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.”
Oh really? A bridge you say?
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I work as an Assistant Professor in the Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy (although this site and its content are my own).
In 2007 I became the fourth subject in Harvard geneticist George Church's Personal Genome Project. As the PGP moves forward, I am chronicling the dawn of personal genomics, that is, people obtaining their genomic information for whatever reason(s) and figuring out what to do with it. I am interested in the relevant technologies and especially the attendant privacy and other ethical/legal/social issues.
This blog may also discuss some of my non-genome interests or, to paraphrase Dwight Yoakam, "Guitars, Cadillacs, hillbilly music, etc etc."
The header image comes from the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange's multimedia performance piece, "Ferocious Beauty: Genome."
September 27th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Simply stunning. Beyond the negative eugenics revivalism, which is itself amazing, I’m fascinated by the price tag - $1000? That’s what fertility is “worth”? (It certainly costs more to go in the other direction - maybe we should discuss the merits of a $1k IVF treatment…)
September 27th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
” Beyond the negative eugenics revivalism, which is itself amazing”
what’s amazing about this? lots of fetuses with genetic “problems” are aborted. e.g., 90% of american women who get a positive test for down syndrome abort.
September 28th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
There is a qualitative difference. This is euphenics as much as it is eugenics. These women would be “paid” to undergo sterilization, i.e., to not have ANY kids, regardless of genotype. Their “sin” is being poor.