Organization:  Women's Health & Justice Initiative Author:  Women's Health & Justice Initiative and New Orleans Women's Health Clinic Date Published:  09/27/2008

For those who are not aware, on Tuesday, September 23rd, Rep. LaBruzzo  of Metarie, Louisiana (a suburb of New Orleans) made the statement that, so that Louisiana wouldn't be in an economic crisis, he's looking to propose a bill to "voluntarily" sterilize the number of people he feels are dependent on the government as a way to decrease the state burden.

Attached is the official response from the WHJI and the NOWHC,  as well as two articles that appeared in local newspapers within a day of LaBruzzos racially and gendered coded statement.

An Intersectional, Reproductive Justice Feminist Response to LaBruzzo's Sterilization Plan . . .

The Women's Health & Justice Initiative[1] and the New Orleans Women's Health Clinic[2] condemn Representative John LaBruzzo's recent legislative plans to pay poor women to get sterilized and reward rich, educated people to have children.  The sterilization policy currently being advocated by Representative LaBruzzo is a blatant form of reproductive violence and population control policies of blame and disenfranchisement, rooted in this country's long and continual history of eugenics.  The legislation and criminalization of black and poor women's bodies, sexuality, fertility, and motherhood are being used as regulatory tools for economic and ideological justification for eugenics. If Mr. LaBruzzo is really concerned about ending poverty and reducing social burdens on the state, he would not be advocating punitive social polices that restrict women's reproductive autonomy, but instead would be focusing his attention on ending corporate welfare and holding the corporate giants of Wall Street accountable for the disastrous state of the country's economy.   Stigmatizing and blaming the bodies and reproductive capabilities of black and poor women, and other marginalized communities, as the cause of poverty, mask Representative LaBruzzo's unwillingness to fully examine the complex structural causes of poverty and inequality in our society.  Reproductive violence and sterilization abuse at the hands of elected officials should be challenged and condemned. Women receiving public assistance and housing subsidies have RIGHT to have or not have children, as well as the RIGHT to parent the children they do have and control their birthing options[3] without punitive racial discrimination and economic exploitation policies designed to denied their RIGHT to exist and achieve full protection of their human rights. All women, regardless of their race, sexuality, ability, household size, economic, housing, and citizenship status, have the right to live whole healthy lives free of control, violence, regulation, and coercive social policies designed to exploit their economic vulnerability for sterilization and contraception abuse.

Social justice organizations, activists, organizers, and advocates are encouraged to use the following as talking points challenging Representative John LaBruzzo's eugenic agenda.

Eugenics, Reproductive Violence, Population Control, and Sterilization Abuse

The sterilization policy currently being advocated by Representative John LaBruzzo is a blatant form of reproductive violence and population control policies of blame and disenfranchisement, rooted in this country's long and continual history of eugenics.

These reproductive modification tactics of Representative LaBruzzo are reminiscent, if not the same, of eugenics policies of the early twentieth century to forcibly sterilize thousands of people thought to be socially undesirable to procreate, particularly immigrants, the poor, people of color, people incarcerated, people with disabilities, and those with mental illnesses.

Eugenicists, like LaBruzzo, opposed social programs designed to improve the living conditions of the poor, arguing that adequate medical care, better working conditions, and minimum wages all harmed society because those measures enabled people with inferior heredity to live longer and produce more children[4].  These sentiments are directly related to LaBruzzo's statements that "mainstream strategies for attacking poverty, such as education reform and family planning program have failed to solve the problem," yet he wants to create incentives for college-educated, higher income people to have more children.

The measures Representative LaBruzzo are currently proposing is an example of controlled consent.  There's nothing voluntary about using monetary incentives to exploit women's economic vulnerability.

The reproductive autonomy of women of color and poor women should not be compromised to support Representative LaBruzzo's eugenic policy to sterilize, blame, disenfranchise, and restrict the rights of women to control and care for their bodies, reproduction, and sexuality.

Mandating sterilization as a condition or punishment for receiving public assistance and housing subsidies is racist, sexist, and politically idiotic!

It is disturbing that reproductive modification policies and practices that disempower women because of their family size and economic status can receive such widespread support.  It truly shows that eugenics lies at the heart of LaBruzzo's plans.

This is a direct reflection of the reproductive violence and sterilization abuse that women of color and poor women continue to face at the hands of the state.

Criminalization of Black Women's Sexuality, Fertility, & Motherhood

Policies that promote the control and criminalization of black motherhood have no place in our society.

