Washington, D.C. (29 September 2008) – Louisiana state Rep. John LaBruzzo, R – Metairie, wants to pay poor women $1,000 if they agree to be sterilized. American Life League president Judie Brown said this eugenics plan to end poverty by stripping the poor of their basic human right to reproduce is the result of Louisiana's cultural acceptance of abortion and sex-education.
According to LaBruzzo, the poor are producing at faster rates than the more educated, presumably richer residents of Louisiana. His sterilization plan is aimed at reducing generational welfare and could include incentives for richer, college-educated people to have more children.
"This is one of the most in-your-face eugenics attempts I've seen since the fall of the Third Reich," said Judie Brown, president of American Life League. "This representative of the people wants to turn Louisiana into a mirror of Nazi Germany. This is the world our culture has created with our acceptance of sex education in the public schools, abortion, euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research. LaBruzzo is one of the first to publicly make that logical leap to full-blown eugenics, but he won't be the last."
LaBruzzo told the New Orleans Times-Picayune the sterilization proposal was just one of a number of ideas to decrease the poverty level.
New Orleans Archbishop Alfred Hughes clearly rebuked the representative's proposal, which the archbishop called "blatantly anti-life":
The recent proposal of Representative LaBruzzo not only would make sterilization our public policy and require tax payers to pay for it, but would also constitute a form of eugenics that the Church and this country have always condemned as an egregious affront to those targeted and blatantly anti-life. Our lawmakers would do better to focus on policies that promote education and achievement to counteract poverty and the bigotry of low expectations.
"We're grateful state Rep. LaBruzzo's despicable proposal exposed the hideous consequences of the culture of death," Brown said. "And we urge New Orleans residents to reject this threat to their most basic rights."
American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to death. For more information or media inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at 540.659.4942.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
New Orleans Times-Picayune: LaBruzzo: Sterilization Plan Fights Poverty
24 September 2008
Archdiocese of New Orleans: A Statement from Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes
25 September 2008
Louisiana Weekly: LaBruzzo Plan to Sterilize Poor Women Brings to Mind Hitler
29 September 2008