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La. Legislator Says: Let's Pay the Poor to Stop Making Babies

Posted by JeanneSager

Think you're done having kids? How about moving down to the Big Easy - where they're considering a plan to make it a little easier to really put a stop to childbearing.

A Republican (natch) State Legislator in Louisiana is mullling a move to offer $1,000 to every woman who will tie her tubes or to men who will undergo a vasectomy. His reason? The economy. "We're on a train headed to the future and there's a bridge out, " Rep. John LaBruzzo told the Times Picayune. Excuse this liberal mama her line crossing moment, but some of his ideas for a "bridge to somewhere" (sorry, I just had to) have merit.

No really. We constantly kvetch about poor people popping out babies that then live off the system (us), but has anyone offered up a means for them to STOP? Tubal ligations, vasectomies . . .they don't come cheap. Even those of us who have health insurance often end up paying a few hundred dollars between the co-pay for ambulatory surgery, the pain pills, the co-pays for the before and after visits with the doctor.

It's also one of the few measures that puts the onus on both sides of the zygote. It's all well and good to tie a woman's tubes, but if he's still got swimmers, that means babies can still be made - just not with her. It makes it harder to say that the government is being sexist when they're willing to pony up the same cash to snip him as they would to tie up her childbearing days.

And coming from a politician who is pro-life, it's a reminder that there wouldn't be nearly as many abortions if women weren't having unwanted pregnancies to begin with. An ardent supporter of a woman's right to choose, I can still acknowledge that for all the women who seek an abortion because it's the right choice for them, there are abortions done because a woman either chose not to use birth control and had an "oops" or her form of birth control failed. A tubal ligation has a pretty high success rate - one in 200 women may become pregnant after the procedure - while the vasectomy has even better numbers - 1 or 2 in 1,000 women get pregnant after having sex with a man who's gone under the scalpel. Sounds better than a thin layer of very breakable latex to me . . .

Yes, this is what they call sterilization, folks. But instead of lining people up and putting the proverbial gun to their heads, this would be for volunteers only. Which makes it hard for me to understand how this could be termed "racist," "Nazi" or any of the other epithets hurled LaBruzzo's way since he threw out the idea.

It's offering people a choice - for once.

Image: Feminist Women's Health Center

Related Posts:

Texas Judge Orders Woman to Stop Bearing Children

Can a Mom be 'Too Dumb' to Parent?

Too Dumb to Parent: Part 2

Preventing Teen Pregnancy, One Tick at a Time


+ DIGG + STUMBLE

Comments

 

anonymous said:

The problem is that this offers an economic incentive to get sterilized, and could lead someone who desparetly needs quick cash to get sterilized when they wouldn't otherwise want to.  

I think that simply covering the costs of the procedure for anyone who wants it, on the other hand, is a fine idea.

September 30, 2008 2:39 PM
 

Nichole said:

Living in Singapore we saw exactly how their government encourages the educated masses to have more children, while discouraging everyone else. You basically get a child tax credit for the first three children you have, but only if both parents are college graduates. Non-grad parents don't get any credits and actually end up being penalized on their national healthcare contributions. Obviously this only works in a benevolent dictatorship like Singapore. I do agree that free or greatly discounted sterilization procedures should be available to anyone. Interesting idea.....

September 30, 2008 3:42 PM
 

esther said:

This is not a program aimed at giving women more reproductive choices. If it were, I would be all for it. Labruzzo not only wants to pay the poor to get sterilized, he wants to pay the wealthy to have more children. This program sends the explicit message that economically disadvantaged women and men have less of a right to have families then people who are well off. Further, it perpetuates the idea that the poor are shiftless parasites, sucking at the government's teat. Labruzzo talks a lot about "generational welfare", but less people would require government assistance if there was a livable minimum wage in this country.

If Labruzzo were serious about helping families struggling to escape a life of poverty, he would be working to increase the minimum wage, lower student-teacher ratios in overcrowded schools, guarantee a free or reasonably priced college education to hardworking students... Education is the key, not dangling $1000 in front of a desperate person.

This guy makes me sick.

October 1, 2008 2:23 AM
 

Amazed said:

The writing is on the wall here....

If this law is passed, there will certainly be a lawsuit against the state for discrimination and rightly so!!  Annonymous #1 made a good point... it's not right to dangle $$ signs in front of a person desperate for money.  Some people will do unthinkable things when they are desperate for money without thinking of the consequences down the road.

One good example of what seems like  good thing to do when your young, are the large number of college girls who work in strip clubs to put themselves through college. Although these girls may not be doing anything that will prevent them from ever having children, their past often times comes back to haunt them and what seemed like an ok thing to do when they were young, ends up to be something they end up regretting down the road.  

If the state offers sterilization and money to those who already have 1 child or more, that would be something that may prevent the state from being responsible for dangling $$ in front of a person desperate for money.  Perhaps  a waiting period would also be in order... sign the appropriate papers and wait 30 - 60 days before the sterilization could be performed.    

October 14, 2008 11:25 PM

About JeanneSager

Jeanne Sager is a writer who lives in upstate New York with her husband, daughter, a dog and too many cats. She refuses to believe motherhood comes with pumpkin appliqued sweaters, and she';s not ready to apologize for having only one child. She writes about raising her kid in her own hometown and the mom stuff she's not embarrassed to own at her blog, Inside Out (http://jeannesager.blogspot.com), she's contributing editor of Grand Magazine, and she's a regular essayist here on Babble

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