journal Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews that "involuntary sterilization ought not be performed on mentally retarded persons who retain the capacity for reproductive decision-making, the ability to raise a child, or the capacity to provide valid consent to marriage." The Journal of Medical Ethics claimed, in a 1999 article, that doctors are regularly confronted with request to sterilize mentally limited people who cannot give consent for themselves. The article recommend that sterilization should only occur when there is a "situation of necessity" and the "benefits of sterilization outweigh the drawbacks." The American Journal of Bioethics published an article, in 2010, that concluded the interventions used in the Ashley treatment may benefit future patients. These interventions, at the request of the parents and guidance from the physicians, included a hysterectomy and surgical removal of the breast buds of the mentally and physically disabled child. Proponents of the treatments argue that it protects disabled persons from sexual assault, unwanted pregnancy, and difficulties of menstruation. The interventions are still legal in many states, despite the argument that it violates a person's constitutional right to avoid unwanted intrusions. Discussion on the involuntary sterilization of disabled persons is now largely focused on the right of a guardian to request sterilization. Criminal justice system In addition to eugenics purposes, sterilization was used as punitive tactic against sex offenders, people identified as homosexual, or people deemed to masturbate too much. California, the first state in the U.S. to enact compulsory sterilization based on eugenics, sterilized all prison inmates under the 1909 sterilization law. In the last 40 years, judges have offered lighter punishment (i.e. probation instead of jail sentence) to people willing to use contraception or be sterilized, particularly in child abuse/endangerment cases. One of the most famous cases of this was People v. Darlene Johnson, during which Ms. Johnson, a woman charged with child abuse sentenced to seven years in prison, was offered probation and a reduced prison sentence if she agreed to use Norplant. In addition to child abuse cases, some politicians proposed bills mandating Norplant use among women on public assistance as a requirement to maintain welfare benefits. As noted above, some judges offered probation in lieu of prison time to women who agreed to use Norplant, while other court cases have ordered parents to cease childbearing until regaining custody of their children after abuse cases. Some legal scholars and ethicists argue