The State of Wisconsin Will Pay to Have You Sterilized

DHS's "Family Planning" Entails Family Prevention

If you make less than $48,000 per year, the State of Wisconsin will pay to have you sterilized. You read that right. The Wisconsin DHS is offering to sterilize men and women over the age of 21 through the Family Planning Only Services Program, a program whose details remain clouded in mystery.

The Planning Only Services Program operates under the Wisconsin DHS. Its purpose is to prevent pregnancy, by providing low cost or free ‘reproductive health care’ for those with low-income. Moreover, to qualify, individuals must live in Wisconsin and not be enrolled in Medicaid or BadgerCare Plus.

Many procedures covered under ‘family planning only’ services seem antithetical to family creation in the first place. Among the qualifying plans, services, and operations include: contraceptive pills for birth control, spermicide, vasectomy, insertion of IUD, and tubal ligation.

The most alarming service offered is stated at the bottom-right-side of page one on the DHS brochure: Voluntary sterilizations for those aged 21 or older. Despite the shock of this revelation, sterilizations have been a part of the Wisconsin DHS administrative code since at least 1985. Moreover, sterilizations have been funded by the federal government since 1978.

For such a dramatic and life-changing procedure offered by the state, there is a remarkable lack of transparency. It remains unclear where this present policy came from, who its chief proponents are, and who may be benefiting from such a scheme. Email correspondence between the MacIver Institute and DHS was effectively stonewalled, even though pertinent questions such as the cost of this program should be answered under the state’s Open Record Law.

As of October 2024, there were more than 29,000 people enrolled in the Family Only Services Program. But how many of these people opted to be sterilized remains unknown.

Wisconsin has a long history of sterilization dating back to 1913 when the state passed a eugenics law. The law allegedly targeted the mentally deficient, and more than 1,800 Wisconsinites were sterilized by the time the law was repealed in the 1970s––the majority of whom were women. These recent efforts are now advertised through the DHS, but no longer seek to capture the disabled, just the poor. Indeed, the low-income requirements are glaring, while flyers are available in English, Spanish, and Hmong.

Despite the repeal of this law, sterilization has remained a part of DHS services since at least 1984. But while the State of Wisconsin is not explicitly saying ‘don’t have children,’ the State is, however, making plenty of accommodations for those seeking to remain childless––just so long as they’re poor.

There are profound cultural and spiritual questions to answer with this story that are beyond the scope of this short paper. But the people of Wisconsin deserve to know this is happening and should demand answers from DHS.