Archbishop Blasts Plan to Sterilize Poor

Lawmaker's proposal 'an egregious affront, blatantly antilife'
By Harry Kimball,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 26, 2008 8:01 PM CDT
Archbishop Blasts Plan to Sterilize Poor
Archbishop Alfred Hughes has opposed a plan to pay the poor to be sterilized, calling "blatantly antilife."   (Getty Images)

The Archbishop of New Orleans slammed a Louisiana lawmaker yesterday for a plan to sterilize the poor, the Times-Picayune reports. Archbishop Alfred Hughes called it "an egregious affront to those targeted and blatantly anti-life." State Rep. John Labruzzo floated the idea this week to fight poverty by paying men and women $1,000 each to undergo sterilization or a vasectomy.

Tax incentives may also be a way to get the college-educated to have more kids, Labruzzo said. Hughes attacked both sterilization and the idea of altering birth rates to limit a part of the population. Vasectomy are tubal ligation are both opposed by the Catholic church. "Our lawmakers would do better to focus on policies that promote education and achievement to counteract poverty and the bigotry of low expectations," Hughes said (More vasectomy stories.)

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