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Eugenics in the United States

February 16, 2024

Eugenics, the set of beliefs and practices which aims at improving the genetic quality of the human population,[2][3] played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States from the late 19th century into the mid-20th century.[4] The cause became increasingly promoted by intellectuals of the Progressive Era.[5][6]

Winning family of a Fitter Family contest stand outside of the Eugenics Building[1] (where contestants register) at the Kansas Free Fair, in Topeka, Kansas.

While ostensibly about improving genetic quality, it has been argued that eugenics was more about preserving the position of the dominant groups in the population. Scholarly research has determined that people who found themselves targets of the eugenics movement were those who were seen as unfit for society—the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill, and specific communities of color—and a disproportionate number of those who fell victim to eugenicists' sterilization initiatives were women who were identified as African American, Asian American, or Native American.[7][8] As a result, the United States' eugenics movement is now generally associated with racist and nativist elements, as the movement was to some extent a reaction to demographic and population changes, as well as concerns over the economy and social well-being, rather than scientific genetics.[9][8]

History

Early proponents

The American eugenics movement was rooted in the biological determinist ideas of Sir Francis Galton, which originated in the 1880s. In 1883, Sir Francis Galton first used the word eugenics to describe scientifically, the biological improvement of genes in human races and the concept of being "well-born".[10] He believed that differences in a person's ability were acquired primarily through genetics and that eugenics could be implemented through selective breeding in order for the human race to improve in its overall quality, therefore allowing for humans to direct their own evolution.[11] In the US, eugenics was largely supported after the discovery of Mendel's law lead to a widespread interest in the idea of breeding for specific traits.[12] Galton studied the upper classes of Britain, and arrived at the conclusion that their social positions could be attributed to a superior genetic makeup.[13] American eugenicists tended to believe in the genetic superiority of Nordic, Germanic, and Anglo-Saxon peoples, supported strict immigration and anti-miscegenation laws, and supported the forcible sterilization of the poor, disabled and "immoral."[14]

 
Eugenics supporters hold signs criticizing various "genetically inferior" groups. Wall Street, New York, c. 1915.

The American eugenics movement received extensive funding from various corporate foundations including the Carnegie Institution, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Harriman railroad fortune.[15] In 1906, J.H. Kellogg provided funding to help found the Race Betterment Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan.[13] The Eugenics Record Office (ERO) was founded in Cold Spring Harbor, New York in 1911 by the renowned biologist Charles B. Davenport, using money from both the Harriman railroad fortune and the Carnegie Institution.[16] As late as the 1920s, the ERO was one of the leading organizations in the American eugenics movement.[13][17] In years to come, the ERO and the American Eugenics Society collected a mass of family pedigrees and provided training for eugenics field workers who were sent to analyze individuals at various institutions, such as mental hospitals and orphanage institutions, across the United States.[18] Eugenicists such as Davenport, the psychologist Henry H. Goddard, Harry H. Laughlin, and the conservationist Madison Grant (all of whom were well-respected during their time) began to lobby for various solutions to the problem of the "unfit."[16] Davenport favored immigration restriction and sterilization as primary methods; Goddard favored segregation in his The Kallikak Family; Grant favored all of the above and more, even entertaining the idea of extermination.[19]

By 1910, there was a large and dynamic network of scientists, reformers, and professionals engaged in national eugenics projects and actively promoting eugenic legislation. The American Breeder's Association, the first eugenic body in the U.S., expanded in 1906 to include a specific eugenics committee under the direction of Charles B. Davenport.[20][21] The ABA was formed specifically to "investigate and report on heredity in the human race, and emphasize the value of superior blood and the menace to society of inferior blood."[22] Membership included Alexander Graham Bell,[23] Stanford president David Starr Jordan and Luther Burbank.[24][25] The American Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality was one of the first organizations to begin investigating infant mortality rates in terms of eugenics.[26] They promoted government intervention in attempts to promote the health of future citizens.[27][verification needed]

Several feminist reformers advocated an agenda of eugenic legal reform. The National Federation of Women's Clubs, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and the National League of Women Voters were among the variety of state and local feminist organizations that at some point lobbied for eugenic reforms.[28] One of the most prominent feminists to champion the eugenic agenda was Margaret Sanger, the leader of the American birth control movement and founder of Planned Parenthood. Sanger saw birth control as a means to prevent unwanted children from being born into a disadvantaged life, and incorporated the language of eugenics to advance the movement.[29][30] Sanger also sought to discourage the reproduction of persons who, it was believed, would pass on mental disease or serious physical defects.[31] In these cases, she approved of the use of sterilization.[29] In Sanger's opinion, it was individual women (if able-bodied) and not the state who should determine whether or not to have a child.[32][33]

 
U.S. eugenics poster advocating for the removal of genetic "defectives" such as the insane, "feeble-minded" and criminals, and supporting the selective breeding of "high-grade" individuals, c. 1926

In the Deep South, women's associations played an important role in rallying support for eugenic legal reform. Eugenicists recognized the political and social influence of southern clubwomen in their communities, and used them to help implement eugenics across the region.[34] Between 1915 and 1920, federated women's clubs in every state of the Deep South had a critical role in establishing public eugenic institutions that were segregated by sex.[35] For example, the Legislative Committee of the Florida State Federation of Women's Clubs successfully lobbied to institute a eugenic institution for the mentally retarded that was segregated by sex.[36] Their aim was to separate mentally retarded men and women in order to prevent them from breeding more "feebleminded" individuals.

Public acceptance in the U.S. led to various state legislatures working to establish eugenic initiatives. Beginning with Connecticut in 1896, many states enacted marriage laws with eugenic criteria, prohibiting anyone who was "epileptic, imbecile or feeble-minded"[37] from marrying.[38] The first state to introduce a compulsory sterilization bill was Michigan in 1897 – although the proposed law failed to garner enough votes by legislators to be adopted, it did set the stage for other sterilization bills.[39] Eight years later, Pennsylvania's state legislators passed a sterilization bill that was vetoed by the governor.[40] Indiana became the first state to enact sterilization legislation in 1907,[41] followed closely by Washington, California, and Connecticut in 1909.[42][43][44] Sterilization rates across the country were relatively low (California being the sole exception) until the 1927 Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell, which upheld under the U.S. Constitution the forced sterilization of patients at a Virginia home for those who were seen as mentally retarded.[45]

Immigration restrictions

In the late 19th century, many scientists, who were concerned about the population leaning too far away from the favored "Anglo-Saxon superiority" due to a rise in immigration from Europe, partnered with other interest groups to implement immigration laws that could be justified on the basis of genetics.[46] After the 1890 U.S. census, people began to believe that immigrants who were of Nordic or Anglo-Saxon ancestry were greatly favored over Southern and Eastern Europeans, specifically Jews (a diasporic, Middle Eastern people), who were seen by some eugenicists, like Harry Laughlin, to be genetically inferior.[46] During the early 20th century as the United States and Canada began to receive higher numbers of immigrants, influential eugenicists like Lothrop Stoddard and Laughlin (who was appointed as an expert witness for the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization in 1920) presented arguments that these immigrants would pollute the national gene pool if their numbers went unrestricted.[47][48]

