BellaOnline Forums News and Politics Women's Issues paying poor women to be sterilized?

Generational poverty...

that's what they are teaching as fact in pro-liberal classes. That's pretty much one of the MAIN issues/problems I have had forced down my throat in my class. That, and the false hope they are given that they actually have a chance of getting out of poverty and passing it down to their kids.

So what IS the truth?

I read half of the posts on this thread, will read the rest, but had to stop to add my two cents.

First it's disturbing that because of the culture we live in it's all about money, money, money, money, money! Paying women not to have children, paying women to have children. Just throw money at the problem instead of trying to educate people at an early age what it means to be a part of a marriage, a family, a community a society. What does it mean and require to take care of yourself and children. We are NOT educated on any of this stuff, not in school and not in the home. And I'm talking about people with money too.

I used to think money was the cure all. That people with money were happier than the rest of us. Then I started reading a lot of self-help and the case studies weren't of poor people, but usually the middle class, upper middle class and the wealthy who can afford therapy. People who are suffering because while they had lots of stuff they didn't get what they really needed as they grew up because their parents did not know--aside from providing material things--how to raise children. It takes a village and villages in this country are few and far between.

BTW, I have to add there, that I am legacy of the welfare women with tons of children that we are talking about. My grandmother had 13 and was on welfare. However, none of my grandmother's children had even close to that number. Not because someone paid them not to but because they SAW first hand the difficulties and made other choices.

But again, it's not only about the numbers, the money, the amount of children, it's the fact that many of us, poor, middle class and wealthy, have NO idea how to raise a kid and unfortunately there is no village to teach us.

That's why it's best to approach it as a "one woman, one womb" public policy measure. Generational poverty is two successive generations or more at or below poverty level. (a child grows up in poverty to raise children in poverty) period. Situational poverty is something totally different. We've all seen the young mother in the convenience store with four or five kids, no man, no support in sight. She's unemployed, she has no hope. She takes comfort where she can get it and usually gets pregnant in the process. Or she trades sex for drugs. I know several women in the system came across who got pregnant more than once trading sex for drugs. If they want BC, let's give it to them, and try to save the children they already have. You can teach her, train her, save her subsequent to eliminating her one major worry which is getting pregnant. Leah, I totally agree with you and I am certain it was your grandmother's philosophy on child rearing that you have shared here! I've read your posts. You have struck me as a woman from a line of strong women. My grandfather's daddy died when he was a baby, leaving my great-grandmother with four boys under the age of five to feed and raise alone. All of my people prior to my father were farmers! She was not above chopping cotton, plowing fields, slaughtering hogs or anything else she had to do to feed those kids. And, she had family support. That's an example of situational poverty. But so many families are not like that anymore. As an aside, over ten girls in my daughter's tenth grade class last year got pregnant and the girls she talked to were happy to have "someone to love." And other girls in the class brought them baby gifts. And one of the mothers threw a shower and invited classmates!!!! LaBruzzo appeared to focus on the young mother with many children - I know from personal experience as well as from years of professional experience that that is generational poverty being perpetuated. It is what it is. He may very well be a whack job. Don't know. But his idea does deserve consideration! (and education to go with it btw. don't just pass out pills and tubals..... without offering GED classes, pell grants, job training, clothing banks, church homes, church sponsors even....) Restorative justice programs are working within penal systems across the country.....that idea could cross over easily on this issue in some form or fashion. Everyone have a great Friday tomorrow!!! Finally!!

Poor women may jump at the chance to receive payment for sterilization, but what if they change their minds? Poor people don't always stay poor forever, and the reversal operation is not always successful.
There is also the assumption that poor people make poor parents, and that is not the case. I am sure there are other ways to combat the problem, rather than enticing women into having their tubes tied when they may regret it later.

True, men could always get snipped!

You know, I read about something similar to this. There is a woman who administers temporary birth control, such as depo shots, to women who are drug abusers. They receive a nominal sum, and the bonus is that they won't have drug addicted babies to burden the tax payers, or babies growing up with a mom who's an addict. A lot of people claimed the practice was racist (apparently, most of her clientele were AA), but I fail to see the downside. It keeps kids from harm's way, and slows down the overloading of our planet.

"These discussions of "another mouth to feed" and "popping out babies" are standard conservative propaganda, but the numbers don't bear out the image."

