Tonight @ The University of Mississippi

[David Morris]

On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 11:24 AM, Dave Monroe
<against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> And here's to the laws of Mississippi
> [...]
> Unwed mothers should be sterilized, I've even heard them say ...


http://www.nola.com/timespic/stories/index.ssf?/base/news-11/122223360988730.xml&coll=1

LaBruzzo: Sterilization plan fights poverty
Tying poor women's tubes could help taxpayers, legislator says

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
By Mark Waller

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.

"We're on a train headed to the future and there's a bridge out,"
LaBruzzo said of what he suspects are dangerous demographic trends.
"And nobody wants to talk about it."

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.

"What I'm really studying is any and all possibilities that we can
reduce the number of people that are going from generational welfare
to generational welfare," he said.

He said his program would be voluntary. It could involve tubal
ligation, encouraging other forms of birth control or, to avoid
charges of gender discrimination, vasectomies for men.

It also could include tax incentives for college-educated,
higher-income people to have more children, he said.

LaBruzzo, 38, is white, married to a lawyer, has a toddler daughter
and holds a bachelor's degree from Louisiana State University.

He is serving his second term in the Legislature, where he drew
attention this year for advocating the controversial legislative pay
raise and for trying to abolish the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway
Commission and its Police Department.

His 81st House District runs from Old Metairie north to Bucktown and
west along Lake Pontchartrain to the Suburban Canal. In a somewhat
different configuration, it is the same district that sent white
supremacist David Duke to the Legislature in 1989.

LaBruzzo described the tube-tying incentive as a brainstorming
exercise that has yet to take form as a bill for the Legislature to
consider. He said it already has drawn critics who argue the idea is
racist, sexist, unethical and immoral. He said more white people are
on welfare than black people, so his proposal is not targeting race.

LaBruzzo said other, mainstream strategies for attacking poverty, such
as education reforms and programs informing people about family
planning issues, have repeatedly failed to solve the problem. He said
he is simply looking for new ways to address it.

"It's easy to say, 'Oh, he's a racist,' " LaBruzzo said. "The hard
part is to sit down and think of some solutions."

LaBruzzo said he opposes abortion and paying people to have abortions.
He described a sterilization program as providing poor people with
better opportunities to avoid welfare, because they would have fewer
children to feed and clothe.

He acknowledged his idea might be a difficult sell politically.

"I don't know if it's a viable option," LaBruzzo said. "Of course
people are going to get excited about it. Maybe we'll start a debate
on it."