Word: norplant
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Government-sponsored voluntary use of Norplant by welfare mothers does not deviate from current policy and is opposed only by the most fundamentally pro-life. It is government- sponsored required use, however, that could be a violation of reproductive rights. Such a policy might also be considered racist as it might have also be considered racist as it might have a disproportionate effect on Black Americans. Nearly half of the Black children in America are living in poverty and would thus be the indirect target of Norplant population control...
...Norplant, then, presents us with a chance to finally break the vicious cycle of poverty, but at the cost of perhaps infringing upon fundamental rights and raising the issue of eugenics. It is paternalism at its most extreme...
Polls have shown that public support is greater for offering cash incentives to these women than for actually making a Norplant a condition for receiving benefits. In 1991 Louisiana state representative David Duke proposed paying welfare mothers to take advantage of state-subsidized Norplant...
...just what kind of a choice is that? When women are desperate for money to help raise their children, the carrot of increased benefits for using Norplant becomes a stick, and choice becomes coercion, even extortion...
Legally speaking, court-ordered use of Norplant violates a person's right to refuse medical treatment and to reproduce, and in criminal cases may violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court has long ruled that a state may infringe upon individual rights to serve a "compelling interest," but to require use of Norplant might constitute discrimination. Intent is irrelevant. If there is an adverse "prima facie" statistical effect on minorities the policy in question could be considered discriminatory, as has been upheld in court with some hiring policies...