As a result of punitive welfare reforms instituted during the Clinton Administration in the mid 1990s, the attacks and criminalization of women of color and poor women's reproduction and sexuality has continued unabated despite the fact that TANF/FITAP assistance has been steadily decreasing over the past decade in Louisiana.

Mr. LaBruzzo is reinforcing racial and gender stereotypes by using the bodies of poor black women and other vulnerable communities as a scapegoat to bolster his political career to win the hearts and minds of a conservative base that continues to restrict women's reproductive rights.

Mr. LaBruzzo and his conservative base advocate abstinence-only sex education in schools that don't work. Their refusal to support resources needed for comprehensive preventative reproductive health services, including abortion and safe birth control methods, makes it clear that they have no concern for poor women's economic health and well-being.  Rather, their interest is in the control and criminalization of poor women's reproduction and motherhood.

Economic Myths - Falsehoods LaBruzzo's idea is based on

What he's basically proposing is an economic stimulus plan attacking poor black women.  So, if you're a woman, poor, and  black, get in line- you're about to be sterilized!

The aggressive promotion of sterilization as a condition and punishment for receiving public assistance, and the use of coercive social policies that threaten women's health and well-being like those currently being advocated by LaBruzzo have nothing to do with eradicating poverty in our society.

According to LaBruzzo, the solution to ending poverty in our society is to control and regulate the fertility and sexuality of black women – not the creation of comprehensive programs to improve health care access, our education system, housing affordability, and employment opportunities in the state.  His plan pathologizes the reproductive capabilities of Black and poor women by proposing legislation to exploit the economic vulnerability of those who are socially stereotyped as burdens on the state.  

Even if sterilization is voluntary, POVERTY IS NOT! Poverty, economic insecurity, and lack of sustainable livelihood can cause a woman to consider this aggressive sterilization incentive a viable option.

LaBruzzo talks about poverty as though it were an infectious disease—a though poor people will eventually make everyone poor—rather than a condition people are condemned to by Louisiana's lack of investment in education, employment, affordable housing, and quality health care programs, services, and resources.

LaBruzzo uses a myth of scarcity to argue that if economic resources are shared with everyone, no one will have enough.  The reality is that if the lion's share of our economic resources stopped being used for unnecessary military spending and corporate welfare, such as the Wall Street bailout, then all our communities would have access to the resources and opportunities they need to survive and thrive!

Despite the reality of who's on welfare and the total number of families receiving FITAP benefits in Louisiana, welfare assistance is socially and politically associated with Black mothers who are, unfortunately, already negatively stereotyped in mainstream media as "lazy," "irresponsible," "overly fertile," and "welfare queens."   Because of these stereotypes, LaBruzzo has been able to gain support for his aggressive eugenic sterilization initiative using monetary incentives.

The exploitation and regulation of Black women's bodies and our reproductive capabilities to solve the social problems of poverty and the financial instability of the county's economy through legislation designed to sterilize poor and working class women of color is a barbaric attempt on the part of Representative John LaBruzzo to increase his popularly among conservatives, and to create a distraction from the real problems associated with the country's current economic crisis.

Economic Realities – What really creates the conditions LaBruzzo is "concerned" about

When we let the numbers of people who are on welfare speak for themselves, it becomes clear that this is not about welfare at all – it's about politicians like LaBruzzo who are committed to controlling the reproduction of communities of color and poor people by attacking the bodies and reproductive decisions of Black and poor women.

We are basically witnessing a two front war against poor and working class black communities right now. On one hand, we have the Bush administration fighting to push an economic corporate welfare bailout plan to save Wall Street, and on the other, we have an elected official blaming the bodies and reproductive decisions of poor black women for the social conditions caused by corporate greed.

Advocating for the sterilization of poor black women, and publicly demonizing their motherhood under the cloak of reducing the number of people on welfare, masks the complex causes of poverty and inequality that permeate our society.  If Mr. LaBruzzo is really serious about addressing the problems plaguing our communities right now, he would be focusing his attention on creating legislation to end corporate greed, end the War in Iraq, holding corporations accountable for the toxins that they continue to put into the environment, funding our failing education system, providing people the health care they need now, and supporting affordable housing initiatives in the city.

The current punitive welfare policies Representative LaBruzzo is considering will render women of color, poor women, and women with disabilities vulnerable to sterilization and contraceptive abuse because of racial and class assumptions that their fertility is out of control.    In reality, the average number of children women on welfare have in the state of Louisiana is two – but the image of the over-breeding "welfare queen" is fixed in the minds of many Americans, including Representative LaBruzzo.

