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Unwanted Sterilization and Eugenics Programs in the United States

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Unwanted Sterilization and Eugenics Programs in the United States

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Author: Lisa Ko
Date: 2016
Source: Independent Lens
Paraphrasing:
- Many people like immigrants, people of color, unmarried mothers, poor people, mentally ill and disabled were forcefully sterilized due to segregation.
- Eugenics were believed by many to be protecting society from the offspring of "dangerous" and "inferior" people.
- Sterilization was enforced to clean these people, metaphorically and literally, but actually were stripping them from their rights as a human being.
Quotes:
- "Driven by prejudiced notions of science and social control, these programs informed policies on immigration and segregation."
- "As historian William Deverell explains in a piece discussing the “A sexualization Acts” that led to the sterilization of more than 20,000 California men and women,“If you are sterilizing someone, you are saying, if not to them directly, ‘Your possible progeny are unassimilable, and we choose not to deal with that.’”
- "More recently, California prisons are said to have authorized sterilizations of nearly 150 female inmates between 2006 and 2010."

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Coerced sterilization is a shameful part of America's history, and one doesn't have to go too far back to find examples of it. Used as a means of controlling "undesirable" populations - immigrants, people of color, poor people, unmarried mothers, the disabled, the mentally ill - federally-funded sterilization programs took place in 32 states throughout the 20th century. Driven by prejudiced notions of science and social control, these programs informed policies on immigration and segregation.

As historian William Deverell explains in a piece discussing the "Asexualization Acts" that led to the sterilization of more than 20,000 California men and women, "If you are sterilizing someone, you are saying, if not to them directly, 'Your possible progeny are inassimilable, and we choose not to deal with that.'"

According to Andrea Estrada at UC Santa Barbara , forced sterilization was particularly rampant in California (the state's eugenics program even inspired the Nazis ):

Beginning in 1909 and continuing for 70 years, California led the country in the number of sterilization procedures performed on men and women, often without their full knowledge and consent. Approximately 20,000 sterilizations took place in state institutions, comprising one-third of the total number performed in the 32 states where such action was legal. (from The UC Santa Barbara Current)

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"There is today one state," wrote Hitler, "in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of citizenship] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States." (from The L.A. Times)

Researcher Alex Stern, author of the new book Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in America, adds:

"In the early 20th century across the country, medical superintendents, legislators, and social reformers affiliated with an emerging eugenics movement joined forces to put sterilization laws on the books. Such legislation was motivated by crude theories of human heredity that posited the wholesale inheritance of traits associated with a panoply of feared conditions such as criminality, feeblemindedness, and sexual deviance. Many sterilization advocates viewed reproductive surgery as a necessary public health intervention that would protect society from deleterious genes and the social and economic costs of managing 'degenerate stock'."

Eugenics was a commonly accepted means of protecting society from the offspring (and therefore equally suspect) of those individuals deemed inferior or dangerous - the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill, criminals, and people of color.

More recently, California prisons are said to have authorized sterilizations of nearly 150 female inmates between 2006 and 2010 . This article from the Center for Investigative reporting reveals how the state paid doctors $147,460 to perform tubal ligations that former inmates say were done under coercion.

But California is far from being the only state with such troubled practices. For a disturbing history lesson, check out this comprehensive database for your state's eugenics history. You can find out more information on state-by-state sterilization policies, the number of victims, institutions where sterilizations were performed, and leading opponents and proponents .

While California's eugenics programs were driven in part by anti-Asian and anti-Mexican prejudice, Southern states also employed sterilization as a means of controlling African American populations. "Mississippi appendectomies" was another name for unnecessary hysterectomies performed at teaching hospitals in the South on women of color as practice for medical students. This NBC news article discusses North Carolina's eugenics program, including stories from victims of forced sterilization like Elaine Riddick . A third of the sterilizations were done on girls under 18, even as young as 9. The state also targeted individuals seen as "delinquent" or "unwholesome."

For a closer look, see Belle Bogg's " For the Public Good ," with original video by Olympia Stone that features Willis Lynch, who was sterilized at the age of 14 while living in a North Carolina juvenile detention facility.

Gregory W. Rutecki, MD writes about the forced sterilization of Native Americans , which persisted into the 1970s and 1980s, with examples of young women receiving tubal ligations when they were getting appendectomies. It's estimated that Forced sterilization programs are also a part of history in Puerto Rico, as many as 25-50 percent of Native American women were sterilized between 1970 and 1976. where sterilization rates are said to be the highest in the world .
Landmark Cases
The film No Más Bebés follows the story of Mexican American women who were sterilized under duress while giving birth at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center in the 1960s and 1970s. Madrigal v. Quilligan , the case portrayed in the film, is one of several landmark cases that's affected the reproductive rights of underserved populations, for better or for worse.