In 1921, a temporary measure was passed to slowdown the open door on immigration. The Immigration Restriction League was the first American entity to be closely associated with eugenics and was founded in 1894 by three recent Harvard graduates. The overall goal of the League was to prevent what they perceived as inferior races from diluting "the superior American racial stock" (those who were of the upper-class Anglo-Saxon heritage), and they began working to have stricter anti-immigration laws in the United States.[49] The League lobbied for a literacy test for immigrants as they attempted to enter the United States, based on the belief that literacy rates were low among "inferior races".[46] Eugenicists believed that immigrants were often degenerate, had low IQs, and were afflicted with shiftlessness, alcoholism and insubordination. According to Eugenicists, all of these problems were transmitted through genes. Literacy test bills were vetoed by presidents in 1897, 1913 and 1915; eventually, President Wilson's second veto was overruled by Congress in 1917.[50]

With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, eugenicists for the first time played an important role in the Congressional debate as expert advisers on the threat of "inferior stock" from eastern and southern Europe.[51][52] The new act, inspired by the eugenic belief in the racial superiority of "old stock" white Americans as members of the "Nordic race" (a form of white supremacy), strengthened the position of existing laws prohibiting race-mixing.[53] Whereas Anglo-Saxon and Nordic people were seen as the most desirable immigrants, the Chinese and Japanese were seen as the least desirable and were largely banned from entering the U.S as a result of the immigration act.[53][54] In addition to the immigration act, eugenic considerations also lay behind the adoption of incest laws in much of the U.S. and were used to justify many anti-miscegenation laws.[55]

Efforts to shape American families

Unfit v. fit individuals

Both class and race factored into the eugenic definitions of "fit" and "unfit." By using intelligence testing, American eugenicists asserted that social mobility was indicative of one's genetic fitness.[56] This reaffirmed the existing class and racial hierarchies and explained why the upper-to-middle class was predominantly white. Middle-to-upper class status was a marker of "superior strains."[36] In contrast, eugenicists believed poverty to be a characteristic of genetic inferiority, which meant that those deemed "unfit" were predominantly of the lower classes.[36][57]

Because class status designated some more fit than others, eugenicists treated upper and lower-class women differently. Positive eugenicists, who promoted procreation among the fittest in society, encouraged middle-class women to bear more children. Between 1900 and 1960, eugenicists appealed to middle class white women to become more "family minded," and to help better the race.[58] To this end, eugenicists often denied middle and upper-class women sterilization and birth control.[59] However, since poverty was associated with prostitution and "mental idiocy," women of the lower classes were the first to be deemed "unfit" and "promiscuous."[36]

Concerns over hereditary genes

In the 19th century, based on a view of Lamarckism, it was believed that the damage done to people by diseases could be inherited and therefore, through eugenics, these diseases could be eradicated. This belief was carried into the 20th century as public health measures were taken to improve health with the hope that such measures would result in better health of future generations.[citation needed]

A 1911 Carnegie Institute report explored eighteen methods for removing defective genetic attributes; the eighth method was euthanasia.[15] Though the most commonly suggested method of euthanasia was to set up local gas chambers,[15] many in the eugenics movement did not believe that Americans were ready to implement a large-scale euthanasia program, so many doctors came up with alternative ways of subtly implementing eugenic euthanasia in various medical institutions.[15] For example, a mental institution in Lincoln, Illinois fed its incoming patients milk infected with tuberculosis (reasoning that genetically fit individuals would be resistant), resulting in 30–40% annual death rates.[15] Other doctors practiced euthanasia through various forms of lethal neglect.[15]

In the 1930s, there was a wave of portrayals of eugenic "mercy killings" in American film, newspapers, and magazines. In 1931, the Illinois Homeopathic Medicine Association began lobbying for the right to euthanize "imbeciles" and other defectives.[60] A few years later, in 1938, the Euthanasia Society of America was founded.[61] However, despite this, euthanasia saw marginal support in the U.S., motivating people to turn to forced segregation and sterilization programs as a means for keeping the "unfit" from reproducing.[15]

Better Baby Contests

Mary deGormo, a former teacher, was the first person to combine ideas about health and intelligence standards with competitions at state fairs, in the form of baby contests.[62] She developed the first such contest, the "Scientific Baby Contest" for the Louisiana State Fair in Shreveport, in 1908.[63] She saw these contests as a contribution to the "social efficiency" movement, which was advocating for the standardization of all aspects of American life as a means of increasing efficiency.[26] DeGarmo was assisted by Doctor Jacob Bodenheimer, a pediatrician who helped her develop grading sheets for contestants, which combined physical measurements with standardized measurements of intelligence.[64]

 
Contestants preparing for the Better Baby Contest at the 1931 Indiana State Fair.

The contest spread to other U.S. states in the early 20th century. In Indiana, for example, Ada Estelle Schweitzer, a eugenics advocate and director of the Indiana State Board of Health's Division of Child and Infant Hygiene, organized and supervised the state's Better Baby contests at the Indiana State Fair from 1920 to 1932. It was among the fair's most popular events. During the contest's first year at the fair, a total of 78 babies were examined; in 1925 the total reached 885. Contestants peaked at 1,301 infants in 1930, and the following year the number of entrants was capped at 1,200. Although the specific impact of the contests was difficult to assess, statistics helped to support Schweitzer's claims that the contests helped reduce infant mortality.[65][66]

The contest intended to educate the public about raising healthy children at a time when approximately 10% of children died in their first year of life.[67] However, its exclusionary practices reinforced social class and racial discrimination. In Indiana, for example, the contestants were limited to white infants; African-American and immigrant children were barred from the competition for ribbons and cash prizes. In addition, the scoring was biased toward white, middle-class babies.[68][69] The contest procedure included recording each child's health history, as well as evaluations of each contestant's physical and mental health and overall development using medical professionals. Using a process similar to the one introduced at the Louisiana State Fair, and contest guidelines that the AMA and U.S. Children's Bureau recommended, scoring for each contestant began with 1,000 points. Deductions were made for defects, including a child's measurements below a designated average. The contestant with the most points was declared the winner.[70][66][71]

Standardization through scientific judgment was a topic that was very serious in the eyes of the scientific community, but has often been downplayed as just a popular fad or trend. Nevertheless, a lot of time, effort, and money was put into these contests and their scientific backing, which would influence cultural ideas as well as local and state government practices.[72]

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People promoted eugenics by hosting "Better Baby" contests and the proceeds would go to its anti-lynching campaign.[73]

Fitter Families

First appearing in 1920 at the Kansas Free Fair, "Fitter Families for Future Firesides" competitions continued all the way up to World War II. Mary T. Watts and Florence Brown Sherbon,[74][75] both initiators of the Better Baby Contests in Iowa, took the idea of positive eugenics for babies and combined it with a determinist concept of biology to come up with fitter family competitions.[76]

There were several different categories that families were judged in: size of the family, overall attractiveness, and health of the family, all of which helped to determine the likelihood of having healthy children. These competitions were simply a continuation of the Better Baby contests that promoted certain physical and mental qualities.[77][78] At the time, it was believed that certain behavioral qualities were inherited from one's parents. This led to the addition of several judging categories including: generosity, self-sacrificing, and quality of familial bonds. Additionally, there were negative features that were judged: selfishness, jealousy, suspiciousness, high-temperedness, and cruelty. Feeblemindedness, alcoholism, and paralysis were few among other traits that were included as physical traits to be judged when looking at family lineage.[79]

Doctors and specialists from the community would offer their time to judge these competitions, which were originally sponsored by the Red Cross.[79] The winners of these competitions were given a Bronze Medal as well as champion cups called "Capper Medals." The cups were named after then-Governor and Senator, Arthur Capper and he would present them to "Grade A individuals".[80]

The perks of entering into the contests were that the competitions provided a way for families to get a free health check-up by a doctor as well as some of the pride and prestige that came from winning the competitions.[79]

By 1925, the Eugenics Records Office was distributing standardized forms for judging eugenically fit families, which were used in contests in several U.S. states.[81]

Compulsory sterilization

See also: Compulsory sterilization § United States
 
A depiction of "defectives" from the 1915 book Mental defectives in Virginia.

