Sunday, July 28, 2013

American eugenics

""While North Carolina's numbers might pale in comparison, the state was consistently the most aggressive. Under the guise of public health and safety, North Carolina was the only state to allow social workers to designate people for sterilization, the New York Times reported.  The standards by which an individual could be forcibly sterilized in the state were also some of the most lax in the nation. Unmarried women with children, African Americans, individuals with an I.Q. under 70, the mentally ill and children from poor families were just some of the many groups all routinely sought out and sterilized.  In records obtained by the Charlotte Observer, patient notes for sterilized victims paint a by-the-book, apathetic disregard for the well being of those coming in and out of surgery.  "A woman, 24, pregnant with an out-of-wedlock child: This girl is sexually promiscuous and a pauper," reads one.  "A woman, 35, deserted by her husband years before, who has just given birth to her ninth child: She is unable to provide the barest necessities for them or to give them minimum supervision and care," reads another.  In a March 1945 article for The Charlotte News, freelance writer Evangeline Davis made the case for eugenics:  "No matter what our feelings concerning the mentally deficient, it is senseless and cruel, in the end, to permit them to procreate and bring into the world more of their kind," she wrote."" (Thanks Christian)