A bill that should have gone nowhere in Louisiana’s legislative body, has passed in the House and has had a first reading in the Senate. HB 166 is the vasectomy bill: “In addition to any other penalties provided by law, any person who is convicted of a sex offense as defined in R.S. 15:541 may be subject to a vasectomy procedure.”
Such news makes me want to fight even harder.
If it only subjects those with testicles and vans defrens to the punishment it is a violation of the equal protection act, unless they added wording to also include tubal ligation.
Predictable not alarming. As predictable as a school-yard bully with their intimidation tactics and lashing out because their identity-formation was shaped by one tragic event. I’m willing to wager a good many of these lawmakers didn’t have a “good” childhood and this is just a continuation of their skewed world-view.
Forced sterilization has an unfortunately sordid history in the United States and has often been used against African-Americans. What is most shocking about this bill is that its sponsor is Representative Delisha Boyd (D-New Orleans), who is herself African-American.
Rep. Delisha Boyd must surely know that African-American men are forced to register as sexual offenders at a disproportionately high rate in Louisiana and that her bill, should it pass, would result in the forced sterilization of African-American men. Although the bill, should it become law, would almost certainly be declared unconstitutional as violative of the United States Constitution’s Eight Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment as forced sterilization is a form of mutilation, Representative Delisha Boyd should be absolutely ashamed at her sponsorship of this bill. She claims to fight for the rights of African-Americans when this bill would result in state-sanctioned eugenics to reduce the African-American population in Louisiana.
@RM
According to the registry Kings and Queens in charge, NOTHING is punishment on the registry, because they say so. With a wave of the hand, like royalty, they make it happen. Like Picard in Star Trek, they say, “Make it so number one”.
There is no such thing as a witch, but back in the day, they burned people at the stake for being one. They said if you live, you are a witch, if you die, you were innocent. Well, all of them died innocent of being a witch but they just kept on burning people.
[Moderator’s note: the bill text states that it is punishment].
It appears that this punishment is not associated with the registry, but is a criminal penalty in addition to that prescribed by the statute of conviction. This means that it can’t be applied retroactively. So society will likely see no applications for at least 10 years. That is only when those convicted and punished under the new law are released. I also wonder how this would not violate equal protection requirements. That is unless female offenders are required to get a tubal ligation.
Note that a vasectomy does not reduce sex drives. So if the legislators had pontificated about protecting children, even any imaginary benefit could not be had. These legislators are simply nuts.