why shouldn't sterilization be part of the punishment for certain criminals?

Great Debates
1

This idea came to mind while thinking about the infamous case of the woman who left her kids in the car while going to have her hair done. It seems to me self evident that 1. this woman does not deserve to have children, and 2. she should not have children because she has demonstrated her lack of fitness to be a parent. Further, I can’t see how our gene pool would suffer a tragic loss if her genes were not passed on.

Further, as I see it, the same argument can be made about various kinds of criminals (murderers, rapists, child and animal abusers come to mind). If we accept that having children is a privilege and not a right, then there is good reason to deny these people that privilege not only as punishment for them, but because there’s reason to think that they would be pretty terrible parents, and I think we have an obligation to prevent, whenever possible, a child’s having to be raised by terrible parents.

I don’t think it makes a difference if we think, on the other hand, that having children is a right and not a privilege. Criminals of the above sort have demonstrated by their actions that they both do not deserve that right, and that they are most likely unfit to carry out that right in a manner that will not seriously harm the children they would have.

Moreover, it seems clear that whatever genetic material contributed to these people’s doing what they did is not such that we shouldn’t prevent it from being passed on, especially given that there are independent arguments (the ones above) against doing so.

I’m interested to hear what you all think about this idea, particularly if you disagree with it.

2

As with the death penalty, if the justice system can be wrong, it shouldn’t do anything it can’t reasonably take back.

3

Then there’s the whole right to procreate issue. (sorry about that pun)

4

erislover, two things: one, I have the impression that tubal ligations and vasectomies are reversible to some extent. Second, even if they aren’t, surely it’s better to mistakenly sterilize someone who doesn’t deserve it than to knowingly permit cretins to inflict their idiocy on innocent children? Perhaps we could simply store the sperm/eggs of these people so that if we do find that we were mistaken and that their sterilization is irreversible, they could produce their own genetic offspring if they want to.

Monty, there’s also the right to walk around on the street, but we take that away when we incarcerate criminals because we believe to the best of our knowledge that they aren’t fit to walk around on the street because they can’t seem to do so without hurting someone. Why is the right to procreate any different? And if it is, why does it take precedence over the right of a child not to be abused?

5

No. Better to let ten guilty men go free than to punish one innocent man - that argument only gets stronger as punishment gets more severe and less reversible.

6

If the mistake was with one of your parents would the world gene pool suffer a tragic loss?

7

Piaffe, if I’m following your thoughts correctly, these people don’t deserve to have the privilege and responsibility of having children, so we sterilise them, yes ? What happens when they have a child anyway ? Sterilisation isn’t 100% so sooner or later your plan will be faced with some children who society has decreed shouldn’t be here.

What do we do with these children ? Forced abortion ? Forced adoptions ? Forced placement in an orphange ? Would the parents be liable for chlid support ?

**

Piaffe, I would also like a cite for your argument that the genetic material of the convicted person in any way contributed to what “these people’s doing what they did”.

8

I think you’re coming at this all wrong. First of all, the very idea of forced sterilization just sounds bad. From a purely political point of view, you’ll never get any support for this. Secondly, my guess is that the guys out ther who are committing the murders, rapes, and other mayhem don’t really think too much about raising a family, so the idea of sterilization as punishment wouldn’t be very threatening to them.

A more workable approach might be to offer sterilization as an option at sentencing or as a way to take time off a sentence. In this case the convicted person is making the choice, not the state. This could actually be very beneficial all around in the case of women who have a history of drug abuse. I think a lot of women in such a situation would welcome such an option, social agencies would have fewer crack babies to deal with, and police departments would have fewer criminals twenty years down the road.

9

Our penal ‘correction’ system is supposed to rehabilitate criminals and then reassimilate them back into society. It seems that such a drastic permanent measure as what you propose would only apply to criminals deemed incapable of fitting back into society. We have life terms and death penalties for those folks. Do you have any statistics on the number of inmates serving life terms or waiting on death row who have had children while incarcerated? How about the number of children born to inmates in general, regardless of their sentence?

What I’m getting at is, while they are locked up they probably aren’t having too many babies anyway. Once they are freed, they are supposed to be corrected ( I know, I know, there are recidivists galore out there).

10

piaffe, perhaps you should give this a read:
Eugenics Watch

And maybe this, too.

And this:

And, for good measure, this:Skinner vs. Oklahoma

11

Why should this be acceptable in the first place? Isn’t procreation, along with food and water, a human right?

If it’s a privilege, shouldn’t we be screening people for genetic diseases and sterilizing them, too? And which genetic diseases? Those that cause death in infancy, childhood, adulthood?

12

Well, just in general, Eugenics is a bad idea.

Erek

13

I can’t speak for the idea of sterilizing the woman who baked her kids, but I’ve studied rapists and molesters for a number of years and very closely followed the debate about chemical castration and the old fashioned kind.

The thought among several leaders in the sexual abuse prevention field is that it wouldn’t make a difference. The desire to inflict violation isn’t sexual. Sex is a tool in the hands of the predators (if anyone accidentally makes a pun out of that, forgive me). If the penis won’t rise, a table leg or Coke bottle can always be found.

Therefore, it only serves as a punishment and not a deterrent of preventative measure. As a result, it’s not nearly as useful as life in prison without possibility of parole.

14

Piaffe:

Where is your evidence that the tendency to neglect children and leave them to die in baking heat is a genetically-inherited trait?

15

Alright, I see I haven’t been entirely clear.

