2 stories covering this below, the first one being much more informative:
‘We were guinea pigs’: Jailed inmates agreed to birth control
By Jessica Lussenhop BBC News, Tennessee
18 August 2017
In a small county in rural Tennessee, inmates were offered 30 days off their sentences in exchange for a vasectomy or a long-acting birth control implant. County officials say it was a tool in the fight against opiate abuse - opponents call it eugenics.
This spring, Deonna Tollison found herself in Judge Sam Benningfield's courtroom in Sparta, Tennessee - a large, neon-lit room filled with wooden pews for the public. Tollison was accused of violating the conditions of her house arrest, the latest issue in a lifetime of trouble, which at its worst saw her living in her car, addicted to opiates.
On the stand, Tollison testified she'd been trying to get her life on the right track - she was off the drugs and raising her two youngest daughters, as well as the daughter of a sister who died in a car wreck. Relapses and run-ins with the law, however, kept stalling her progress, and here she was again, accused of making unsanctioned trips to the grocery store and allowing the batteries on her ankle monitor to die.
She faced the possibility of another stay in the local jail.
Continued: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40955288
Lawsuit: Tennessee county operated 'eugenics scheme' on inmates
Stacey Barchenger, USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee Published 1:08 p.m. CT Aug. 17, 2017 | Updated 1:40 p.m. CT Aug. 17, 2017
Lawyers on Thursday filed a federal lawsuit in Nashville alleging a White County, Tennessee, sheriff and judge who allowed inmates to get out of jail early in exchange for undergoing birth control procedures operated a scheme that was inherently coercive and unconstitutional.
A rural Tennessee county's controversial practice of allowing inmates to undergo birth control procedures in exchange for 30 days off their jail sentence is now the subject of a federal lawsuit.
Advocacy lawyers with the pro bono legal arm of a national GPS monitoring company on Thursday announced they had filed the lawsuit in federal court in Nashville.
"This case is nothing more than a modern day eugenics scheme," Mike Donovan, president and CEO of Nexus Services Inc., said in a news conference outside of Nashville's federal courthouse.
White County Sheriff Oddie Shoupe, his staff and Judge Sam Benningfield were "playing God," Donovan said.
Continued: http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2017/08/17/lawsuit-tennessee-county-eugenics-scheme-birth-control-inmates/574374001/
