Monday, September 29, 2008

Is It Eugenics If It's Voluntary?

A Republican lawmaker from Louisiana is proposing paying poor women $1000 to have their Fallopian tubes tied.

The article uses lots of terminology that is inflammatory. The lawmaker in question is from "David Duke's old haunts," further quotes Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes "Three generations of imbeciles is enough."

Exactly what, though, is wrong with the proposal? I'd in fact extend the offer to cover vasectomies for low-income men, and especially to men in prison; not a cash payment there, but a shortening of sentence in return for volunteering for the procedure.

How can it be eugenics if it's voluntary, and if the only group targeted is the poor?

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