Congressman Encourages Poor Women to be Sterilized

Via Satyam at Think Progress, a Louisiana congressman wants to pass a law where the government would pay poor women $1,000 to tie their fallopian tubes. In a move that's uncomfortably reminiscent of the eugenics movement back in the 1960s where black women were forcibly sterilized, Rep. John LaBruzzo (D-LA) says in the Times-Picayune that people will be "excited" about his new plan because clearly traditional family planning "repeatedly failed to solve the problem."

This taps into something I wrote about earlier this month, inspired by how conservatives are often supportive of some women's reproductive rights (like Bristol Palin) as long as they're young, at least middle class, and white. Others receive paternalistic lecturing about how they need mandatory Gardasil vaccines (even as conservatives seek to prevent their daughters from getting the vaccine) and are discouraged from procreating. The point is that we need to be supportive of all reproductive choices of all women. That is the definition of reproductive justice.

Cross posted on Pushback.