澳彩开奖

The that served as the basis of this edition of the Weekend Read reported that people were offered sterilization in exchange for a reduced sentence. As the article 鈥� and this Weekend Read 鈥� note, however, women were offered the option of a birth control implant.

鈥淚 hope to encourage them to take personal responsibility,鈥� Judge Sam Benningfield, who approved the program.

In the two months since the policy went into effect, 32 women have received a birth control implant called , and 38 men are waiting to have a vasectomy.

Whether Benningfield knows it or not, the people he is sterilizing in the White County jail are merely the latest in a long line of incarcerated and low-income people to be sterilized under coercion or force by the criminal or social welfare systems in the United States.

In 1907, Indiana became the first state to pass a law allowing for of 鈥渃onfirmed criminals鈥� and 鈥渋diots.鈥� soon followed suit.

In 1972, we sued on behalf of two young sisters who were sterilized in 1972 without their consent in Alabama. Sterilization laws began to be dismantled during that era, but eugenics practices have continued around the country. In California, for example, underwent tubal ligations without their lawful consent between 2004 and 2013.

America is not the only country to forcibly sterilize its citizens in the 21st century. In Europe, if a transgender person wanted to change their name or gender on government-issued documents, mandated their sterilization until April of this year, when the European Court of Human Rights that requirement to be an institutionalized violation of human rights.

But that victory for transgender rights came only after a sustained campaign by the hate group Alliance Defending Freedom to try to keep the sterilization requirement.

鈥淓qual dignity does not mean that every sexual orientation warrants equal respect,鈥� wrote ADF International in an intervention brief.

Obviously, we disagree. But ADF鈥檚 efforts to see a continued policy of mandated sterilization of transgender people are in keeping with its support of the fraudulent practice ofgay-to-straight conversion therapy and the argument of its first president, that pedophilia and homosexuality are "intrinsically linked" (a dangerous falsehood long propagated by anti-LGBT hate groups).

Such stances are why we named Alliance Defending Freedom a hate group 鈥� and why, as David Perry writes of incarcerated people for The Marshall Project, 鈥淣o one should be compelled to trade their reproductive freedom for corporal freedom.鈥�

We鈥檒l keep fighting for the rights of transgender and incarcerated people alike.

The Editors.

PS Here are some other pieces this week that we think are valuable:

• by A.C. Thompson for ProPublica
• by Ben Collins for the Daily Beast
• by Kimbriell Kelly, Wesley Lowery and Steven Rich for the Washington Post
• by Richard D. Kahlenberg for the New York Times
• by Sharon Cohen and Adam Geller for the Associated Press

澳彩开奖's Weekend Reads are a weekly summary of the most important reporting and commentary from around the country on civil rights, economic and racial inequity, and hate and extremism. Sign up to receive Weekend Reads every Saturday morning.