Paying women to have their tubes tied?

I live in Louisiana. Right now they are considering a plan to pay poor women $1000 to have their tubes tied.
Worried that welfare costs are rising as the number of taxpayers declines, state Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, said Tuesday he is studying a...

plan to pay poor women $1,000 to have their Fallopian tubes tied
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

The program would be voluntary of course, not forced. It would also include vasectimies for men as well.

There has been so much drama about this mainly
He said it already has drawn critics who argue the idea is racist, sexist, unethical and immoral

What do you think?

I do think it's unethical but ...and this may sound like a stereotype... (so... sorry in advance)

I used to be a cashier and most of the women who were on welfare had a crap load of kids... and what would she be buying for dinner? Steaks and lobster tails on her foodstamp card. (while...here I am living in an attic with no heat at a minimum wage job and living off of ramen noodles.)

I don't think waving 1,000 bucks in front of them for sterilization is the way to go about it.
Just like I believe the way to preventing abortion isn't to outlaw it but to prevent the need for it... (by providing better sex education, birth control methods and resources.)

I believe that they way to prevent the stereotypical single mother with 5 screaming children at the checkout buying lobster tails for dinner on welfare is to provide better financial aid for reproductive services such as birth control (just like for teens who have no income) and education at her local clinic.

xox
Sika

If it is voluntary then what is thebig deal?? If you know for sure you don't want to have kids of don't want anymore, then why not do it and get $1000 buckaroosss? Sounds good to me..

Oh yes, what could possibly go wrong here... you're talking about taking advantage of the poor and uneducated who probably dont realize the implications, and are living hand to mouth... what happened to reproductive rights? or is that only for those who can afford it?
personally I think it's absolutely outrageous, he's trying to weed out the poor? it is racist and sexist and immoral!

The big deal around here is that the african americans are saying that he is singeling them out and trying to force them to have their tubes tied. It is for women on welfare who are poor. They are saying that when offered that kind of money, how could they refuse. They are turning it into a race thing also. Saying that it is targeting african american women and poor women. They are saying it's taking away their rights to reproduce. They are undereducated and feel they are being taken advantage of.

It makes me angry, mainly because they are targeting the poor, almost like saying Hey poor people, you shouldn't reproduce, we don't need more of you, here and then dangling money in front of them. It may be voluntary, but damn that is unethical in my book.

editor:

That's pretty much how I feel about the situation. I could not believe that this is actually being considered to go into effect. They are waving around 1,000 dollars in front of poor people. That may not seem like a lot of money to us, but to them it's a ton! They are paying people to give away their rights to reproduce. They are trying to weed out the poor and the people on welfare. Those are the only people that this is being provided to, welfare recievers. I was so shocked when I saw this on the news.

I've advocated this idea in the past, but without the monetary incintive (in other words, free sterilization available to whoever wants it).

I don't have a problem with the incintive, but in general, I oppose programs that benefit only the poor. It should be open to everyone or to no-one. There're a hell of a lot of people who want these procedures done, but can't afford it. Why should you get special medical care that many working for a living don't get, just because you're not working for a living?

I've had my tubes tied and I think it's great...but they shouldn't be signaling out poor women to offer it to. I think (as toadaly said) it should be offered to any woman that wants it. To me though, I think they also need to do something about the men...why signal out poor women when there are men out there impregnating every woman they come across.

If they are going to do this then it should be open to everyone...man, woman, rich or poor.

This one is a toughie...One one had, there IS something hinky about the idea of using bribery...

However, when these women are talking about their reproductive rights, the tageting of the poor, etc., it doesn't sound to me like they are so undeducated that they can't make a decision based on personal values, within themselves. I mean something other than the want of a thousand bucks...

Now that I've written all that out, the plan makes my guts queasy... Why? Because I think that most of these women, could have had their tubes tied, for free...if that's what they truly wanted, at birth of their last child...and obviously that's NOT what they wanted.

Hinky...hinky...hinky!

p

Reminds me of the practice of sterilizing women in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico has the highest rate of female sterilization in the world. Women who worked in factories were given time off to have the procedure at clinics in the factories themselves. In the case of Puerto Rico women were pressured to be sterilized after delivering a child and were offered a longer hospital stay if they agreed to the procedure. It was often not explained to these women that sterilization was permanent and irreversible. Sterilization was often the only birth control option offered to poor women. Sterilization was strongly promoted in educational films in schools.

Often programs like these have racist undertones. In Puerto Rico the poor and uneducated were highly targeted. In the mainland large numbers of Native American women were also sterilized to deal with the Indian problem. Many of the founders of Planned Parenthood were active in the eugenics program and felt that the wrong sorts of people were procreating too frequently. They wanted to provide family planning to the poor and minorities as a way to keep people they considered undesirable from from having more children.

They tried something like this years ago I think in PA. The ACLU and NAACP shot it down.