The new law will mean that those who abused children under
the age of 13 will be injected with hormone-blocking drugs before leaving
prison. The medication will have to be administered until a judge, not a
doctor, deemed it no longer necessary.
A similar bill was proposed last year in Oklahoma but met
strong opposition. The former Soviet republic of Moldova also passed a law
mandating chemical castration for child sex offenders, in 2012. It
was repealed the following year on grounds that it was a “violation of
fundamental human rights.”
Unlike castrating a bull, chemical castration does not
involve removing a person’s testicles—though the Alabama bill’s sponsor,
Representative Steve Hurst, initially
advocated the surgical approach. Instead, the procedure uses various
drugs to render the testicles irrelevant. In most cases, medication triggers
the pituitary gland to reduce testosterone to prepubescent levels. During
debate of the bill, Hurst said that
if chemical castration, which has a stated goal of decreasing libido to prevent
future crimes, “will help one or two children, and decrease that urge to the
point that person does not harm that child, it’s worth it.”
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