In 1907, Indiana passed the first eugenics-based compulsory sterilization law in the world. Thirty U.S. states would soon follow their lead.[82][83] Although the law was overturned by the Indiana Supreme Court in 1921,[84] in the 1927 case Buck v. Bell, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924, allowing for the compulsory sterilization of patients of state mental institutions.[85]

The number of sterilizations performed per year increased until another Supreme Court case, Skinner v. Oklahoma, 1942, which ruled that under the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, laws that permitted the compulsory sterilization of criminals were unconstitutional if these laws treated similar crimes differently.[86] Although Skinner determined that the right to procreate was a fundamental right under the constitution, the case did not denounce sterilization laws, because its analysis was based on the equal protection of criminal defendants specifically, therefore leaving those seen as "social undesirables"—the poor, the disabled, and various ethnic groups—as targets of compulsory sterilization.[7] Therefore, though compulsory sterilization is now considered an abuse of human rights, Buck v. Bell has never been overturned, and Virginia specifically did not repeal its sterilization law until 1974.[87]

Men and women were compulsorily sterilized for different reasons. Men were sterilized to treat their aggression and to eliminate their criminal behavior, while women were sterilized to control the results of their sexuality.[88] Since women bore children, eugenicists held women more accountable than men for the reproduction of the less "desirable" members of society.[88] Eugenicists therefore predominantly targeted women in their efforts to regulate the birth rate, to "protect" white racial health, and weed out the "defectives" of society.[88]

The most significant era of eugenic sterilization was between 1907 and 1963, when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States.[89] Beginning around 1930, there was a steady increase in the percentage of women sterilized, and in a few states only young women were sterilized. A 1937 Fortune magazine poll found that 2/3 of respondents supported eugenic sterilization of "mental defectives", 63% supported sterilization of criminals, and only 15% opposed both.[90][91] From 1930 to the 1960s, sterilizations were performed on many more institutionalized women than men.[92] By 1961, 61 percent of the 62,162 total eugenic sterilizations in the United States were performed on women.[92] A favorable report on the results of sterilization in California, the state that conducted the most sterilizations (20,000 of the 60,000 that occurred between 1909 and 1960),[24] was published in 1929 in book form by the biologist Paul Popenoe and was widely cited by the Nazi government as evidence that wide-reaching sterilization programs were feasible and humane.[93][94]

After World War II, eugenics and eugenic organizations began to revise their standards of reproductive fitness to reflect contemporary social concerns of the later half of the 20th century, notably concerns over welfare, Mexican immigration, overpopulation, civil rights, and sexual revolution, and gave way to what has been termed neo-eugenics.[95] Neo-eugenicists like Clarence Gamble, an affluent researcher at Harvard Medical school and a founder of public birth control clinics, revived the eugenics movement in the United States through sterilization. Supporters of this revival of eugenic sterilizations believed that they would bring an end to social issues such as poverty and mental illness while also saving taxpayer money and boost the economy.[96] Whereas eugenic sterilization programs before World War II were mostly conducted on prisoners or patients in mental hospitals, after the war, compulsory sterilizations were targeted at poor people and minorities.[96] As a result of these new sterilization initiatives, though most scholars agree that there were over 64,000 known cases of eugenic sterilization in the U.S. by 1963, no one knows for certain how many compulsory sterilizations occurred between the late 1960s to 1970s, though it is estimated that at least 80,000 may have been conducted.[97] A large number of those who were targets of coerced sterilizations in the later half of the century were African American, Hispanic, and Native American women.

Eugenics, sterilization, and the African American community

Black support for eugenics (Progressive Era)

Early proponents of the eugenics movement included not only influential white Americans but also several proponent African-American intellectuals such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Thomas Wyatt Turner, and many academics at Tuskegee University, Howard University, and Hampton University.[73] However, unlike many white eugenicists, these black intellectuals believed the best African Americans were as good as the best White Americans, and "The Talented Tenth" of all races should mix.[73] Indeed, Du Bois believed "only fit blacks should procreate to eradicate the race's heritage of moral iniquity."[98]

With the support of leaders like Du Bois, efforts were made in the early 20th century to control the reproduction of the country's black population; one of the most visible initiatives was Margaret Sanger's 1939 proposal, The Negro Project.[16] That year, Sanger, Florence Rose, her assistant, and Mary Woodward Reinhardt, then secretary of the new Birth Control Federation of America (BCFA), drafted a report on "Birth Control and the Negro."[16] In this report, they stated that African Americans were the group with "the greatest economic, health and social problems," were largely illiterate and "still breed carelessly and disastrously," a line taken from W.E.B. DuBois' article in the June 1932 Birth Control Review.[16] The Project often sought after prominent African-American leaders to spread knowledge regarding birth control and the perceived positive effects it would have on the African-American community, such as poverty and the lack of education.[99] Sanger particularly sought out black ministers from the South to serve as leaders in the Project in the hopes of countering any ideas that the project was a strategic attempt to eradicate the black population.[16] However, despite Sanger's best efforts, white medical scientists took control over the initiative, and with the Negro Project receiving praise from white leaders and eugenicists, many of Sanger's opponents, both during the creation of the Project and years after, saw her work as an attempt to terminate African Americans.[16][99]

Eugenics during the civil rights era

Opposition to initiatives to control reproduction within the African-American community grew in the 1960s, particularly after President Lyndon B. Johnson, in 1965, announced the establishment of federal funding of birth control used on the poor.[46] In the 1960's, many African Americans throughout the country took the government's decision to fund birth-control clinics as an attempt to limit the growth of the black population and along with it, the increased political power that black Americans were fighting to acquire.[46] Scholars have stated that African Americans' fear about their reproductive health and ability was rooted in history as under U.S. slavery, enslaved women were often coerced or forced to have children to increase a plantation owner's wealth.[46][100] Therefore, many African Americans, particularly those in the Black Power Movement, saw birth control, and federal support of the Pill, as equivalent to black genocide, declaring it as such at the 1967 Black Power Conference.[46]

