Politicians Trade Sterilization for Votes

Brazilian pols are engaged in a practice that, if left to its logical conclusion, would eventually lead to the death of the largest country in South America.

Candidates are trading sterilization of women for votes, according to the Washington Post. So prevalent is the practice that almost 50 percent of Brazilian women are sterile.

Politicians seeking election troll poor neighborhoods in vans with signs advertising tubal ligations. Women flock to them, and the candidates promise sterilization in exchange for a vote.

"We have a culture of sterilization in Brazil," said Jurema Werneck, executive director of Criola, a women's health organization. "It's nationwide. A lot of politicians are elected because of their sterilization promises."

Many Brazilian employers, fearful that female employees will take time off to care for children, require women to prove they are sterile before they can be hired.

The fertility rate in the nation has declined from 4.3 children a woman in 1980 to about 2. In this nation of nearly 190 million people, where economic distribution is severely unequal and mothers fear having to care for more children, sterilization might not seem like such a big deal.

For now.

But what about years from now? If most women are sterile, how will Brazil manage to replenish its own population after today's young adults age?

"You don't solve poverty by reducing family size," said Werneck. "You solve poverty by expanding the economy through greater educational opportunities, through land reform. You have to create opportunities for women, not restrict them."

Editor's note: