wehateporn

In a small county in rural Tennessee, inmates were offered 30 days off their sentences in exchange for a vasectomy or a long-acting birth control implant. County officials say it was a tool in the fight against opiate abuse - opponents call it eugenics.

This spring, Deonna Tollison found herself in Judge Sam Benningfield's courtroom in Sparta, Tennessee - a large, neon-lit room filled with wooden pews for the public. Tollison was accused of violating the conditions of her house arrest, the latest issue in a lifetime of trouble, which at its worst saw her living in her car, addicted to opiates.

On the stand, Tollison testified she'd been trying to get her life on the right track - she was off the drugs and raising her two youngest daughters, as well as the daughter of a sister who died in a car wreck. Relapses and run-ins with the law, however, kept stalling her progress, and here she was again, accused of making unsanctioned trips to the grocery store and allowing the batteries on her ankle monitor to die.

She faced the possibility of another stay in the local jail.

"I'm a single mother of three beautiful girls and a brand new grandson. My mother is disabled. My sister is disabled," Tollison pleaded on the stand. "Each and every one of them depend on me because I'm the only one with a [driver's] license. I love my family very dearly...the last four years I've done everything in my power to get my life back."


The hearing did not go well for Tollison. Judge Benningfield ruled that her continued missteps and her lack of employment made her unfit for home arrest. He ordered her to serve out the rest of her sentence in the county jail.

Shortly afterward, Benningfield made a surprising announcement to the entire courtroom: a new programme would allow inmates like Tollison to shave time off her sentence - 30 days - if she agreed to sign up for a free long-lasting form of birth control. For the male inmates, Benningfield's new order would offer free vasectomies.

Not long after Tollison arrived to the jail, sign-up sheets started going around to have an implant called Nexplanon inserted, which prevents pregnancy for up to four years. Tollison signed up, along with at least 30 other women. Over on the men's side, 38 men signed up for vasectomies. With an average daily population of 221 inmates, that represented a sizeable portion of the jail.

Tollison first had to attend a neonatal health class which focused on the effects of drug abuse during pregnancy can have on foetuses. Then, a nurse used a special, needle-like device to puncture her upper left arm, and slide the matchstick-sized vinyl implant under the skin. The male inmates were scheduled for appointments with a local urologist.

Continued ?We were guinea pigs?: Jailed inmates agreed to birth control - BBC News

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mineistaken

Something like that should be implemented in Africa and such. Food or support for birth control etc etc.
Or would dat be waciss?

Bladewire

If only your mother's had been so smart as to use birth control.

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