Federal funding for birth control went alongside family planning initiatives that were a part of state welfare programs. These initiatives, in addition to advocating the use of the Pill, supported sterilization as a means of curbing the number of people receiving welfare and control the reproduction of 'unfit' women.[95] The 1950s and 1960s were the height of the sterilization abuse that African-American women as a group experienced at the hands of the white medical establishment.[46] During this period, the sterilization of African-American women largely took place in the South and assumed two forms: the sterilization of poor unwed black mothers, and "Mississippi appendectomies."[95] Under these "Mississippi appendectomies," women who went to the hospital to give birth, or for some other medical treatment, often found themselves incapable of having more children upon leaving the hospital due to unnecessary hysterectomies performed on them by southern medical students.[46][101] By the 1970s, the coerced sterilization of women of color spread from the South to the rest of the country through federal family planning and under the guise of voluntary contraceptive surgery as physicians began to require their patients to sign consent forms to surgeries they did not want or understand.[95]

Sterilization of African American women

Though it is unknown the exact number of African American women who were sterilized throughout the country in the 20th century, records from a few states offer some estimates. In the state of North Carolina, which was seen as having the most aggressive eugenics program out of the 32 states that had one,[102] during the 45-year reign of the North Carolina Eugenics Board, from 1929 to 1974, a disproportionate number of those who were targeted for forced or coerced sterilization were black and female, with almost all being poor.[103] Of the 7,600 women who were sterilized by the state between the years of 1933 and 1973, about 5,000 were African American.[7] In light of this history, North Carolina became the first state to offer compensation to surviving victims of compulsory sterilization.[103] Additionally, whereas African Americans made up just over 1% of California's population, they accounted for at least 4% of the total number of sterilization operations conducted by the state between 1909 and 1979.[104] Overall, according to one 1989 study, 31.6% of African American women without a high school diploma were sterilized while only 14.5% of white women of the same educational status were sterilized.[7]

Sterilization abuse brought to media attention

In 1972, U.S. Senate committee testimony brought to light that at least 2,000 involuntary sterilizations had been performed on poor black women without their consent or knowledge.[105] An investigation revealed that the surgeries were all performed in the South, and were all performed on black women with multiple children who were receiving welfare.[105] Testimony revealed that many of these women were threatened with an end to their welfare benefits unless they consented to sterilization.[105] These surgeries were instances of sterilization abuse, a term applied to any sterilization performed without the consent or knowledge of the recipient, or in which the recipient is pressured into accepting the surgery. Because the funds used to carry out the surgeries came from the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity, the sterilization abuse raised suspicions, especially among members of the black community, that "federal programs were underwriting eugenicists who wanted to impose their views about population quality on minorities and poor women."[106]

Despite this investigation, it was not until 1973 that the issue of sterilization abuse was brought to media attention. On June 14, 1973, two black girls, Minnie Lee and Mary Alice Relf, ages fourteen and twelve, respectively, were sterilized without their knowledge in Alabama by the Montgomery Community Action Committee, an OEO-financed organization.[95][104] The summer of that year, the Relf girls sued the government agencies and individuals responsible for their sterilization.[95] As the case was being pursued, it was discovered that the girls' mother, who could not read, unwittingly approved the operations, signing an 'X' on the release forms; Mrs. Relf had believed that she was signing a form authorizing her daughters to receive Depo-Provera injections, a form of birth control.[95] In light of the 1974 case of Relf v. Weinberger, named after Minnie Lee and Mary Alice's older sister, Katie, who had narrowly escaped also being sterilized, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) were ordered to establish new guidelines for its government sterilization policy.[95] By 1979, the new guidelines finally addressed the concern over informed consent, determined that minors under the age of 21 and those with severe mental impairments who could not give consent would not be sterilized, and articulated the provision that doctors could no longer claim that a woman's refusal to be sterilized would result in her being denied welfare benefits.[95]

Sterilization of Latina women

Main article: Sterilization of Latinas

The 20th century demarcated a time in which compulsory sterilization heavily navigated its way into primarily Latino communities, against Latina women. Locations such as Puerto Rico and Los Angeles, California were found to have had large amounts of their female population coerced into sterilization procedures without quality and necessary informed consent nor full awareness of the procedure.

Puerto Rico

Between the span of the 1930s to the 1970s, nearly one-third of the female population in Puerto Rico was sterilized; at the time, this was the highest rate of sterilization in the world.[107] Some viewed sterilization as a means of rectifying the country's poverty and unemployment rates. Following legalization of the procedure in 1937 a U.S. government endorsed initiative saw health department officials advocating for sterilization in rural parts of the island. Sterilized women were also encouraged to join the workforce, in particular the textile and clothing related industries. The procedure was so common that it was often referred to solely as "la operación", garnering a documentary referenced by the same name.[107] This intentional targeting of Latino communities exemplifies the strategic placement of racial eugenics in modern history. This targeting is also inclusive of those with disabilities and those from marginalized populations, which Puerto Rico is not the only example of this trend.

Eugenics did not serve as the only reason for the disproportionate rates of sterilization in the Puerto Rican community. Contraceptive trials were inducted in the 1950s towards Puerto Rican women. John Rock and Gregory Pincus were the two men spearheading the human trials of oral contraceptives. In 1954, the decision was made to conduct the clinical experiment in Puerto Rico, citing the island's large network of birth control clinics and lack of anti-birth control laws, which was in contrast to the United States' thorough cultural and religious opposition to the reproductive service.[108] The decision to conduct the trials in this community was also motivated by the structural implications of supremacy and colonialism. Rock and Pincus monopolized off of the primarily poor and uneducated background of these women, countering that if they "could follow the Pill regimen, then women anywhere in the world could too."[108] These women were purposely ill-informed of the oral contraceptives presence; the researchers only reported that the drug, which was administered at a much higher dosage than what birth control is prescribed at today, was to prevent pregnancy, not that it was tied to a clinical trial in order to jump start oral contraceptive access in America through FDA approval.

California

In California, by the year 1964, a total of 20,108 people were sterilized, making that the largest amount in all of the United States.[109] It is an important note that during this period in California's population demographic, the total individuals sterilized was disproportionately inclusive of Mexican, Mexican-American, and Chicana women. Andrea Estrada, a UC Santa Barbara affiliate, said:

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.[110]

In 1966, Nancy Hernandez was the first one to reach National and public attention and resulted in protests on women's rights and reproductive rights across the country. Her story was published in Rebecca Kluchin's book, Fit to be Tied: Sterilization and Reproductive Rights in America, 1950-1980.[111]

Cases such as Madrigal v. Quilligan, a class action suit regarding forced or coerced postpartum sterilization of Latina women following cesarean sections, helped bring to light the widespread abuse of sterilization supported by federal funds. The case's plaintiffs were 10 sterilized women of Los Angeles County Hospital who elected to come forward with their stories. Although a grim reality, No más bebés is a documentary that offers an emotional and candid storytelling of the Madrigal v. Quilligan case on behalf of Latina women whom were direct recipients of the coerced sterilization of the Los Angeles' hospital. The judge's ruling sided with the County Hospital, but an aftermath of the case resulted in the accessibility of multiple language informed consent forms.

These stories, among many others, serve as backbones for not only the reproductive justice movement that we see today, but a better understanding and recognition of the Chicana feminism movement in contrast to white feminism's perception of reproductive rights.

