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Before writing this, I first checked Blogher to make sure that none of my fellow CE happened upon this story and to my surprise I found a post that Nordette posted on a similar issue in Texas. Unfortunately, we might be seeing a trend of the re-emergence of government-sponsored sterilization for poor women and women of color. Now who said that Eugenics was a dirty word??
Recently, Louisiana Representative John LaBruzzo(Rep) announced that he is researching a plan to offer poor women $1,000.00 to have their Fallopian tubes tied. His argument is that it would reduce generational welfare dependency:
LaBruzzo said he worries that people receiving government aid such as food stamps and publicly subsidized housing are reproducing at a faster rate than more affluent, better-educated people who presumably pay more tax revenue to the government. He said he is gathering statistics now.
"What I'm really studying is any and all possibilities that we can reduce the number of people that are going from generational welfare to generational welfare, " he said.
He said his program would be voluntary. It could involve tubal ligation, encouraging other forms of birth control or, to avoid charges of gender discrimination, vasectomies for men.
However, there are more holes in his argument that a chunk of Swiss cheese. Okay, maybe not holes, but enough additions to the main proposal that belie his original argument that this is about taxes, not a passive form of cultural genocide.
It also could include tax incentives for college-educated, higher-income people to have more children, he said.
One can't help but look at the racial demographics at this suggestion. So it is okay for people who are more affluent to overpopulate the earth? Does it mean that there is a more than likely chance that their offspring will not become single parents dependent on welfare? Not particularly. Renee from Womanist Musings says that one of the major problems is what main beliefs that America is built on: That one's place in life is reflective of how hard they work to achieve it - if you don't work hard enough and follow society's expectations, you get what you get:
What Labruzzo and men of his ilk want people to believe is the lie that is preached in every single elementary school across the country; meritocracy. The streets are paved with gold, and if you work hard enough each person has an equal opportunity to succeed. If people are poor it is because they choose it and this is a choice that the government can no longer continue to support.
She also points out Labruzzo's constituency. Could this public announcement simply be a ploy to gain the respect of potential voters?
Labruzzo is living up to the legacy of his seat well. His riding is the same district that used to be represented by David Duke. The pupil has outstripped the sansei. We are to believe that there is no racial overtones to this suggested policy, when the government has a history of forced sterilizations of WOC? I wonder how much he sells swampland in Louisiana for? Racism is still a very big part in American society and therefore it would hubris to assume that it would not play a role in which bodies got sterilized.
According to the New Orleans Citybusiness, Labruzzo has made his reasoning quite clear:
LaBruzzo said he is only considering the proposal for now while he conducts research. But backlash from various groups was to be expected, he said.
“The black community will say this is some sort of race-based genocide. And there will be tremendous push back from the ACLU. They'll try to say these people are incapable of making such a decision when their life is in turmoil. That if you're dangling money in front of them, of course they'll make a decision that will affect them negatively.
"My argument would be if they’re incapable of making a decision whether to cease reproduction are they capable of raising multiple children to be good citizens? And if they're incapable, maybe Social Services should take their children."
Okay then! Some have tried to tie this into the recent problems with the economy, wondering if this proposal has anything to do with it. After all, the news broke as part of LaBruzzo's concern about the economic crises and how it would affect the state of Louisiana. F#$k Hurricane Katrina and the devastation that caused hundreds of