Over the past decade, the number of women receiving welfare assistance in the state of Louisiana has been decreasing.  In the past three years, we have seen a 74.24 percent drop in women receiving welfare. According to the Louisiana Department of Social Services, families receiving assistance through the Louisiana Families Independence Temporary Assistance Program (FITAP) was down from 5764 recipients in July 2005 to 1485 as of July 2008.

This is a sexist, racist, and elitist attempt to distract the public from those who are really creating social burdens on society – the corporate welfare giants of Wall Street, the war in Iraq, the over production of unnecessary commodities that negatively impact our environment, and the wasteful spending of public resources on programs--such as abstinence only sex education in schools-- that don't work!

The low-income women of color LaBruzzo feels so comfortable scapegoating for Louisiana's economic conditions are those who support Louisiana's economy by doing its low-wage work.   When LaBruzzo goes to his office, these women clean it; when he goes to a restaurant, they wash the dishes; and when he stays at a hotel, they turn down his sheets.  Rather than this mean-spirited attack, he should call for an increase in the minimum wage that would make it feasible for poor women to survive economically.

What We Need - Strategies & Social Programs for Moving Forward

Instead of mandating punitive measures to modify and pathologize poor women's reproductive decisions, we need legislation to increase women's access to high quality, non-coercive, voluntary reproductive health services and information including access to safe birth control, comprehensive sexual health education, and abortion services that are unbiased, age-appropriate and culturally competent.

The misguided priorities of legislator's like Mr. LaBruzzo to create monetary incentives for poor women to become sterilized fails to acknowledge how our state should be funding initiatives that support preventative health care programs and social services that work to strengthen and build the health of our communities, not blame them for reflecting the social problems of this country.

All women, regardless of their race, sexuality, ability, household size, economic, housing, and citizen status, have the right to live whole healthy lives free of control, violence, regulation, and coercive social policies designed to exploit their economic vulnerability for sterilization and contraception abuse at the hands of elected officials.

All women, regardless of their race, sexuality, ability, household size, economic, housing, and citizen status, have the right to live whole healthy lives free of control, violence, regulation, and coercive social policies designed to exploit their economic vulnerability for sterilization and contraception abuse at the hands of elected officials.

We need legislators who are committed to supporting responsible, accessible, and affordable public services and resources such as safe and quality health care, schools, childcare resources, non-punitive reproductive health services, affordable housing, family treatment programs, mental health services, and non-discriminatory employment opportunities.
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[1] The New Orleans Women's Health & Justice Initiative is a multi-dimensional community-based organizing project centered on (1) improving low income and uninsured women of color access to quality, affordable, and safe health care services; and (2) organizing women for sexual health and reproductive justice through community-based strategies to equip those most disenfranchised by the medical industry with the means to control and care for their own bodies, sexuality, and reproduction. WHJI is a local affiliate of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence –  a national activist organization of radical feminists of color advancing a movement to end violence against women of color and our communities through direct action, critical dialogue and grassroots organizing.

[2] The New Orleans Women's Health Clinic (NOWHC) is a grassroots community-based non-profit women's health clinic – operated by a radical, women of color-led, feminist health collective.  The mission of the New Orleans Women's Health Clinic is to equip marginalized and underserved women with the means to control and care for their own bodies, sexuality, reproduction, health through a holistic, community-centered well women approach to health care which integrates sexual health and reproductive justice.  NOWHC  is a local affiliate of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence.

[3] SisterSong Reproductive Health Collective statement on Understanding Reproductive Justice, 2006. Reproductive Justice refers to an intersectional strategy and praxis organizing for the complete physical, mental, spiritual, political, social, environment, and economic well-being and health of women and girls base on the full achievement and protection of women's human rights.

[4] Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body, (New York: Vintage Books, 1997).

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LaBruzzo: Sterilization plan fights poverty

by Mark Waller, The Times-Picayune
Tuesday September 23, 2008, 9:40 PM

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."
 

LaBruzzo idea at odds with welfare numbers

by Mark Waller and Jan Moller, The Times-Picayune
Wednesday September 24, 2008, 7:55 PM

State Rep. John LaBruzzo says the government should consider cash incentives for poor people to undergo reproductive sterilization, because society is careening toward a day when persons on public assistance outnumber taxpayers and the economy collapses. A look at Louisiana welfare numbers suggests his fear is unfounded....

Figures from the state Department of Social Services show recipients of the main form of welfare, the Family Independence Temporary Assistance Program, have plunged from a monthly average of 280,177 people in fiscal 1990-91 to 13,504 people in 2006-07. The monthly grant to a qualifying mother with two children is now $240.