Here are some other important cases:

: In 1927, Carrie Buck, a poor white woman, was the first person to be sterilized in Virginia under a new law. Carrie's mother had been involuntarily institutionalized for being "feebleminded" and "promiscuous." Carrie was assumed to have inherited these traits, and was sterilized after giving birth. This Supreme Court case led to the sterilization of 65,000 Americans with mental illness or developmental disabilities from the 1920s to the '70s. (Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in reference to Carrie: "Three generations of imbeciles are enough.") The court ruling still stands today . [Note: This story was also the subject of a 1994 made-for-TV movie starring Marlee Matlin.]

From the documentary Fixed to Fail: Buck vs. Bell:

: Mary Alice and Minnie Relf, poor African American sisters from Alabama, were sterilized at the ages of 14 and 12. Their mother, who was illiterate, had signed an "X" on a piece of paper she believed gave permission for her daughters, who were both mentally disabled, to receive birth control shots. In 1974, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Relf sisters, revealing that 100,000 to 150,000 poor people were being sterilized each year under federally-funded programs.

Eugenics Compensation Act : In December 2015, the US Senate voted unanimously to help surviving victims of forced sterilization . North Carolina has paid $35,000 to 220 surviving victims of its eugenics program. Virginia agreed to give surviving victims $25,000 each.
Reproductive Justice Today
While the case in No Más Bebés occurred forty years ago, issues of reproductive justice are still relevant today, as state laws continue to restrict access to abortion and birth control. Deborah Reid of the National Health Law program writes :

"T he concept of reproductive justice , which is firmly rooted in a human rights framework that supports the ability of all women to make and direct their own reproductive decisions. These decisions could include obtaining contraception, abortion, sterilization, and/or maternity care. Accompanying that right is the obligation of the government and larger society to create laws, policies, and systems conducive to supporting those decisions."

For organizations such as the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health , reproductive justice involves not only access to affordable birth control, abortion, and health care, but also providing access to women who are being held in immigration detention centers .

It's work that connects the dots between power inequities and bodily self-determination - something the eugenics movement sought to limit. As No Más Bebés director Renee Tajima-Peña says in an interview with Colorlines : "The reproductive justice framework is to make sure that people listen to the needs and the voices of poor women, women of color and immigrant women who've been marginalized."

For Further Reading:
Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America, by Alex Stern
States of Delinquency: Race and Science in the Making of California's Juvenile Justice System, by Miroslava Chavez-Garcia
Fit to Be Citizens: Public Health and Race in Los Angeles, 1879-1939, by Natalia Molina

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Unwanted Sterilization and Eugenics Programs in the United States

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Coerced sterilization is a shameful part of America's history, and one doesn't have to go too far back to find examples of it. Used as a means of controlling "undesirable" populations - immigrants, people of color, poor people, unmarried mothers, the disabled, the mentally ill - federally-funded sterilization programs took place in 32 states throughout the 20th century.

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Human Testing, the Eugenics Movement, and IRBs

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Human Testing, the Eugenics Movement, and IRBs

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Author: Karen Norrgard

Date: 2008

Source: Nature Education
Paraphrasing:
- There were many negative effects due to the projects inspired by Mendel's principle. Eugenics was becoming known in almost all countries. More labs were conducting Eugenic experiments to improve the natural and physical qualities of the human families. The studies had little genetic basis, which eliminated more qualities that were not genetic like alcoholism.
Quotes:
- "Early geneticists including Davenport were eager to apply Mendel's principles to the inheritance of human traits, with the intention of improving the quality of the human population by selecting for desirable traits, just as animal breeders would do for their livestock."
- "tudies showing that American prisons, psychiatric hospitals, and other charitable institutions commonly housed people who were related to each other provided additional evidence for supporters of eugenics that mental illness, poverty, "criminality," and other undesirable traits were hereditary."
- "For instance, in 1933, the Nazi-controlled government issued the so-called "Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases," under which at least 400,000 Germans were involuntarily sterilized for having hereditary conditions such as mental illness, epilepsy, "feeblemindedness," or physical deformities (Kennedy Institute of Ethics, 2002). "

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eugenics movement  arian  human testing  flip side  definition of a mental disorder

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Human Testing, the Eugenics Movement, and IRBs | Learn Science at Scitable

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In the early 1900s, a resurgence in the study of genetics led many scientists to pursue development of the "perfect"� human race. Although the resulting eugenics movement had good intentions, it ultimately went horribly wrong. Understanding the outcomes of this movement is critical to ensuring that such mistakes do not recur in the future.

