Forced contraception
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Forced contraception has been suggested as a legal means to address certain social problems, specifically to prevent women convicted of child abuse or drug abuse from having more children. The technical means to achieve this end are currently available without recourse to the more intrusive and permanent process of sterilization, which has been used in the past. Norplant is the name of the device that can be implanted in the arm and that can prevent pregnancy. The issue has engendered considerable argument, with opponents seeing this as an unnecessary and unwarranted government invasion or as the precursor to an even more widespread use of this method for preventing different groups of people from having children--those on welfare, for instance, or people convicted of crime having nothing to do with children. Proponents see this as a necessary step to protect children and to assure that society will not have to care for the children of drug abusers and child molesters. Forced sterilization is in fact a necessary step society has to take to protect children and to control those who have proven that they cannot control themselves. In Skinner v. Oklahoma, decided in 1942, the Supreme Court outlawed government imposed involuntary sterilization or sterilization without informed consent, stating that it violated the constitutional right to procreate (316 U.S. 535 [1942]). There have been a number of Supreme Court decisions declaring contraception and abortion to be constit
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osts on society. Norplant was immediately suggested as a solution to a number of social problems. In earlier eras, even more intrusive methods were used to limit reproduction, clearly showing that society sees a problem to be addressed and seeks a solution. Judges have used such means as gifts in exchange for sterilization to the castration of sex offenders to control reproduction, and by 1932 there were 26 states with compulsory sterilization laws (Allstetter, 1991, 32). Norplant avoids the primary moral issue of forcing surgery on someone and so revives the debate as to what society should do to reduce the welfare burden and other expenses associated with certain pregnancies.
The other issues cited above must similarly be analyzed to see that there is a compelling governmental interest in imposing reproductive restrictions. The impact on offspring, as Robertson (1995) notes, comes into play "when it is reasonably foreseeable that the parents will be unable to produce healthy offspring or will otherwise rear them in circumstances that deny them a minimum level of care, nurture, and production" (Robertson, 1995, 24). Parents who abuse their children would qualify, but so would parents who might pass on genetic or infectiou
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Approximate Word count = 1622
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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