Sterilization of Native American women

Main article: Sterilization of Native American women

An estimated 40% of Native American women (60,000–70,000 women) and 10% of Native American men in the United States underwent sterilization in the 1970s.[112] A General Accounting Office (GAO) report in 1976 found that 3,406 Native American women, 3,000 of which were of childbearing age,[113] were sterilized by the Indian Health Service (IHS) in Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and South Dakota from 1973 to 1976.[114][115][116] The GAO report did not conclude any instances of coerced sterilization, but called for the reform of IHS and contract doctors' processes of obtaining informed consent for sterilization procedures.[114] The IHS informed consent processes examined by the GAO did not comply with a 1974 ruling of the U.S. District Court that "any individual contemplating sterilization should be advised orally at the outset that at no time could federal benefits be withdrawn because of failure to agree to sterilization."[115]

In examining individual cases and testimonies of Native American women, scholars have found that IHS and contract physicians recommended sterilization to Native American women as the appropriate form of birth control, failing to present potential alternatives and to explain the irreversible nature of sterilization, and threatened that refusal of the procedure would result in the women losing their children and/or federal benefits.[112][114][115] Scholars also identified language barriers in informed consent processes as the absence of interpreters for Native American women hindered them from fully understanding the sterilization procedure and its implications, in some cases.[115] Scholars have cited physicians' individual paternalism and beliefs about the population control of poor communities and welfare recipients and the opportunity for financial gain as possible motivations for performing sterilizations on Native American women.[114][115][116]

Native American women and activists mobilized in the 1970s across the United States to combat the coerced sterilization of Native American women and advocate for their reproductive rights, alongside tribal sovereignty, in the Red Power movement.[114][115] Some of the most prominent activist organizations established in this decade and active in the Red Power movement and the resistance against coerced sterilization were the American Indian Movement (AIM), United Native Americans, Women of all Red Nations (WARN), the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), and Indian Women United for Justice, founded by Constance Redbird Pinkerton Uri, a Cherokee-Choctaw physician.[114][115] Some Native American activists have deemed the coerced sterilization of Native American women a "modern form of genocide,"[114] and view these sterilizations as a violation of the rights of tribes as sovereign nations.[114] Others argue that the sterilization of Native American women is interconnected with colonialist and capitalist motives of corporations and the federal government to acquire land and natural resources, including oil, natural gas, and coal, currently located on Native American reservations.[115][113] Scholars and Native American activists have situated the forced sterilizations of Native American women within broader histories of colonialism, violations of Native American tribal sovereignty by the federal government, including a long history of the removal of children from Native American women and families, and population control efforts in the United States.[112][114][115][116]

The 1970s brought new federal legislation enacted by the United States government which addressed issues of informed consent, sterilization, and the treatment of Native American children. The U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare released new regulations in 1979 on informed consent processes for sterilization procedures, including a longer waiting period of 30 days before the procedure, the presentation of alternative methods of birth control to the patient, and clear verbal affirmation that the patient's access to federal benefits or welfare programs would not be revoked if the procedure were refused.[114] The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 officially recognized the significance and value of the extended family in Native American culture, adopting "minimum federal standards for the removal of Indian children to foster or adoptive homes,"[115] and the central importance of the sovereign tribal governments in decision-making processes surrounding the welfare of Native children.[115]

Influence on Nazi Germany

See also: Nazi eugenics

After the eugenics movement was well established in the United States, it spread to Germany. California eugenicists began producing literature promoting eugenics and sterilization and sending it overseas to German scientists and medical professionals.[15] By 1933, California had subjected more people to forceful sterilization than all other U.S. states combined. The forced sterilization program engineered by the Nazis was partly inspired by California's.[117]

The Rockefeller Foundation helped develop and fund various German eugenics programs,[118] including the one that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.[15]

Upon returning from Germany in 1934, where more than 5,000 people per month were being forcibly sterilized, the California eugenics leader C. M. Goethe bragged to a colleague:

You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought ... I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people.[119]

Eugenics researcher Harry H. Laughlin often bragged that his Model Eugenic Sterilization laws had been implemented in the 1935 Nuremberg racial hygiene laws.[120] In 1936, Laughlin was invited to an award ceremony at Heidelberg University in Germany (scheduled on the anniversary of the 1934 purge of Jews from the Heidelberg faculty), to receive an honorary doctorate for his work on the "science of racial cleansing". Due to financial limitations, Laughlin was unable to attend the ceremony and had to pick it up from the Rockefeller Institute. Afterward, he proudly shared the award with his colleagues, remarking that he felt that it symbolized the "common understanding of German and American scientists of the nature of eugenics."[121]

Henry Friedlander wrote that although the German and American eugenics movements were similar, the U.S. did not follow the same slippery slope as Nazi eugenics because American "federalism and political heterogeneity encouraged diversity even with a single movement." In contrast, the German eugenics movement was more centralized and had fewer diverse ideas.[122] Unlike the American movement, one publication and one society, the German Society for Racial Hygiene, represented all German eugenicists in the early 20th century.[122][123]

After 1945, however, historians began to try to portray the U.S. eugenics movement as distinct and distant from Nazi eugenics.[124] Jon Entine wrote that eugenics simply means "good genes" and using it as synonym for genocide is an "all-too-common distortion of the social history of genetics policy in the United States." According to Entine, eugenics developed out of the Progressive Era and not "Hitler's twisted Final Solution."[125]

Eugenics after World War II

Genetic engineering

After the Second World War, the extreme version of eugenics practiced by the Nazis brought the movement into disrepute. However, aspects of the eugenics movement such as forced sterilization were still taking place, just not with as much public visibility as before.[126] As technology developed, the field of genetic engineering emerged. Instead of sterilizing people to remove traits deemed to be "undesirable", genetic engineering "changes or removes genes to prevent disease or improve the body in some significant way."[112]

Proponents of genetic engineering cite its ability to cure and prevent life-threatening diseases. Genetic engineering began in the 1970s when scientists began to clone and alter genes. From this, scientists were able to create life-saving health interventions such as human insulin, the first-ever genetically engineered drug.[127] Because of this development, over the years scientists were able to create new drugs to treat devastating diseases. For example, in the early 1990s, a group of scientists were able to use a gene-drug to treat severe combined immunodeficiency in a young girl.[128]

However, genetic engineering also further allows for the practice of eliminating "undesirable traits" within humans and other organisms—for example, with current genetic tests, parents are able to test a fetus for any life-threatening diseases that may impact the child's life and then choose to abort the baby.[112] Some fear that this could lead to ethnic cleansing, or alternative form of eugenics.[129] The ethical implications of genetic engineering were heavily considered by scientists at the time, and the Asilomar Conference was held in 1975 to discuss these concerns and set reasonable, voluntary guidelines that researchers would follow while using DNA technologies.[130]

Compulsory sterilization prevention and continuation

The 1978 Federal Sterilization Regulations, created by the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare or HEW, (now the United States Department of Health and Human Services) outline a variety of prohibited sterilization practices that were often used previously to coerce or force women into sterilization.[131] These were intended to prevent such eugenics and neo-eugenics as resulted in the involuntary sterilization of large groups of poor and minority women. Such practices include: not conveying to patients that sterilization is permanent and irreversible, in their own language (including the option to end the process or procedure at any time without conceding any future medical attention or federal benefits, the ability to ask any and all questions about the procedure and its ramifications, the requirement that the consent seeker describes the procedure fully including any and all possible discomforts and/or side-effects and any and all benefits of sterilization); failing to provide alternative information about methods of contraception, family planning, or pregnancy termination that are nonpermanent and/or irreversible (this includes abortion); conditioning receiving welfare and/or Medicaid benefits by the individual or his/her children on the individuals "consenting" to permanent sterilization; tying elected abortion to compulsory sterilization (cannot receive a sought out abortion without "consenting" to sterilization); using hysterectomy as sterilization; and subjecting minors and the mentally incompetent to sterilization.[131][132][73] The regulations also include an extension of the informed consent waiting period from 72 hours to 30 days (with a maximum of 180 days between informed consent and the sterilization procedure).[132][131][73]

