Not to be outdone by themselves, Louisiana’s culture-war politicians recently passed a new law making the state the first in the nation to permit surgical castration for some people convicted of sex crimes against children.
When the act goes into effect Aug. 1, Louisiana will join the Czech Republic, Madagascar and Nigeria as the world’s only governments to use surgical castration as a punishment.
The passage of Senate Bill 371 in June came amid a flurry of religiously and ideologically driven criminal justice, education and reproductive rights policies enacted in Louisiana in 2024, including measures legalizing the use of the electric chair and nitrogen gas for executions, designating abortion-inducing drugs as controlled substances, and mandating Ten Commandments displays in all public school and university classrooms.
“If you want to respect the rule of law, you have to start with the original lawgiver, which was Moses,” Republican Gov. Jeff Landry during his June 19 signing of the Ten Commandments law that already faces a legal challenge from civil and religious rights groups.
While Landry’s legislative victories this year have come along party lines, the castration legislation was drafted and introduced by two Democrats and enjoyed bipartisan support in the House and Senate, NOLA.com reported.
Deslisha Boyd
The idea was to make castration —available in chemical form in Louisiana since 2008 but used only once — a more effective deterrent to child sexual assault, Rep. Delisha Boyd of New Orleans said in an interview with Newsmax.
“I’m sure the judges know it’s on the books, but no one ever really uses it. … I want the most severe punishment for any man or woman who rapes a child,” she said.
The new law clears the way for judges to order the surgical removal of testicles or ovaries for sex offenders whose victims were under 13 years of age when the assaults occurred and requires defendants to be screened for suitability for the surgery. Procedures would be carried out at the end of prison sentences served for aggravated offenses, and candidates who refuse the punishment would face an additional three to five years imprisonment without the possibility of early parole.
But the castration policy is among laws widely deemed unethical in society, Elmhurst University philosophy Professor Katrina Sifferd explained to the Associated Press.
Katrina Sifferd
“There are some worries about that sort of punishment undermining the state’s moral authority to impose punishments. We don’t rape rapists, we don’t cut off the hands of thieves. That lex talionis sort of retributive punishment is just something that we have decided is cruel and unusual, that we’re not going to do this in the United States,” said Sifferd, the author of a 2020 paper on chemical castration.
“It isn’t that people who commit crimes shouldn’t be punished. They should be punished in a way where we are still denying them some liberties but helping them make better choices in the future,” she said.
International rights groups have roundly condemned chemical and physical castration laws as cruel and ineffective.
“While perpetrators of rape and other forms of sexual violence must be held accountable, capital punishment and torture are not the answer,” the United Nations said in a 2020 response to the practice in Nigeria’s Kaduna state. “The law allows surgical castration for male rapists, and the removal of the fallopian tubes of women convicted of the crime. … These procedures will be followed by the death penalty if the victim is under 14.”
Amnesty International condemned Madagascar earlier this year for its law allowing chemical or physical castration for the rape of minors.
“Implementing chemical and surgical castration, which constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, as a punishment for those found guilty of raping minors is inconsistent with Malagasy constitutional provisions against torture and other ill-treatment, as well as regional and international human rights standards,” the watchdog group said.
Other states and nations could find themselves drawing the ire of human rights groups for their castration policies. In the U.S., only California, Florida, Iowa, Montana and the territory of Guam have chemical castration laws on the books, as do several nations including Pakistan, South Korea and Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Louisiana continues to take heat for other laws that have sailed through the legislature and across Landry’s desk. Jewish and other religious groups formed a coalition in May to protest the legalization of nitrous gas as an execution agent, while more than 100 Baptist church members and ministers sent the governor a petition opposing the Ten Commandments mandate.
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