Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Race, Class and Sterilization redux
Writing in Scattered Belongings, Jayne Ifekwunigwe makes reference to the forced sterilization and abortions for German women who gave birth to 'non-Aryan' children. Readers of this blog may be interested to hear of a recent controversy sparked by Louisiana representative John LaBruzzo (R-District 81) who is proposing a bill that would pay low income women $1000 if they consent to being sterilized. You can find more on the story here.
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I am affiliated with Planned Parenthood of Western New York. There are a number of anti-choice organizations that discredit Planned Parenthood. They accuse Planned Parenthood of what Representative John LaBruzzo is trying to do in Louisiana: determining who is "equipped" for parenting and preventing "ill-equipped " people from having children.
Anti-choice organizations that are critical of Planned Parenthood base their arguments on the writings and work of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. In the early part of the 20th century, Sanger joined forces with the eugenics movement, and began to advocate for the sterilization of deficient women; poor women and non-Nordic women fell under this category. What sets Sanger and other eugenicists apart from LaBruzzo is that the latter is against forced sterilization.
Nevertheless, LaBruzzo's plan is ill-conceived. More pressing issues such as how our economic structure is contributing to poverty need to be examined (i.e., how the lack of well paying jobs contributes to poverty). There’s a good chance that sterilizing poor women will not create more jobs that will afford people a living wage, which will not end poverty.
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