However, several studies have indicated that the forms are often dense and complex and beyond the literacy aptitude of the average American, and those seeking publicly funded sterilization are more likely to possess below-average literacy skills.[133] High levels of misinformation concerning sterilization still exist among individuals who have already undergone sterilization procedures, with permanence being one of the most common gray factors.[133][134] Additionally, federal enforcement of the requirements of the 1978 Federal Sterilization Regulation is inconsistent and some of the prohibited abuses continue to be pervasive, particularly in underfunded hospitals and lower income patient hospitals and care centers.[132][73]

The compulsory sterilization of American men and women continues to this day. In 2013, it was reported that 148 female prisoners in two California prisons were sterilized between 2006 and 2010 in a supposedly voluntary program, but it was determined that the prisoners did not give consent to the procedures.[135] In September 2014, California enacted Bill SB1135 that bans sterilization in correctional facilities, unless the procedure is required to save an inmate's life.[136]

See also

References

Notes

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  122. ^ a b Friedlander, Henry (2000). The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. Univ of North Carolina Press. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-8078-4675-9. Although the German eugenics movement, led until the Weimar years by Alfred Ploetz and Wilhelm Schallmayer, did not differ radically from the American movement, it was more centralized. Unlike in the United States, where federalism and political heterogeneity encouraged diversity even with a single movement, in Germany one society, the German Society for Race Hygiene (Deutsche Gesellschaft fue Rassenhygiene), eventually represented all eugenicists, while one journal, the Archiv für Rassen- und Gsellschafts Biologie, founded by Ploetz in 1904, remained the primary scientific publication of German Eugenics.
  123. ^ Rubenfeld, Sheldon; Benedict, Susan (2014). Human Subjects Research after the Holocaust. Springer. p. 13. ISBN 978-3-319-05701-9. Considering America's strong interest in eugenics, it is reasonable to ask why America did not slide down the same slippery slope as Germany.
  124. ^ Kühl 2001: p. xiv.
  125. ^ Let's (Cautiously) Celebrate the "New Eugenics", Huffington Post, (30 October 2014).
  126. ^ Begos, Kevin (18 May 2011). "The American eugenics movement after World War II (part 1 of 3)". INDY Week. Retrieved 31 October 2019.
  127. ^ "How did they make insulin from recombinant DNA?". www.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 31 October 2019.
  128. ^ Wyke, Alexandra (19 March 1994). "Engineering health". The Economist. Vol. 330, no. 7855. pp. 13–15. ProQuest 224175700.
  129. ^ "Take stock of research ethics in human genome editing". Nature. 549 (7672): 307. September 2017. Bibcode:2017Natur.549..307.. doi:10.1038/549307a. PMID 28933445. S2CID 47161780.
  130. ^ Berg, P.; Baltimore, D.; Brenner, S.; Roblin, R. O.; Singer, M. F. (1 June 1975). "Summary statement of the Asilomar conference on recombinant DNA molecules". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 72 (6): 1981–1984. Bibcode:1975PNAS...72.1981B. doi:10.1073/pnas.72.6.1981. PMC 432675. PMID 806076.
  131. ^ a b c US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. 42 Code of Federal Regulations. 441.250–259 (1978).
  132. ^ a b c Bowman, Cynthia Grant; Rosenbury, Laura A.; Tuerkheimer, Deborah; Yuracko, Kimberly A. (2010). Feminist Jurisprudence Cases and Material. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company. pp. 413–419. ISBN 978-0-314-26463-3.
  133. ^ a b Borrero, Sonya; Zite, Nikki; Creinin, Mitchell D. (2012). "Federally Funded Sterilization: Time to Rethink Policy?". American Journal of Public Health. 102 (10): 1822–1825. doi:10.2105/ajph.2012.300850. PMC 3490665. PMID 22897531.
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Bibliography

Further reading

  • Allen, Garland E. (1987). "The role of experts in scientific controversy". In Engelhardt, Hugo Tristram; Caplan, Arthur L. (eds.). Scientific controversies: case studies in the resolution and closure of disputes in science and technology. Cambridge University Press. pp. 169–202. ISBN 978-0-521-27560-6.
  • Barkan, Elazar (1993). The Retreat of Scientific Racism: Changing Concepts of Race in Britain and the United States Between the World Wars. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-45875-7.
  • Bashford, Alison; Levine, Philippa, eds. (2010). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-537314-1.
  • Bauman, Zygmunt (2000). Modernity and the Holocaust. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-8719-4.
  • Black, Edwin (2004). War against the weak: eugenics and America's campaign to create a master race. Thunder's Mouth Press. ISBN 978-1-56858-321-1.
  • Cuddy, Lois A.; Roche, Claire M., eds. (2003). Evolution and eugenics in American literature and culture, 1880–1940: essays on ideological conflict and complicity. Bucknell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8387-5555-6.
  • Currell, Susan (2006). Popular eugenics: national efficiency and American mass culture in the 1930s. Ohio University Press. ISBN 978-0-8214-1692-1.
  • Dowbiggin, Ian Robert (1997). Keeping America sane: psychiatry and eugenics in the United States and Canada, 1880–1940. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-8398-1.
  • Gould, Stephen Jay (1996). The Mismeasure of Man (2nd, revised ed.). W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-31425-0.
  • Haller, Mark H. (1963). Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought. Rutgers University Press.
  • Hansen, Randall and King, Desmond (eds.), Sterilized by the State: Eugenics, Race, and the Population Scare in Twentieth-Century North America. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Hasian, Marouf Arif (1996). The rhetoric of eugenics in Anglo-American thought. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-1771-7.
  • Kline, Wendy (2005). Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24674-4.
  • Kohn, Marek (1995). The Race Gallery: The Return of Racial Science. London: Jonathan Cape.
  • Lusane, Clarence (2002). Hitler's black victims: the historical experiences of Afro-Germans, European Blacks, Africans, and African Americans in the Nazi era. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-415-93295-0.
  • Maxwell, Anne (2010). Picture Imperfect: Photography and Eugenics, 1870–1940. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-84519-415-4.
  • McCann, Carole Ruth (1999). Birth control politics in the United States, 1916–1945. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-8612-8.
  • Mendelsohn, Everett (March–April 2000). "The Eugenic Temptation: When ethics lag behind technology". Harvard Magazine.
  • Rafter, Nicole Hahn (1988). White Trash: The Eugenic Family Studies, 1877–1919. Northeastern University Press. ISBN 978-1-55553-030-3.
  • Reilly, Philip R. (1991). The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-4096-8.
  • Rosen, Christine (2004). Preaching eugenics: religious leaders and the American eugenics movement. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-515679-9.
  • Ross, Loretta (2000). "Eugenics: African-American Case Study—Eugenics and Family Planning". Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women: Education: Health to Hypertension, Vol. 2. Psychology Press. p. 638. ISBN 978-0-415-92089-6.
  • Schoen, Johanna (2005). Choice and Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-5585-0.
  • Solinger, Rickie (2005). Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America. New York: NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-9828-7.
  • Smith, J. David. (1993). The Eugenic Assault on America: Scenes in Red, White and Black. George Mason University Press. ISBN 978-0-913969-53-3.
  • Spiro, Jonathan P. (2009). Defending the Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics, and the Legacy of Madison Grant. University of Vermont Press. ISBN 978-1-58465-715-6.
  • Tucker, William H. (2007). The funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-07463-9.

