User:Cmonica4/sandbox

Sperm and egg
The egg releases certain molecules that that are essential to guiding the sperm and these allow the surface of the egg to attach to the sperm's surface then the egg can absorb the sperm and fertilization begins.

Norplant
In the early 1980's before Norplant was approved by FDA it was tested on women from Brazil, Bangladesh, Dominican Republic, Indonesia, and Egypt.

Norplant has a long list of side effects and "like Depo-Provera, Norplant has been linked to osteoporosis, breast cancer, and cervical cancer."

Norplant and Poverty
Norplant can be understood as a predecessor of other sterilization methods of the early 20th century like tubal ligation and hysterectomy and has been framed as a solution to poverty. Soon after Norplant was approved by Food and Drug Administration in December 1990, an article was released by the Philadelphia Inquirer suggesting that Norplant would be a solution to "black poverty". The Philadelphia Inquirer article overshadowed Norplant's potential for granting women reproductive autonomy and suggested the reproductive abuse of poor women. The release of the article followed many policy proposals in which Norplant was at the center.

In the 1990's, poor women, especially poor women of color who would have previously been a target for tubal ligation are now being selected for Norplant centered policies. Norplant appealed to liberals and conservatives as a means to decrease rates of poverty and crime and as a method of restricting welfare. By 1991 at least 10 states, including Louisiana and Ohio had considered the insertion of Norplant as a condition of receiving public assistance and other states have considered using Norplant as an incentive for women on public assistance. In 1991, "former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan," Louisiana representative David Duke proposed a law that would offer poor women (mostly African American women) public assistance recipients a cash payment for the use of Norplant. None of these policy proposals have been enacted but these proposals demonstrate that the idea to impose Norplant on poor women's bodies is "alive and well." However, in the early 1990's all states made Norplant available to poor women through Medicaid and some states like Tennessee enacted a law in 1993 that required anyone who receives public assistance be informed in paper of that state's offer of free Norplant. As a result, most of the women in the United States who used Norplant are Medicaid recipients. The rationality was that "since reproduction by the poor perpetuates poverty and other social ills, policies designed to reduce fertility are an efficient means of at once reducing poverty and cutting welfare costs."

Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) which was replaced in 1996 by Temporary Assistance to Needy Families(TANF) is the federal program that provides most of the public assistance to poor families. Myths and stereotypes of welfare recipients is what justify Norplant's introduction into welfare policies. Despite the small percentage of the federal budget Aid to Families with Dependent Children represented (less than 1 percent in 1994) policymakers and political pundits believed that there was excessive spending on poor families and Norplant the solution. That percentage of the federal budget allocated to public assistance or Temporary Assistance to Needy Families decreased to a mere 0.7 percent of the federal budget in 2008.

Norplant use in the judiciary
Since its approval by the Food and Drug Administration on December 1990, Norplant has been used in at least two state courts where the judge orders the implantation of Norplant as a condition of probation for women convicted of child abuse, child neglect, drug possessions, drug abuse and drug sale. On January 2, 1991 in the Tulare County of California Judge Howard Broadman convicted Darlene Johnson of child abuse and sentenced her to one year in prison and four years of probation on the condition of using Norplant for three years of her probation. Judge Broadman gave Darlene Johnson a choice; it was either four years in prison or to accept Norplant as a condition of granting probation. Similar cases have occurred in Texas and Florida. In the case of Texas, in 1991, a judge suggested Norplant as a condition of a woman's probation. The women who had pleaded guilty to child abuse conceded but Norplant was removed after she experienced a negative reaction but had a tubal litigation instead. In 1990, in Jacksonville, Florida, Tracy Wilder was convicted of manslaughter and was given 2 years of jail time and 10 years of probation on the condition of using birth control. Tracy Wilder was given no other option and could not appeal her sentence. Other instances of the use of sterilization or birth control in convictions occurred in 1965 and 1972. In 1965, in California, Victoria Tapia was given a reduced sentence and probation if she consented to a sterilization after her conviction of welfare fraud. In 1972, in Oregon, the Court of Appeals, went in favor of the sterilization of a seventeen-year-old girl because the Court believed the girl would be unable to care for children who would become the wards of the state. The use of Norplant in courts are instances in which women's reproductive freedom and their human right to control their fertility are not recognized.

TANF
The reform granted states wide discretion of how to distribute TANF entitlements. States also have the authority to eliminate payments to recipients altogether. Under the new act, TANF recipients are required to find a job within 24 months of receiving aid.

AFDC
ADC (1935) dispensed scant relief to poor single mothers. The federal government authorized case workers, supervisors, and administrators with discretion to determine who received aid and how much. ADC was primarily created for white single mothers who were expected not to work. Black mothers who had always been in the labor force were not considered eligible to receive benefits.

The Civil Rights Movement and the efforts of the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) in the 1960's expanded the scope of welfare entitlements to include Black women. The welfare rolls racial demographics changed drastically. The majority of welfare recipients still remained white and most Black women recipients continued to work.

Depo-Provera
Nancy Ordover, PhD in Ethics from University of California, Berkeley, claims that since its development starting in 1966, depo-provera has been "linked to cervical cancer, breast cancer (especially among younger women), and liver cancer, as well as long-term sterility (one study found that it took an average of thirteen months from the date of a woman's last injection for fertility to return). This list grew to include osteoporosis, endometrial cancer, prolonged menstrual bleeding (lasting weeks at a time and putting women at risk of pelvic inflammatory disease), weight gain, severe--even suicidal--depression, loss of libido, abdominal pains dizziness, headaches, hair loss, fatigue, nervousness, nausea, and potential hazards to breast-fed infants."