Although the idea of sterilizing the felon Scooter Libby has considerable appeal.

Felons come in all types, including the wrongly convicted. Forced sterilization falls in the same category as capital punishment. If society is going to take something so basic away from someone, one had better be absolutely certain of the person's guilt. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" doesn't cut it.

"Idiots" has a broad range of interpretation, and once included those born deaf, because as children deaf people don't learn to communicate in the regular way. What's your definition of "idiot"? Whose definition do we use?

Re: the issue of sexual responsibility, let's examine two cases:

1. A woman is using a normally reliable form of birth control, which fails. She gives birth to the baby rather than having an abortion, but doesn't marry the father because it's not that kind of relationship. She continues to use birth control in all of her subsequent sexual activity, and raises the child without government assistance.

2. A married couple has 12 children on a family income that will support 6 people, because their religion tells them to be fruitful and multiply, that the Lord will provide, and that birth control is sinful. All the children were born singletons. The family does get government assistance.

Who is behaving in a sexually responsible manner? Who ought to get an involuntary visit to the slice-and-snip clinic? How do you define sexual responsibility? And in the case of example #2, is the First Amendment nullified by governmental reproductive policy?

You're right, though: education is the only answer. I would combine it with excellent medical care for children and career opportunities for women. High childhood mortality rates lead families to have lots of children in the hopes that some will survive to adulthood. Educated women with opportunities for personal growth in the workplace will have fewer children, provided child mortality is low, because they want the full-time child care portion of their lives not to extend for 25 years. They have other things they can do.

I take it that you would be in favor of realistic sex education in schools starting at the elementary level, including extensive instruction in sexual psychology, relationship coaching, resisting sexual abuse and sexual violence, sexual physiology, birth control, and sexual health, and none of this abstinence-only crap.