{"id":231196,"date":"2020-09-21T16:44:06","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T21:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=231196"},"modified":"2021-07-14T22:01:47","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T03:01:47","slug":"infamous-cases-forced-sterilization-america-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/infamous-cases-forced-sterilization-america-behind\/","title":{"rendered":"The most infamous cases of forced sterilization in America… and the people behind it"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Recent accusations<\/a> of forced sterilizations have brought the United States’ dark history of eugenic, compulsory sterilization programs \u2014 which once targeted those deemed by elites as “unfit”\u00a0\u2014 back into the spotlight.<\/p>\n

The 1934 film, “Tomorrow’s Children,<\/a>” portrayed a state’s coercive power to eugenically sterilize a young pregnant woman. While the woman portrayed in the film succeeded in stopping the state’s court order, actual eugenics programs within the United States resulted in the sterilization of an\u00a0estimated<\/a>\u00a060,000 people \u2014\u00a0many minorities, who were eugenically sterilized against their wills. Many more have been subjected to these atrocities worldwide.<\/p>\n

California’s eugenics: Coercive sterilization of over 20,000 people<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1909, California passed the third sterilization bill in the U.S., which sanctioned the coercive sterilization of over 20,000 patients, noted an\u00a0American Journal of Public Health report<\/a>. According to author Edwin Black, “[T]he code permitted castration or sterilization of state convicts and the residents of California Home for the Care and Training of Feeble Minded Children in Sonoma County. Two institutional bureaucrats could recommend the procedure if they deemed it beneficial to a subject’s ‘physical, mental, or moral condition.'”<\/p>\n

Eugene S. Gosney, founder and President of the Human Betterment Foundation (HBF)<\/a>, published a study with his associate Paul Popenoe\u00a0entitled “Sterilization for Human Betterment,” focusing on sterilizations ordered under California’s law. In July 1931, Margaret Sanger published<\/a>\u00a0Gosney’s views on sterilization in her\u00a0Birth Control Review. He wrote, “Eugenic sterilization is, under usual state laws, ordered or permitted by the state, for the benefit of the state…. Eugenic sterilization starts where contraception stops. It is applied primarily to people or families without the intelligence, emotional stability, or self-control to handle contraceptives successfully. It succeeds where contraception would fail.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1932<\/a>, according to the New York Times, Gosney’s group published a paper warning America of “race degeneration” unless it adopted “eugenic sterilization of the large numbers of the mentally defective.”<\/p>\n

Iowa’s eugenics: Planned Parenthood desired ‘wider application’ of coercive sterilization\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Iowa’s first sterilization law\u00a0passed<\/a> in 1911.\u00a0According to researcher Amy Vogel<\/a>,\u00a0“In 1929 the Iowa General Assembly created a Board of Eugenics to investigate persons who were a ‘menace to society,’ so that such ‘degenerates’ could be sterilized. Between then and 1977, when the legislature voted unanimously to abolish the board, it authorized the sterilization of more than two thousand individuals, three-fourths of them women.”<\/p>\n

“Although the Iowa law was intended to be voluntary, there were undoubtedly instances when patients felt they had little choice,” she wrote.\u00a0“… In Iowa, as in other states, many sterilizations were probably conducted without the knowledge or approval of the Board of Eugenics, but the extent to which physicians acted independently is unknown.”<\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood was a referral agency for Iowa’s sterilization board, according to a 1969 report published in the\u00a0DesMoines Register. Iowa State’s Eugenics Board Chairman Dr. S.M. Korson\u00a0admitted a percent of their referrals came from the welfare office or Planned Parenthood.<\/p>\n

When Korson\u00a0noted a decrease in sterilizations due to a “more humane and enlightened attitude,” Rev. Robert L. Webber<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 the executive director of Planned Parenthood of Iowa\u00a0\u2014 attacked board members, saying they “should reinterpret the law and give it wider application than they do now or they should quit.”<\/p>\n

Minnesota’s eugenics: Wishing Hitler success<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1925, Minnesota passed legislation allowing the sterilization of \u201cfeeble-minded\u201d and “insane” residents of state institutions, according to the\u00a0Minnesota History Center<\/a>.\u00a0Charles E. Dight, who was “largely responsible” for Minnesota\u2019s Sterilization Law, also reportedly<\/a> “fought unsuccessfully for expansion of the law to include sterilization of the ‘unfit’ who lived outside of institutions.”<\/p>\n

In the 1930s, Dight\u00a0joined<\/a>\u00a0the Minnesota Birth Control League, the\u00a0forerunner<\/a>\u00a0of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota. In 1933, as\u00a0president<\/a>\u00a0of the Minnesota Eugenics Society, Dight\u00a0wrote a\u00a0letter<\/a>\u00a0to Adolf Hitler wishing him success in \u201cstamping out mental inferiority among the German people,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>noting the Nazi leader\u2019s efforts would \u201cadvance the eugenics movement in other nations as well as in Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Minnesota Magazine<\/a>, the state’s eugenics program authorized the sterilization of 2,350 people.<\/p>\n

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Charles F Dight letter to Hitler ( Image from document provided by the Minnesota Historical Society)<\/p><\/div>\n

North Carolina’s eugenics: Black men, women, and “feeble-minded” targeted<\/strong><\/p>\n

The state of North Carolina sterilized about 7,600 people before it ended in 1974, according to the Winston-Salem Journal which exposed the program in an award-winning series, \u201cAgainst Their Will<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 That\u00a0program targeted many Black men and women for\u00a0forced sterilization<\/a>.\u00a0One of those women was\u00a0Elaine Riddick<\/a>, who became pregnant after rape at age 13.<\/p>\n

Watch Riddick’s emotional story from the documentary film Maafa21<\/a> below:<\/p>\n