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The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics

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The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics

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Author: Edwin Black
Date: 2003
Source: History News Network
Paraphrasing:
- Eugenics was originated in the United States before Hitler came to power. Hitler believed that this ethnic cleansing would be the only way to create one master race. The stereotypic eugenic person consisted of white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes.
- Francis Galton, originator of Eugenics, believed that if a person who had desirable traits married another person who had desirable traits, then their offspring would be better. Non Eugenic people were eliminated due to lethal or gas chambers.
Quotes:
- "American eugenic advocates believed with religious fervor that the same Mendelian concepts determining the color and size of peas, corn and cattle also governed the social and intellectual character of man."
- "California eugenicists played an important, although little known, role in the American eugenics movement's campaign for ethnic cleansing."
- "In the process, the movement intended to subtract emancipated Negroes, immigrant Asian laborers, Indians, Hispanics, East Europeans, Jews, dark-haired hill folk, poor people, the infirm and really anyone classified outside the gentrified genetic lines drawn up by American raceologists."

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The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics

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Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminated millions in the quest for a co-called "Master Race," and IBM aided and abetted the effo ...

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Author: History.com Editors
Date: 2018
Source: A&E Television Networks
Paraphrasing:
-  Eugenics was a scientific process that helped eliminating bad hereditary traits. Many people believed that some of the human population carried undesirable characteristics that should not be passed on to future generations.
- Francis Galton was the founder of Eugenics. His ideas were inspired by Charles Darwins idea of natural selection. Galton believed that this would better humankind.
- Forced Sterilizations were happening at this time due to Eugenics in hope to prevent mental illnesses in minorities.
- Hitler took Eugenics to a new level. He began killing all Germans with mental or physical disabilities by gas or lethal injections to help create one master race full of desirable characteristics.
Quotes:
- "The Eugenics Record Office also maintained there was clear evidence that supposed negative family traits were caused by bad genes, not racism, economics or the social views of the time."
- "Historically, eugenics encouraged people of so-called healthy, superior stock to reproduce and discouraged reproduction of the mentally challenged or anyone who fell outside the social norm."
- "Eugenics literally means 'good creation'."

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Eugenics is the practice or advocacy of improving the human species by selectively mating people with specific desirable hereditary traits. It aims to reduce human suffering by "breeding out" disease, disabilities and so-called undesirable characteristics from the human population. Early supporters of eugenics believed people inherited mental illness, criminal tendencies and even poverty, and that these conditions could be bred out of the gene pool.

Historically, eugenics encouraged people of so-called healthy, superior stock to reproduce and discouraged reproduction of the mentally challenged or anyone who fell outside the social norm. Eugenics was popular in America during much of the first half of the twentieth century, yet it earned its negative association mainly from Adolf Hitler's obsessive attempts to create a superior Aryan race.

Modern eugenics, more often called human genetic engineering, has come a long way-scientifically and ethically-and offers hope for treating many devastating genetic illnesses. Even so, it remains controversial.

Francis Galton

Eugenics literally means "good creation." The ancient Greek philosopher Plato may have been the first person to promote the idea, although the term "eugenics" didn't come on the scene until British scholar Sir Francis Galton coined it in 1883 in his book, Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development.

In one of Plato's best-known literary works, The Republic, he wrote about creating a superior society by procreating high-class people together and discouraging coupling between the lower classes. He also suggested a variety of mating rules to help create an optimal society.

For instance, men should only have relations with a woman when arranged by their ruler, and incestuous relationships between parents and children were forbidden but not between brother and sister. While Plato's ideas may be considered a form of ancient eugenics, he received little credit from Galton.

Eugenics in America

In the late 19th century, Galton-whose cousin was Charles Darwin -hoped to better humankind through the propagation of the British elite. His plan never really took hold in his own country, but in America it was more widely embraced.

Eugenics made its first official appearance in American history through marriage laws. In 1896, Connecticut made it illegal for people with epilepsy or who were "feeble-minded" to marry. In 1903, the American Breeder's Association was created to study eugenics.

John Harvey Kellogg, of Kellogg cereal fame, organized the Race Betterment Foundation in 1911 and established a "pedigree registry." The foundation hosted national conferences on eugenics in 1914, 1915 and 1928.

As the concept of eugenics took hold, prominent citizens, scientists and socialists championed the cause and established the Eugenics Record Office. The office tracked families and their genetic traits, claiming most people considered unfit were immigrants, minorities or poor.

