A wealthy Colombian movie producer pays peasants to be sterilized:
...he asked to be identified as William Tell after the Swiss patriot who was ordered to shoot a small apple off his young son's head.Isn't this sad? Some faithless man gives away money and land, leading poor men to sin: a penny for your soul.Explaining his choice of name, he said his parents were Swiss. While the historic Tell fought against the tyranny of the occupying Austrians, he said he does battle with the tyranny of fertility.
Worried sick but too late to call off the operation, Colombian peasant Marquelis had a panic attack and passed out at the clinic."I have to do it"? This mutilation is not even undertaken as a fully free choice at one's own initiative, but is a matter of bribery and pressure. It expresses a profound disrespect for human dignity and for conscience. Just imagine what howls of outrage would be heard if the Church were doing something similar: say, offering people money and land for conversions.Fainting won him only a brief reprieve, and the father of three was soon under the knife. After a few delicate snips, Marquelis became the proud -- if sterile -- owner of acres of land under a private Colombian program that gives plots to men in two Caribbean coast towns who undergo vasectomy operations.
"When the moment of truth came, I almost called the whole thing off. But then I decided: I have to do it," he said.
