neglect and abuse. The cause: successive governments who turn a blind eye to the problem and ineffective social services employing social workers who are not up to the job. This is allowed to happen in the wealthiest county in the UK.

Anon, Surrey, UK

How very sad this is, and I would like to see the Courts giving much much longer sentences to DEALERS (not users) of crack and heroin,not the usual 18 months, they should get minimum 5 years and more likely 20 years. That I know is not the whole solution by far but it is crass when you see a crack dealer jailed only for some ridiculously short period of say 18 months, for ruining many lives.

Sergei, London, UK