
Inmates offered reduced sentences for sterilization - abhi3
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40677725
======
Mz
_for 30 days shaved off their sentence.

Vasectomies are offered for men and hormone implants in the arm for women._

Eh, I think the big feels are overblown. It sounds to me like a relatively
small amount of time shaved off of a sentence and some people might view this
as an opportunity to get free birth control rather than coercion.

It might help to know how much of their entire sentence 30 days represents. If
they are serving 31 days, that is nearly the entire sentence. If they are
serving six months to a year, it is a meaningful percentage, but not huge. If
they are serving more than a year, this might seriously be a nit, an excuse to
give them free birth control.

I am willing to hear reasoned arguments to the contrary, but I am failing to
see what the big deal is.

~~~
mindcrime
You are a terrible person, Mz. You are so terrible, I hope you never have
children. Your genes need to be removed from the gene pool in order to improve
the human race.

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Not really, but that's basically what these prisoners are being told. Don't
you think that's a bit de-humanizing?

~~~
Mz
That may be what the judge is thinking, but one of the central problems that
women face is that an unexpected pregnancy can be life altering, and it is
usually not _good news._

The women are not being sterilized. They are being offered a fairly low hassle
and reliable form of birth control.

I have personally known women who wanted to be sterilized at a young age and
couldn't get it. I knew one woman who ended up pregnant for the third time out
of wedlock by her alcoholic boyfriend after the medical establishment turned
down her request to be sterilized.

Just because that is the opinion of the judge does not mean this is not going
to be viewed as a genuine opportunity by some people whose lives suck so very
fucking much that they can't seem to stay out of jail.

~~~
mindcrime
_but one of the central problems that women face is that an unexpected
pregnancy can be life altering, and it is usually not good news._

Fair enough. I was admittedly looking at it from a male perspective where a
vasectomy is basically sterilization (albeit a form that can be reversed, at
least on some occasions). Nonetheless, for an agent of the State to use the
"authority" granted to him/her to push something like this strikes me as very
wrong. These aren't just random people off the street, they're prisoners who
are having their freedom used as a bargaining chip.

Also, and not to be glib, but there are other ways to avoid becoming pregnant,
including at least one that is (biblical reports aside) 100% effective.

~~~
Mz
From the description in the article, these appear to be people with very
little control over their lives. One thing that helps keep people entrenched
in problems is that they lack simple tools for protecting themselves from
negative outcomes. Women tend to have a lot less agency than men and poor
people of both genders are often not very in control of their lives.

The article is brief, so maybe there is more to it than what has been
presented. But an awful lot of poor people are victims of their circumstances
who can't manage to change that because of the many ways in which they are
disempowered snowballing to give them just no real control.

Last, I will note that one problem for women is that they can become pregnant
from rape. If you are poor and a drug addict and generally not in control of
your life, being lectured to "just say no (to sex)" is pretty insulting and
can be completely unrealistic. The reality is that an awful lot of women deal
with a lot of coercion when it comes to sex. Poor, powerless, uneducated women
may be ill equipped to effectively fend it off, no matter how much they might
desire to do so.

Given the recent headlines concerning sexual harassment of incredibly
privileged women, it seems like I shouldn't have to point that out.

~~~
mindcrime
_Last, I will note that one problem for women is that they can become pregnant
from rape._

Fair enough. That is a slightly more extreme scenario, but one I should have
considered.

 _Poor, powerless, uneducated women may be ill equipped to effectively fend it
off, no matter how much they might desire to do so._

Hmm.. I mean, I get what you're saying, but at the same time, that sounds a
bit insulting towards those women (assuming you are talking about something
short of flat out rape). Even if you're poor, powerless, and uneducated, you
still have agency, and the ability to make choices, no?

Anyway, none of this is meant to say that women in this position might not
_want_ birth control (or the men too as far as that goes). But I still stand
by the assertion that it's wrong for a judge to use the position he's in to
push a birth control agenda on people in a coercive environment. Making birth
control available on a _purely_ voluntary basis? Sure, I'm all for it. This?
Still not so much.

~~~
Mz
_Even if you 're poor, powerless, and uneducated, you still have agency, and
the ability to make choices, no?_

Women generally have less agency than men. I have an unusually high degree of
agency for a woman. I still feel like my life is a lot harder than it would be
if I were male. In spite of my determination to exercise agency (or perhaps
because of it), the world seems to slam an awful lot of doors in my face.

I think it is really disrespectful of such women to act like they want their
lives to remain in the toilet. They probably don't.

 _But I still stand by the assertion that it 's wrong for a judge to use the
position he's in to push a birth control agenda on people in a coercive
environment._

I guess I am less clear than you that this is simply _coercive._ The judge may
have zero power to offer birth control on a completely voluntary basis. He may
be seeing a need and trying to find a way to fill it.

The world seems to not be set up to just do the right thing for the right
reasons and yadda. That seems to be a serious uphill battle. It seems far
easier to try to slip a little good under the door in spite of the world by
calling it "punishing bad people."

That doesn't mean the judge is right. It just means that I don't think the
article really spells it out that well and I don't think it is as simple as
people are painting it who hear it and immediately dislike the idea on
principle.

In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they aren't. Knee
jerk rejections "on principle" are often a situation where worse options get
chosen because they are more PC, not because they actually, in fact, are
better solutions.

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mindcrime
That... that.... shit.

Words cannot even begin to describe how despicable this is.

~~~
accountno2
Forgive me, but I don't understand why this is "despicable". How would this be
any different than government incentivized vasectomies? What if they were only
subsidized vasectomies. Incentivized birth control? Subsidized birth control?
As I understand it it's already common practice to discourage people with
genetic diseases etc from reproducing. How is that different? The fact that
prisoners are significantly more likely to have mental illnesses (many of
which are largely genetically linked) has been extensively researched. It
doesn't sound like they're being forced to undergo sterilization. I understand
why people might feel uncomfortable about this topic. Genuinely curious why
you find this so despicable though.

~~~
dragonwriter
> How would this be any different than government incentivized vasectomies?

Incentivized via jail time is functionally equivalent to criminalizing non-
compliance, even when it's characterized as a sentence reduction (it's
equivalent to an across the board sentence reduction, with new imprisonment
for those who do not cooperate.)

It is, in that sense, coercive.

> As I understand it it's already common practice to discourage people with
> genetic diseases etc from reproducing

Doing so in threat of imprisonment is also despicable.

> As I understand it it's already common practice to discourage people with
> genetic diseases etc from reproducing

Even were sterilization coerced by imprisonment for non-cooperation to
acceptable when the person subjected to it had a diagnosed with a genetic
disease (which, I should emphasize again, it is _not_ ), doing so because of
the presence of a traits that has a loose correlation with a broad class of
conditions, some of which have a genetic component, would _still_ be
significantly less justifiable.

~~~
Powerofmene
Not that I agree with being given this "choice" and I use the term quite
generously here,

1). This is not the same as criminalizing non-compliance because these people
are not in jail for refusing a vasectomy. I do not agree with the Judge giving
them the opportunity to get out early by surrendering their reproductive
rights or my forgoing those rights temporarily in the case of women, these
people are in jail for breaking the law not for refusing birth control.

2). I know that there are genetic conditions that cause serious birth defects
and a life of unrelenting pain and suffering. I know that sterilization is
offered by some in the medical community but I am unaware of anything like
that being criminalizes. If it is that is in fact disgusting.

3). At one time people in institutions and those with mental retardation or
mental illness have been sterilized without their consent. Times have changed
and that is no longer acceptable in the US, thankfully, but even back when
this was considered acceptable and widely practiced, it was not criminal for a
family to refuse.

