In the name of God State oleh Patrizia Barrera

Allowing a ruler to decide unilaterally on an individual's health and reproductive capacity is tantamount to putting his life in his hands. It means authorising him to determine the length and quality of the existence of individuals, groups, social classes, ethnic groups, entire peoples. And to let him style, on the basis of personal and arbitrary convictions, categories of more or less deserving individuals to be allowed to work, express themselves and live, according to fixed rules of behaviour and thought. In short, it means helping him to play the part of God.

How does one carry out a massacre? How does one eliminate an entire ethnic group? How do you affect the individual's basic freedoms? And how do you annul their rights? Well, the most obvious way is persecution, war, martyrdom. On closer inspection, extremely effective but also very unpopular methods, capable of generating violent reactions. Especially when, as has already happened in the not too distant past, one oversteps the mark. Since the dawn of time, human beings have used war to achieve such results. In more cunning eras, religious power (of any religion) has done even worse. Then, the modern era arrived, and these crude and bloody methods became obsolete. A certain, evil section of humanity devised more devious and effective expedients to achieve the same ends of destruction: preventing those peoples, individuals, ethnic groups deemed undesirable, from reproducing. This allowed them not only to eliminate the problem at its root, but also to break down the door of human rights, arrogate to themselves indiscriminate powers of control over individual freedoms, and finally act undisturbed over the management of human life. With the approval of the very masses who abhor wars and massacres. Forced sterilisation was and is a formidable and inexpensive method of achieving all this. Allowing a ruler to decide unilaterally on an individual's health and reproductive capacity is tantamount to putting his life in his hands. It means authorising him to determine the length and quality of the existence of individuals, groups, social classes, ethnic groups, entire peoples. And to let him style, on the basis of personal and arbitrary convictions, categories of more or less deserving individuals to be allowed to work, express themselves and live, according to fixed rules of behaviour and thought. In short, it means helping him to play the part of God, hoping never to fall into the category of undesirables that he will one day think of annihilating, in order to correct an inherent error of nature and for the very good of society. Forced sterilisation is only the beginning of this. It is the first step in the destruction of our sense of humanity, of our ability to penetrate into the misery of others without judging them but accepting them for what they are: an enrichment of our existence. If life is formed in the womb, it is in the womb that it must be destroyed. And this is not just a symbolism.