The comment I made about not wanting certain genetic material passed on is (as I see it) at best a secondary, “while we’re at it” point. I do not have evidence that [insert bad criminal characteristic here] is genetically inherited. I don’t know one way or the other; to my mind, it doesn’t make any difference. I raised the point more to deflect anticipated responses along the lines of, “But that would involve preventing certain genetic material from being passed on, and that’s a bad thing!!”, which as it turns out no one has raised. My reason for thinking sterilization an appropriate part of punishment for certain actions is NOT eugenic, NOR is it because I think it would function as a deterrent. The reason it seems like a good idea to me is strictly because it would prevent children being born to people who have given pretty strong evidence through their actions that they are unlikely at best to refrain from causing serious harm to their children, whether deliberately or merely through lapses in judgment. I can give an argument for my position that doesn’t depend on any views about genetics, mistaken or otherwise. While I think it’s indeterminate, at this point, what if any role genetics plays in behavior, how about we stipulate for the purpose of discussion that we have absolute, uncontrovertible, certain proof that behavior is NOT genetically determined, from which it follows that preventing certain genetic material from being passed on is neither good nor bad?

Most of you think that procreation is a right and not a privilege, I gather. I’ll go on the record as saying I disagree, very strongly, but my argument doesn’t depend on procreation being a privilege. Let’s assume that procreation IS a right; here’s the argument I offer.

I accept the following principle:

§ if A’s exercising his right to X in circumstances C would cause undeserved grevious harm to B, then A does not have the right to X in circumstances C.

For example, I think that we all agree that my right to shoot a gun ends where you begin. This is because while we recognize that I have a right to shoot a gun, my doing so in the appropriate relation to you will cause you undeserved grevious harm. You may not agree that this is a good example of §. If that’s the case, please recognize that my argument depends on §, not on this example, so objections of the form “but you don’t have a right to shoot a gun anyway” or the like would be missing the point.

My initial argument, then, is as follows:

[ul]1) § (premise)
2) A’s exercising his right to X in circumstances C will result in grevious undeserved harm to B. (premise)
3) A does not have the right to X in circumstances C.[/ul]

This argument is valid, by modus ponens: if 1) and 2) are both true, the truth of 3) follows. Now it may be that you think it’s not sound; that either § or 2) are false. However, if you accept §, then you have to accept 3) for cases where 2) is true.

However, you probably think that this argument doesn’t have any bearing on real life, because we are not omniscient and cannot know for certain what another person will do. I then offer you:

(P)if A’s exercising his right to X in circumstances C is very likely to result in undeserved grevious harm to B, then A does not have the right to X in circumstances C*

The motivation for § also motivates (P*); continuing with my previous example, I don’t have the right to shoot a gun into the woods between our backyards because doing so is likely to cause you undeserved grevious harm.

[ul]1) (P*) (premise)
2) A’s exercising his right to X in circumstances C is very likely to result in undeserved grevious harm to B. (premise)
3) A does not have the right to X in circumstances C[/ul]

I think if you accept the first argument, then you would accept this one. That is, I don’t think anyone would accept § but not (P*), but that is the only relevant difference. However, you might still object that we can, at best, have good reason to believe that 2) is true, and that this is not enough for the second argument to apply. Therefore, consider:

(P) if we have very good reason to believe that A’s exercising his right to X in circumstances C is very likely to result in undeserved grevious harm to B, then we should prevent A from X’ing.**

[ul]1) (P**) (premise)
2) We have very good reason to believe that A’s exercising his right to X in circumstances C is very likely to result in undeserved grevious harm to B. (premise)
3) We should prevent A from X’ing (1,2)[/ul]

Again, my dear friend modus ponens. I think (P**) captures our epistemic situation more accurately than either (P*) or §, but I think the same reasons one would have for accepting § or (P*) would also suffice for accepting (P**). The only objection I can think of to (P**) that won’t also apply to (P*) and § is something along the lines of: we’ll never have a good enoughreason to believe that it’s likely enough that… which is not so much an objection to the truth of (P**) as it is a claim that (P**) would never apply in real life. What I’m curious to see, though, is what reason someone would have for denying the truth of (P**), (P*), or §.

16

piaffe: There’s a difference between walking around on the streets and getting your nuts hacked off.

17

piaffe, the “grevious undeserved harm” is not caused by allowing people who are unfit parents to conceive or give birth to children, it is caused by allowing them to raise children.

18

I’m with piaffe on this one. If a parent can be bad enough at parenting that the state can permanently remove a child from one’s home, why can’t the state also say, “And BTW, you can’t have anymore kids”?

19

Lamia, that’s right. But if you grant that someone should not be allowed to raise children, what reason is there to allow them to have children in the first place? Why should taxpayers have to pay for the state to keep track of these people, find out whether or not they’ve produced children, take those children away, and then care for them until other homes are found, when we could pay much less simply to prevent the people in question from having children in the first place? Furthermore, isn’t it worse for a child to have to go through that process than simply never to have come into being at all (which is not at all bad for *the child,*because it does not exist)?

20

piaffe, your reliance on a logical argument in this case is precisley why it does qualify as eugenics. You see, from a purely logical viewpoint, it does, in fact, make sense to rid the genepool (or society) of “undesirable elements”. However, society is not always logical. Nor should it be.

We already have laws, and punishments, to deal with the crimes which have already happened. Sterilization constitutes a punishment for a crime which has yet to happen. It is also a punishment that lasts well beyond that required to satisfy “societal debt”. That’s why it qualifies as “cruel and unusual” punishment.