A widowed mother of nine receiving welfare benefits was sterilized against her will in a Boston area hospital in Dec 2006. When the story broke in the local press, she was surprised at the amount of public outpouring over the news.... but its not what you would think or expect.
"How long before we are paying for all her babies’ kids?" asked one commenter. "Sterilize the whole family—I’ll pay."
When Tessa Savicki's story was posted on boston.com, over one thousand comments were made on the story, a significant portion of which were filled with hateful invectives taking aim at Tessa as a welfare queen and her children for being "crumb munchers"
"Those doctors were true heroes. I knew she was a state-check-collecting waste of space," reads one. "How long before we are paying for all her babies' kids?" asks another. "Sterilize the whole family—I'll pay." And: "We should sterile [sic] all the people on Public assistance for more than 2 yrs."
This is the dark underside of American civil discourse, the vilification of the poor, the belief that certain rights may be withheld or taken away if you do not fit the definition of "real american" or "good people"... the same buzzwords we hear from GOP pundits and the teabag parade, language intended to draw a distinction between the "righteous" Republican americans, and the other kind. Language which praises a winners and losers systems and encourages greed and self interest over any sense of community or social responsibility.
Federal law governing medical sterilization specifically requires written consent, signed 30 days prior to the procedure. This waiting period was put in place in the 70s because of so-called Mississippi Appendectomies, involuntary sterilizations imposed mainly upon poor, black women in the early- and mid-20th century.
However illegal, Oregon as recently as 1983 performed forced sterilizations on teenage girls caught up in the juvenile detention system, and as recently as last year, Louisiana Rep. John LaBruzza presented a plan to provide $1,000 "rebates" to women on welfare who consent to sterilization proceedings.
This is disgusting, we surely can be better than this. The classicism and underlying bigotry at play here is the ultimate conclusion of a system which purely values human life based on its net profit. The market doesn't value life, it values cost savings. Forced sterilization of the non-profitable is the ultimate conclusion of a theory of Governance and conduct which values profit as king, ruler of all.
Resources
http://www.bostonherald.com/...
http://www.prolifeamerica.com/...
http://www.whas11.com/...