The Eugenics Record Office also maintained there was clear evidence that supposed negative family traits were caused by bad genes, not racism, economics or the social views of the time.

Forced Sterilizations

Eugenics in America took a dark turn in the early 20th century, led by California. From 1909 to 1979, around 20,000 sterilizations occurred in California state mental institutions under the guise of protecting society from the offspring of people with mental illness.

Many sterilizations were forced and performed on minorities. Thirty-three states would eventually allow involuntary sterilization in whomever lawmakers deemed unworthy to procreate.

In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that forced sterilization of the handicapped does not violate the U.S. Constitution. In the words of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes, "...three generations of imbeciles are enough." In 1942, the ruling was overturned, but not before thousands of people underwent the procedure.

In the 1930s, the governor of Puerto Rico, Menendez Ramos, implemented sterilization programs for Puerto Rican women. Ramos claimed the action was needed to battle rampant poverty and economic strife; however, it may have also been a way to prevent the so-called superior Aryan gene pool from becoming tainted with Latino blood.

According to a 1976 Government Accountability Office investigation, between 25 and 50 percent of Native Americans were sterilized between 1970 and 1976. It's thought some sterilizations happened without consent during other surgical procedures such as an appendectomy.

In some cases, health care for living children was denied unless their mothers agreed to sterilization.

Adolf Hitler and Eugenics

As horrific as forced sterilization in America was, nothing compared to Adolf Hitler's eugenic experiments leading up to and during World War II. And Hitler didn't come up with the concept of a superior Aryan race all on his own. In fact, he referred to American eugenics in his 1934 book, Mein Kampf.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler declares non-Aryan races such as Jews and gypsies as inferior. He believed Germans should do everything possible, including genocide, to make sure their gene pool stayed pure. And in 1933, the Nazis created the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring which resulted in thousands of forced sterilizations.

By 1940, Hitler's master-race mania took a terrible turn as hundreds of thousands of Germans with mental or physical disabilities were euthanized by gas or lethal injection.

Josef Mengele

During World War II, concentration camp prisoners endured horrific medical tests under the guise of helping Hitler create the perfect race. Josef Mengele, an SS doctor at Auschwitz, oversaw many experiments on both adult and child twins.

He used chemical eyedrops to try and create blue eyes, injected prisoners with devastating diseases and performed surgery without anesthesia. Many of his "patients" died or suffered permanent disability, and his gruesome experiments earned him the nickname, "Angel of Death."

In all, it's estimated eleven million people died during the Holocaust, most of them because they didn't fit Hitler's definition of a superior race.

Genetic Engineering

Thanks to the unspeakable atrocities of Hitler and the Nazis, eugenics lost momentum in after World War II, although forced sterilizations still happened. But as medical technology advanced, a new form of eugenics came on the scene.

Modern eugenics, better known as human genetic engineering, changes or removes genes to prevent disease, cure disease or improve your body in some significant way. The potential health benefits of human gene therapy are staggering since many devastating or life-threatening illnesses could be cured.

But modern genetic engineering also comes with a potential cost. As technology advances, people could routinely weed-out what they consider undesirable traits in their offspring. Genetic testing already allows parents to identify some diseases in their child in utero which may cause them to terminate the pregnancy.

This is controversial since what exactly constitutes "negative traits" is open to interpretation, and many people feel that all humans have the right to be born regardless of disease, or that the laws of nature shouldn't be tampered with.

Much of America's historical eugenics efforts such as forced sterilizations have gone unpunished, although some states offered reparations to victims or their survivors. For the most part, though, it's a largely unknown stain on America's history. And no amount of money can ever repair the devastation of Hitler's eugenics programs.

As scientists embark on a new eugenics frontier, past failings can serve as a warning to approach modern genetic research with care and compassion.

Sources

American Breeder's Association. University of Missouri.
Charles Davenport and the Eugenics Record Office. University of Missouri.
Forced Sterilization of Native Americans: Late Twentieth Century Physician Cooperation with National Eugenic Policies. The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity.
Greek Theories on Eugenics. Journal of Medical Ethics.
Josef Mengele. Holocaust Encyclopedia.
Latina Women: Forced Sterilization. University of Michigan.
Modern Eugenics: Building a Better Person? Helix.
Nazi Medical Experiments. Holocaust Encyclopedia.
Plato. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Unwanted Sterilization and Eugenics Programs in the United States. PBS.

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Eugenics is the practice or advocacy of improving the human species by selectively mating people with specific desirable hereditary traits. It aims to reduce human suffering by "breeding out" disease, disabilities and so-called undesirable characteristics from the human population.