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Coerced sterilization is a crime against humanity. https://twitter.com/cjciaramella/status/1305609524733251584
People are not nearly as outraged by the abhorrent and grotesquely evil practice of inmate sterilization as you might expect. Ask me how I know. https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2019/05/20/tennessee-inmate-sterilization-program/3748232002/
Also, to be clear, “crime against humanity” is not a turn of phrase here. Enforced sterilization is an actual, specific, and literal crime against humanity. https://www.icc-cpi.int/resourcelibrary/official-journal/rome-statute.aspx#article7
This practice is not new. It also is not old. It is thankfully rare, but not as rare as you’d think. It is definitely here, sometimes adopted formally, sometimes not: https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/article/13058651/controversial-and-recently-fired-ada-brian-holmgren-defends-pleabargaining-tactics
It is a practice that is too frequently defended, sometimes in whispers, sometimes in open argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit: https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/19a0060p-06.pdf
Civil rights lawyers have been fighting tirelessly against government-sponsored sterilization in this country for an actual century, perhaps longer. Here’s one of them (Fred Gray, Tuskegee, AL): https://twitter.com/scot_blog/status/1154092785315786752
This is what the end of a government sterilization program looks like. It is at once tremendous and tremendously insufficient.
Greetings, you goddamn fucking fool. This thread is, to the contrary, a product of this Jew’s RAGE about government-sponsored sterilization, which I have some experience with because I ended such a program in my state and gave half the award to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. https://twitter.com/godlovesugly22/status/1305696542771339266
A few US jurisdictions have voluntarily paid reparations for their sterilization programs: https://www.npr.org/2011/12/28/144375339/a-brutal-chapter-in-north-carolinas-eugenics-past. Many people who were sterilized are still alive.
A government official who sterilizes someone can (probably) still get qualified immunity for doing so based on the insane and never-formally-overruled jurisprudence that blessed the practice for a terrifying amount of time. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/07/469478098/the-supreme-court-ruling-that-led-to-70-000-forced-sterilizations
Lots—LOTS—of *current* US government officials think sterilization is an appropriate punishment for criminal offenses. They rarely get pushback, but sometimes, they do. https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2020/08/01/judge-tennessee-election-law-incompatible-first-amendment/5551097002/
That is correct: https://time.com/5737080/native-american-sterilization-history/ In shocking numbers. https://twitter.com/n8tvegranny/status/1305707718242566144?s=21
Caselaw remains well behind modern norms. E.g.—this is what qualifies as a “good” opinion on sterilization: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2616095/smith-v-superior-court/ The holding: “such a serious and far reaching act should not be required by the court without a specific statutory or constitutional authorization.”
It would be nice if we developed sufficient consensus that this is an evil practice that we banned it by statute everywhere: https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2018/04/17/tennessee-lawmakers-pass-bill-forbid-judges-sterilizing-inmates/524290002/
Until then, outrage is essential. Otherwise, we’ll be stuck with constant efforts to return to the dark ages, because in so many ways, we’re still there and have barely evolved. /End https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/tennessee-chemical-castration/
