Vasectomies Should Not Be Used as Punishment
By Amanda Marcotte,
Slate
| 06. 18. 2014
Untitled Document
Put this in the "can they even do that?" files. Jesse Lee Herald of Edinburg, Virginia, received an unusual sentence for child endangerment, hit-and-run driving, and driving on a suspended license: 20 months in prison, five years of probation, and a vasectomy. As part of his plea deal, Herald had to agree to get snipped when he got out of jail. He's not allowed to undergo a reversal until his probation is up.
Herald has a fairly long rap sheet already, including a previous hit-and-run conviction, but it wasn't just his life of petty crime that inspired the mandatory vasectomy, according to what assistant prosecutor Ilona L. White told NV Daily:
White said her motivation in offering the vasectomy option to Herald stemmed from concerns raised at sentencing hearings in earlier cases about how many children have been traced to him from different women.
"It was primarily due to the fact he had seven or eight children, all by different women, and we felt it might be in the commonwealth's interest for that to be part of...
Related Articles
By Jallicia A. Jolly, Sydney Curtis and Nicole Sessions, Ms. Magazine | 10.17.2025
Pronatalism is an old idea with roots in eugenics and nationalism, that is now fashionable among far-right influencers and policymakers. They talk of “moral decay” and see low birth rates as a threat to the future of humanity. In the mainstream media...
By Matthew Ormseth and Summer Lin, Los Angeles Times | 10.02.2025
The father of some 22 children discovered by Arcadia police in May also owns a property in El Monte where authorities found evidence of illegal gambling and drug activity, court records show.
Guojun Xuan, 65, told detectives all but two...
By Katherine Bourzac, Nature | 09.25.2025
A judge in New York rejected a request on 23 September to disqualify the use of cutting-edge DNA sequencing as evidence in a case against an alleged serial killer. The ruling paves the way for a type of DNA analysis...
By Emma McDonald Kennedy
| 09.25.2025
In the leadup to the 2024 election, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to make IVF more accessible. He made the commitment central to his campaign, even referring to himself as the “father of IVF.” In his first month in office, Trump issued an executive order promising to expand IVF access. The order set a 90-day deadline for policy recommendations for “lowering costs and reducing barriers to IVF,” although it didn’t make any substantive reproductive healthcare policy changes.
The response to the...