Total annual spending over the 16-year period dropped from $187.2 million to $16.5 million, less than legislators earmarked for pet projects.

The main reason for the decline, said Social Services spokeswoman Cheryl Michelet, is the 1996 federal welfare reform legislation signed by President Clinton. It put a five-year lifetime cap on benefits.

LaBruzzo said he continues compiling such data and that his idea of providing Fallopian tubal ligations and a $1,000 bonus to impoverished women was a brainstorming tactic prematurely made public Monday on a radio talk show, followed by Internet and printed reports.

"I've said repeatedly that this has been let out prematurely, before I had a chance to investigate it," LaBruzzo, a Metairie Republican, said Wednesday.

Other welfare numbers have not changed as dramatically, but they also have not spiraled out of control. The average number of Louisiana households receiving food stamps monthly has alternately risen and fallen over 16 years, from 258,768 in 1990-91 to 266,088 in 2005-06, according to the Department of Social Services. The average monthly benefit rose to $264.85, a 40 percent increase but not enough to keep up with inflation.

Louisiana is spending more money on health care through Medicaid, the state-federal program that pays medical costs for poor and disabled people. But the rising number of those recipients -- from 752,747 in 1997-98 to more than 1.5 million in 2006-07 -- is mainly due to the creation of the Louisiana Children's Health Insurance Program, which Congress authorized in 1998 to cover children in qualifying households. Total annual Medicaid spending during that time grew from $3.25 billion to $5.38 billion.

LaBruzzo acknowledged he has touched off a firestorm with the initial idea of fighting poverty by offering money to low-income women to get their tubes tied. He also suggested paying poor men to get vasectomies and creating tax incentives for college-educated, affluent couples to have more children.

"How can we get more people who rely on government to have fewer children who rely on government?" he asked Tuesday. "If there's fewer of them, we can do more for them."
He said his telephone and e-mail were jammed Wednesday with messages from supporters, critics and news media.

After further thought, LaBruzzo said, he has modified his position toward calling for financial incentives for temporary forms of birth control, instead of surgery. "That's probably a safe and better way to go," he said, acknowledging that poor women might decide at a later time, when they are in a better economic position, to have children.

Many observers called his ideas offensive.

"It violates the premise of bodily integrity and personal reproductive freedom," said Rachel E. Luft, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of New Orleans. "It's based on an economic fallacy that it's low-income people who are slurping up the resources of this country." Luft likened LaBruzzo's plan to the eugenics movement that sought to engineer low-income and ethnic groups out of the population a century ago, based on the belief that some people are less valuable than others. Adolf Hitler later adopted some of the movement's principles in Nazi Germany, Luft said.
Some critics called LaBruzzo's idea a mean-spirited, misguided effort to eliminate poor people, instead of helping them with education, health care and economic development. Julie Mickelberry, public affairs director for Planned Parenthood of Louisiana and the Mississippi Delta, said LaBruzzo's plan ignores genuine solutions.

Clearly Rep. LaBruzzo doesn't know a thing about prevention," Mickelberry said. "We know that offering bribes for sterilization won't do a thing."

Instead, Mickelberry said, providing access to health care and information about avoiding unintended pregnancies is more likely to help impoverished people.

"There are solutions out there, and there are programs that work," Mickelberry said. "Information is power, and the decision is really up to the individual."

Government subsidies are already available to help pay for birth control and other family planning services, Mickelberry said. She argued those programs need to be better publicized.

In stressing that his research is incomplete, LaBruzzo said he is willing to consider advocating more money for existing programs with successful track records. ome of LaBruzzo's political backers, meanwhile, responded cautiously to his controversial pronouncements. It definitely caught me by surprise," said lawyer James Garvey, a member of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. He has given $1,000 to LaBruzzo's campaign treasury. "I guess I would say that Johnny is a really good guy and really bright guy and that he comes up with ideas that have not been thought of by many other people. Some are good. Some are bad."

Garvey said he had not given LaBruzzo's sterilization idea enough thought to take a position on it. "This might turn out to be a horrible idea," he said, "but you can't get his good ideas without getting some of his off-the-wall ideas."

Real estate developer Henry Shane, who has given LaBruzzo $2,000, also was noncommittal, saying he has not digested the proposal or talked to LaBruzzo about it. I'd have to know what he is actually proposing," Shane said. "It sounds like it might be unusual, but when you get into the details of it, it may make sense." 
.......

Barri Bronston contributed to this report. Mark Waller can be reached at wallertimespicayune.com or 504.883.7056. Jan Moller can be reached at jmollertimespicayune.com or 225.342.5207.