External links

  • Takeuchi-Demirci, Aiko. Southern Spaces 18 March 2011.
  • , Scope Note 28, Bioethics Research Center, Georgetown University
  • Plotz, David. "The Better Baby Business", The Washington Post, 13 March 2001. Web. 25 April 2010.
  • Plotz, David (14 March 2001). "The Better Baby Business". Slate Magazine.
  • Eugenics: Compulsory Sterilization in 50 American States, Kaelber, Lutz (ed.)
  • Eugenics in the United States and Britain, 1890–1930: a comparative analysis
  • Eugenics in the United States
  • "Buck v. Bell (1927)" by N. Antonios and C. Raup at the Embryo Project Encyclopedia
  • Pernick, M S (November 1997). "Eugenics and public health in American history". American Journal of Public Health. 87 (11): 1767–1772. doi:10.2105/ajph.87.11.1767. PMC 1381159. PMID 9366633.
  • Garver, KL; Garver, B (November 1991). "Eugenics: past, present, and the future". American Journal of Human Genetics. 49 (5): 1109–1118. PMC 1683254. PMID 1928094.

February 16, 2024
eugenics, united, states, eugenics, beliefs, practices, which, aims, improving, genetic, quality, human, population, played, significant, role, history, culture, united, states, from, late, 19th, century, into, 20th, century, cause, became, increasingly, promo. Eugenics the set of beliefs and practices which aims at improving the genetic quality of the human population 2 3 played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States from the late 19th century into the mid 20th century 4 The cause became increasingly promoted by intellectuals of the Progressive Era 5 6 Winning family of a Fitter Family contest stand outside of the Eugenics Building 1 where contestants register at the Kansas Free Fair in Topeka Kansas While ostensibly about improving genetic quality it has been argued that eugenics was more about preserving the position of the dominant groups in the population Scholarly research has determined that people who found themselves targets of the eugenics movement were those who were seen as unfit for society the poor the disabled the mentally ill and specific communities of color and a disproportionate number of those who fell victim to eugenicists sterilization initiatives were women who were identified as African American Asian American or Native American 7 8 As a result the United States eugenics movement is now generally associated with racist and nativist elements as the movement was to some extent a reaction to demographic and population changes as well as concerns over the economy and social well being rather than scientific genetics 9 8 Contents 1 History 1 1 Early proponents 1 2 Immigration restrictions 1 3 Efforts to shape American families 1 3 1 Unfit v fit individuals 1 3 2 Concerns over hereditary genes 1 3 3 Better Baby Contests 1 3 4 Fitter Families 1 4 Compulsory sterilization 1 5 Eugenics sterilization and the African American community 1 5 1 Black support for eugenics Progressive Era 1 5 2 Eugenics during the civil rights era 1 5 3 Sterilization of African American women 1 5 4 Sterilization abuse brought to media attention 1 6 Sterilization of Latina women 1 6 1 Puerto Rico 1 6 2 California 1 7 Sterilization of Native American women 1 8 Influence on Nazi Germany 1 9 Eugenics after World War II 1 9 1 Genetic engineering 1 10 Compulsory sterilization prevention and continuation 2 See also 3 References 4 External linksHistoryEarly proponents The American eugenics movement was rooted in the biological determinist ideas of Sir Francis Galton which originated in the 1880s In 1883 Sir Francis Galton first used the word eugenics to describe scientifically the biological improvement of genes in human races and the concept of being well born 10 He believed that differences in a person s ability were acquired primarily through genetics and that eugenics could be implemented through selective breeding in order for the human race to improve in its overall quality therefore allowing for humans to direct their own evolution 11 In the US eugenics was largely supported after the discovery of Mendel s law lead to a widespread interest in the idea of breeding for specific traits 12 Galton studied the upper classes of Britain and arrived at the conclusion that their social positions could be attributed to a superior genetic makeup 13 American eugenicists tended to believe in the genetic superiority of Nordic Germanic and Anglo Saxon peoples supported strict immigration and anti miscegenation laws and supported the forcible sterilization of the poor disabled and immoral 14 nbsp Eugenics supporters hold signs criticizing various genetically inferior groups Wall Street New York c 1915 The American eugenics movement received extensive funding from various corporate foundations including the Carnegie Institution Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune 15 In 1906 J H Kellogg provided funding to help found the Race Betterment Foundation in Battle Creek Michigan 13 The Eugenics Record Office ERO was founded in Cold Spring Harbor New York in 1911 by the renowned biologist Charles B Davenport using money from both the Harriman railroad fortune and the Carnegie Institution 16 As late as the 1920s the ERO was one of the leading organizations in the American eugenics movement 13 17 In years to come the ERO and the American Eugenics Society collected a mass of family pedigrees and provided training for eugenics field workers who were sent to analyze individuals at various institutions such as mental hospitals and orphanage institutions across the United States 18 Eugenicists such as Davenport the psychologist Henry H Goddard Harry H Laughlin and the conservationist Madison Grant all of whom were well respected during their time began to lobby for various solutions to the problem of the unfit 16 Davenport favored immigration restriction and sterilization as primary methods Goddard favored segregation in his The Kallikak Family Grant favored all of the above and more even entertaining the idea of extermination 19 By 1910 there was a large and dynamic network of scientists reformers and professionals engaged in national eugenics projects and actively promoting eugenic legislation The American Breeder s Association the first eugenic body in the U S expanded in 1906 to include a specific eugenics committee under the direction of Charles B Davenport 20 21 The ABA was formed specifically to investigate and report on heredity in the human race and emphasize the value of superior blood and the menace to society of inferior blood 22 Membership included Alexander Graham Bell 23 Stanford president David Starr Jordan and Luther Burbank 24 25 The American Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality was one of the first organizations to begin investigating infant mortality rates in terms of eugenics 26 They promoted government intervention in attempts to promote the health of future citizens 27 verification needed Several feminist reformers advocated an agenda of eugenic legal reform The National Federation of Women s Clubs the Woman s Christian Temperance Union and the National League of Women Voters were among the variety of state and local feminist organizations that at some point lobbied for eugenic reforms 28 One of the most prominent feminists to champion the eugenic agenda was Margaret Sanger the leader of the American birth control movement and founder of Planned Parenthood Sanger saw birth control as a means to prevent unwanted children from being born into a disadvantaged life and incorporated the language of eugenics to advance the movement 29 30 Sanger also sought to discourage the reproduction of persons who it was believed would pass on mental disease or serious physical defects 31 In these cases she approved of the use of sterilization 29 In Sanger s opinion it was individual women if able bodied and not the state who should determine whether or not to have a child 32 33 nbsp U S eugenics poster advocating for the removal of genetic defectives such as the insane feeble minded and criminals and supporting the selective breeding of high grade individuals c 1926In the Deep South women s associations played an important role in rallying support for eugenic legal reform Eugenicists recognized the political and social influence of southern clubwomen in their communities and used them to help implement eugenics across the region 34 Between 1915 and 1920 federated women s clubs in every state of the Deep South had a critical role in establishing public eugenic institutions that were segregated by sex 35 For example