Eugenics Watch: California penal system sterilizing female prisoners.

This is… not good:

Doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sterilized nearly 150 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals, the Center for Investigative Reporting has found.

At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years – and there are perhaps 100 more dating back to the late 1990s, according to state documents and interviews.

[snip]

Former inmates and prisoner advocates maintain that prison medical staff coerced the women, targeting those deemed likely to return to prison in the future.

But this is worse:

In an interview with CIR, [Valley State Prison Dr. James] Heinrich said he provided an important service to poor women who faced health risks in future pregnancies because of past Caesarean sections. The 69-year-old Bay Area physician denied pressuring anyone and expressed surprise that local contract doctors had charged for the surgeries. He described the $147,460 total as minimal.

“Over a 10-year period, that isn’t a huge amount of money,” Heinrich said, “compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children – as they procreated more.”

That would be where the mask slipped. You may have any number of opinions about the inherent nature of habitual criminals, how such a lifestyle impacts a child’s upbringing, and whether or not we are engaged in counterproductive policies regarding the first two categories. But Dr. Heinrich’s statement is simply straight-up eugenics. The man clearly thinks that keeping a certain class of people* from breeding is self-evidently acceptable… and if he worked in the Texas or Ohio penal system then the torchlight mobs on the Left would already be assembling to burn Dr. Heinrich at the stake. As it is: various feminist groups are screaming about it, and have been screaming about it for years, but since it’s California (which means: no plausible way to blame it on a Republican**), well…

(via NAlert)

Moe Lane

PS: I will be flattered by any suggestion that I am capable of instantly detecting every single serious regional problem facing the Republic, let alone starting an immediate counter-attack against it. Alas, I cannot be made to take seriously anybody who seriously makes that suggestion.

*You know. Poor people. Minorities (and have fun trying to find a media outlet that will admit that). People who don’t max out contributions to various Democratic party organizations.

**Although I suppose that they could try to pin this one on Gov. Schwarzenegger. Given California’s history of prisoner sterilization: yeah, good luck with that.