Hmmn that surprises me. I don�t have a lot of experience in this regard, as I have always lived in very rural areas, in towns where you need to make a certain income to even survive, and that income level is too high to qualify for government assistance, so I haven�t known a lot of people who take welfare, but a few homes in my current neighborhood are always rented out to people on Section8. I assume the appeal of renting to people who get gov�t assistance is that a portion of your rent payments are guaranteed. Again I don�t know that for sure, it�s just an assumption on my part.

Every single one of the families in these particular houses ( I have personally known three of them) has had VERY large quantities of children and were on assistance for all of them, right from the start. One family has six children crammed into a tiny little 3 bedroom home, one had 8 children in a raised ranch and the family that lives beside me now has 9 children and is still going strong. They aren�t all living in one house as the husband�s prior family of 6 children live elsewhere with their mother and he has started over with a young woman who has just given birth to her third child with him and has a lot of childbearing years left in her.

I used to have a live and let live attitude about these things but it�s changing now that I see how it all works. The folks who had 8 in the raised ranch were very nice people and we were so friendly in fact, that she donated her hand-me-down cloths to me. They were beautiful clothes that I, as a hard working blue collar stiff could never afford. She also drove a nice sports car that I could never afford. Live and let live I say, they were nice people, working the system for sure, but good neighbors nonetheless.

The folks living next door to me now are not such good neighbors. He comes over to my house looking for work now and then all the while ranting about how he can�t possibly be expected to live on $900 per month. He�s on disability for a bad back. He doesn�t actually have a bad back but hey, at least he can supplement that disability paycheck by doing manual labor that you and I could never have a strong enough back to do. Then he goes on and on, with real anger in his voice, about how the man is keeping him down, after all, who could be expected to live on that little? He had me for a little while there. Then he told me about the 6 other kids he left behind who are all on the gov�t dime as well. In no way does he hold himself responsible for any of it, nor does he see that constantly having more kids is why he can�t afford to live. But maybe I am wrong. Maybe having so many kids is his career path. It certainly appears that way.

I�m scratching my head now and wondering what I am doing wrong.

Anyway, back to the original topic. I am not so live and let live as I used to be. I am totally against paying people not to have children, directly anyway. What I would support is letting every one have that first mistake. It happens for so many reasons, however, there should not be a 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc�
I would like to see that first welfare check or other assistance be handed over on the condition that a birth control education class be taken,free of charge of course. It should also be made clear to the recipient of that check that this is their one mistake and they will never get a higher �paycheck� for having more. Then I would like to see the gov�t pay for their birth control, whatever it may be, including temporary and reversible sterilization. They would have the right to refuse this free medical care (I don�t believe in forcing people to do anything like this) but they will do so with the full knowledge that their assistance will not be raised on the basis of having more children.

A solution would have to be devised for people who have not been on assistance previously who find themselves needing help because of divorce, medical issues, unemployment, or whatever the cause of their sudden financial problems are. These people may have several children already. I don�t feel that these people should be penalized simply because others might abuse the system. Maybe a pool of money that is finite that can be drawn on for hard times. Or maybe have a system like unemployment where you can collect for a certain length of time as long as it doesn�t exceed the amount of time that you were off of assistance. This at least would keep people from turning assistance into a career path.

I feel kind of mean saying "these people". I don�t intend to sound that way, I just don�t know how to word it any better than this. Apologies if it comes across as judgmental, again that is not my intent. I totally understand hard times and have no problem with our whole society contributing through tax dollars to help those who find themselves in hard times, or even those folks who were born into the world, for whatever reason, just not well equipped to achieve financial success. I just don�t think that it�s our God given right to have numerous children that we cannot, and never could have, afforded to support. Not in this age of very good, and very effective birth control choices.

Gosh, I talk too much This is like a wall of text!

Every woman needs to have the number of children she can afford without being on welfare. Sterilization is expensive, I had it done when my now 23 year old (only child) was 1 year old. I had her at age 29, and gave myself a year to think about having a second child. But it seems that alot of welfare systems REWARD women for having "too many" children. This needs to stop as it is tying up funds that the "seniors" need for stuff like heat and air conditioning. So many of them are dying due to not being able to pay for their utilities.

This is definitely a very challenging topic that has many different angles to it.

I do think as a base line that it would be a good thing if our medical system allowed every woman equal, free access to birth control and to sterilization if they want it. I think if we allowed women complete control over their fertility - along with education in school so they could make the best choice for them at their stage in life - that we would have a much better society overall. Every child born should be an actively wanted child.