What's your take on Compulsory sterilization?

In a word, heinous.

And I say this as a happily vasectomied dude.

I worked in a state legislature when this bill came up—it came from a ‘liberal’ democrat—in response to a case of drug addled women having cocaine baby after cocaine baby. The proposal was not permanent sterilization, but the patches which last three or more months. As horrifying as the cocaine baby scene is, this is what I learned. When women know that if they show signs of being addicted to drugs when giving birth in a hospital that they would be put in such a program, they don’t go to the hospitals. So then, you have the cocaine babies being born in bad places with no help for them. Forced things make people go underground.

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Government has no place legislating what we can and cannot do with our bodies.

On one hand I can see the possible benefits of some type of mandatory “temporary” sterilization, ie when a woman is on welfare; multiple crack babies, individuals that have already had a child removed by social services, etc. . But, I think the potential for abuse & other unintended consequences far outweighs any societal (sp) benefits that might be derived from such a program.

How about we help those in need, instead of punishing them for their mistakes?

Babies don’t matter after they crawl out of the birth canal.

Here is my vote on how to fix this. We suggest that only men undergo forced sterilization. It will never come up in any legislature again.

@Marina..
It is sad. But true.

Great answer Marina!!

@jp Great answer.

Ahm agin’ it.

It’s a slippery slope. And, who decides? Probably not a good idea. Usually this solution arises when the actual problem is systemic and much more difficult to address. It’s a short-sighted band-aid solution to an entrenched social, moral, spiritual and ethical dilemma.