You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Tennessee Judge Under Fire for Shortening Sentences for Prisoners Who Get Sterilized

HeadlineJul 24, 2017

In Tennessee, a judge is under fire after it was revealed he was offering to shorten prison sentences for people who agreed to get sterilized. In May, Judge Sam Benningfield issued an order saying that any prisoners who agreed to undergo a vasectomy or receive long-term contraceptive implants would receive 30 days of credit off their sentences. The ACLU says the practice is unconstitutional, saying, “Such a choice violates the fundamental constitutional right to reproductive autonomy and bodily integrity by interfering with the intimate decision of whether and when to have a child, imposing an intrusive medical procedure on individuals who are not in a position to reject it.”

Topics:
The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top