More republican/conservative great ideas

Lousiana lawmaker advocates eugenics: Sterilize poor women, encourage rich to procreate.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that state Rep. John LaBruzzo (R) said yesterday that “he is studying a plan to pay poor women $1,000 to have their Fallopian tubes tied.” LaBruzzo worries that people receiving food and housing assistance “are reproducing at a faster rate than more affluent, better-educated residents”:

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 said that mainstream strategies against poverty, such as education and family planning, “have repeatedly failed to solve the problem,” according to the Times-Picayune. “I don’t know if it’s a viable option…Of course people are going to get excited about it,” he said of his plan.

UpdateLaBruzzo's district is the same one that sent white supremacist and former leader of the KKK David Duke to the state legislature in 1989.

UpdateNew Orlean's City Business broke the story and reported that LaBruzzo made other racially-offensive remarks as well:

“The black community will say this is some sort of race-based genocide. And there will be tremendous push back from the ACLU. They'll try to say these people are incapable of making such a decision when their life is in turmoil. That if you're dangling money in front of them, of course they'll make a decision that will affect them negatively. "My argument would be if they’re incapable of making a decision whether to cease reproduction are they capable of raising multiple children to be good citizens? And if they're incapable, maybe Social Services should take their children."

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/24/louisiana-sterilize/