Inmates in White County, Tennessee have been given credit for their jail time if they voluntarily agree to have a vasectomy or birth control implant, a popular new program that is being called “unconstitutional” by the ACLU."Concerning," "unethical," and "unconstitutional" are not the words that come to my mind. The word that comes to my mind is "evil". This is no different from having a program where thieves would have their sentences reduced if they agreed to having their dominant hand amputated.
On May 15, 2017 General Sessions Judge Sam Benningfield signed a standing order that allows inmates to receive 30 days credit toward jail time if they undergo a birth control procedure.
Women who volunteer to participate in the program are given a free Nexplanon implant in their arm, the implant helps prevent pregnancies for up to four years. Men who volunteer to participate are given a vasectomy, free of charge, by the Tennessee Department of Health.
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District Attorney Bryant Dunaway, who oversees prosecution of cases in White County is worried the program may be unethical and possibly illegal.
“It’s concerning to me, my office doesn’t support this order,” Dunaway said.
“It’s comprehensible that an 18-year-old gets this done, it can’t get reversed and then that impacts the rest of their life,” he added.
This judicial order is nothing other than eugenics, the now-discredited idea that humanity can be improved by sterilizing marginal people. Eugenics was a central tenet of what passed for Nazi ideology. Eugenics was the intellectual basis for their reign of mass murder and genocide.
There are folks who keep coming back to the idea that they can make humanity "better" by selective breeding or some other similar bullshit. I do not hold with that.
And, unless I've misjudged the readership of this blog, neither do you.
Even if it DID work, it would take many, many generations. For evil barbarians, a multi-generation project simply isn't possible. If it was, they'd have their own evil society somewhere, instead of just trying to tear down other people's.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I love about your blog--one of the many things that I love about it--are the Firefly and Serenity references. Those bring back a good time in my life, a time where there was hope. Now, all we have is Trump, whose whole name and psychological state should be a verb.
ReplyDeleteI am not a big fan of reproduction, to say the least, but I don't feel that the government should tell citizens whether or how they can do it.
ReplyDeleteAnd, let's face it, when they start straying into "unethical" where reproductive medicine is concerned, the word that the history books use to describe it is usually "atrocity".
Remember the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment? How about the Eugenics Board of North Carolina? That was our last go at sterilizing the undesirables, and we're still paying settlements for that one.
-Doug in Oakland
How can we arrange that the Trump gang's jaiktime be in Tennesee?
ReplyDeleteWere this forced, I would agree with you.
ReplyDeleteSince it isn't, but is instead, voluntary, I can't.
I don't like it, but if the inmates choose to do it in exchange for a reduced sentence (and they DO choose, according to the article) then that is up to them.
But yes, it stinks. (especially since the men get a permanent procedure and the women get a reversible/limited one).
Let's see, a black teen is multiple times more likely to be incarcerated, often for crimes that a white teen is not jailed for. So, it's fair to target inmates when the entire criminal justice system is slanted in a way to keep blacks in and whites out?
ReplyDeleteI question how "voluntary" it is when dealing with either teenagers or the types of people of tend to frequently run afoul of the criminal justice system. Many of them aren't terribly smart or self-aware. The standard for such a waiver out to be pretty fucking high. A lot higher than, I'll bet, that judge is setting.
ReplyDeleteHe ought to be removed from the bench. IMO.
Removed from the bench? An excellent idea. Banned from the judiciary for life.
ReplyDeleteAs I dislike the idea greatly.
So minorities and hillbillies are less than intelligent? We should expect less of them?
ReplyDeleteHow...racist and judgmental. So we should expect less of this demographic? Perhaps that is why they are "poor" rather than being held down?
And here I was excoriated for saying that that is part of the reason they were poor and unemployed.
I sit though the morning docket call in one court about four times a year. First up is the criminal status docket. The people there are not the sharpest knives in the drawer.
ReplyDeletelast week, I watched three people get sent to prison for violating specific conditions of probation. Two of them were for not meeting with their probation offices. They admitted that to the judge. Think about that-- three to fifteen years in stir for not bothering to go meet with your probation officer? How fucking dumb is that?
I know. Exactly my point. Remember, I employed that demographic.... Judgement is often lacking. Which is why (or a large portion of why) they are also "poor" .
ReplyDeleteSome of us learn cause and effect and learn from our bad judgement. Some of us never do.......
Offering implantable birth control for women is actually a really good deal. I'm surprised that the religious right isn't all over that, what with the government giving women FREE BIRTH CONTROL!! Isn't that one of the things the Republicans have consistently railed about with Obamacare?
ReplyDelete