the Legislative Committee of the Florida State Federation of Women s Clubs successfully lobbied to institute a eugenic institution for the mentally retarded that was segregated by sex 36 Their aim was to separate mentally retarded men and women in order to prevent them from breeding more feebleminded individuals Public acceptance in the U S led to various state legislatures working to establish eugenic initiatives Beginning with Connecticut in 1896 many states enacted marriage laws with eugenic criteria prohibiting anyone who was epileptic imbecile or feeble minded 37 from marrying 38 The first state to introduce a compulsory sterilization bill was Michigan in 1897 although the proposed law failed to garner enough votes by legislators to be adopted it did set the stage for other sterilization bills 39 Eight years later Pennsylvania s state legislators passed a sterilization bill that was vetoed by the governor 40 Indiana became the first state to enact sterilization legislation in 1907 41 followed closely by Washington California and Connecticut in 1909 42 43 44 Sterilization rates across the country were relatively low California being the sole exception until the 1927 Supreme Court case Buck v Bell which upheld under the U S Constitution the forced sterilization of patients at a Virginia home for those who were seen as mentally retarded 45 Immigration restrictions In the late 19th century many scientists who were concerned about the population leaning too far away from the favored Anglo Saxon superiority due to a rise in immigration from Europe partnered with other interest groups to implement immigration laws that could be justified on the basis of genetics 46 After the 1890 U S census people began to believe that immigrants who were of Nordic or Anglo Saxon ancestry were greatly favored over Southern and Eastern Europeans specifically Jews a diasporic Middle Eastern people who were seen by some eugenicists like Harry Laughlin to be genetically inferior 46 During the early 20th century as the United States and Canada began to receive higher numbers of immigrants influential eugenicists like Lothrop Stoddard and Laughlin who was appointed as an expert witness for the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization in 1920 presented arguments that these immigrants would pollute the national gene pool if their numbers went unrestricted 47 48 In 1921 a temporary measure was passed to slowdown the open door on immigration The Immigration Restriction League was the first American entity to be closely associated with eugenics and was founded in 1894 by three recent Harvard graduates The overall goal of the League was to prevent what they perceived as inferior races from diluting the superior American racial stock those who were of the upper class Anglo Saxon heritage and they began working to have stricter anti immigration laws in the United States 49 The League lobbied for a literacy test for immigrants as they attempted to enter the United States based on the belief that literacy rates were low among inferior races 46 Eugenicists believed that immigrants were often degenerate had low IQs and were afflicted with shiftlessness alcoholism and insubordination According to Eugenicists all of these problems were transmitted through genes Literacy test bills were vetoed by presidents in 1897 1913 and 1915 eventually President Wilson s second veto was overruled by Congress in 1917 50 With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924 eugenicists for the first time played an important role in the Congressional debate as expert advisers on the threat of inferior stock from eastern and southern Europe 51 52 The new act inspired by the eugenic belief in the racial superiority of old stock white Americans as members of the Nordic race a form of white supremacy strengthened the position of existing laws prohibiting race mixing 53 Whereas Anglo Saxon and Nordic people were seen as the most desirable immigrants the Chinese and Japanese were seen as the least desirable and were largely banned from entering the U S as a result of the immigration act 53 54 In addition to the immigration act eugenic considerations also lay behind the adoption of incest laws in much of the U S and were used to justify many anti miscegenation laws 55 Efforts to shape American families Unfit v fit individuals Both class and race factored into the eugenic definitions of fit and unfit By using intelligence testing American eugenicists asserted that social mobility was indicative of one s genetic fitness 56 This reaffirmed the existing class and racial hierarchies and explained why the upper to middle class was predominantly white Middle to upper class status was a marker of superior strains 36 In contrast eugenicists believed poverty to be a characteristic of genetic inferiority which meant that those deemed unfit were predominantly of the lower classes 36 57 Because class status designated some more fit than others eugenicists treated upper and lower class women differently Positive eugenicists who promoted procreation among the fittest in society encouraged middle class women to bear more children Between 1900 and 1960 eugenicists appealed to middle class white women to become more family minded and to help better the race 58 To this end eugenicists often denied middle and upper class women sterilization and birth control 59 However since poverty was associated with prostitution and mental idiocy women of the lower classes were the first to be deemed unfit and promiscuous 36 Concerns over hereditary genes In the 19th century based on a view of Lamarckism it was believed that the damage done to people by diseases could be inherited and therefore through eugenics these diseases could be eradicated This belief was carried into the 20th century as public health measures were taken to improve health with the hope that such measures would result in better health of future generations citation needed A 1911 Carnegie Institute report explored eighteen methods for removing defective genetic attributes the eighth method was euthanasia 15 Though the most commonly suggested method of euthanasia was to set up local gas chambers 15 many in the eugenics movement did not believe that Americans were ready to implement a large scale euthanasia program so many doctors came up with alternative ways of subtly implementing eugenic euthanasia in various medical institutions 15 For example a mental institution in Lincoln Illinois fed its incoming patients milk infected with tuberculosis reasoning that genetically fit individuals would be resistant resulting in 30 40 annual death rates 15 Other doctors practiced euthanasia through various forms of lethal neglect 15 In the 1930s there was a wave of portrayals of eugenic mercy killings in American film newspapers and magazines In 1931 the Illinois Homeopathic Medicine Association began lobbying for the right to euthanize imbeciles and other defectives 60 A few years later in 1938 the Euthanasia Society of America was founded 61 However despite this euthanasia saw marginal support in the U S motivating people to turn to forced segregation and sterilization programs as a means for keeping the unfit from reproducing 15 Better Baby Contests Mary deGormo a former teacher was the first person to combine ideas about health and intelligence standards with competitions at state fairs in the form of baby contests 62 She developed the first such contest the Scientific Baby Contest for the Louisiana State Fair in Shreveport in 1908 63 She saw these contests as a contribution to the social efficiency movement which was advocating for the standardization of all aspects of American life as a means of increasing efficiency 26 DeGarmo was assisted by Doctor Jacob Bodenheimer a pediatrician who helped her develop grading sheets for contestants which combined physical measurements with standardized measurements of intelligence 64 nbsp Contestants preparing for the Better Baby Contest at the 1931 Indiana State Fair The contest spread to other U S states in the early 20th century In Indiana for example Ada Estelle Schweitzer a eugenics advocate and director of the Indiana State Board of Health s Division of Child and Infant Hygiene organized and supervised the state s Better Baby contests at the Indiana State Fair from 1920 to 1932 It was among the fair s most popular events During the contest s first year at the fair a total of 78 babies were examined in 1925 the total reached 885 Contestants peaked at 1 301 infants in 1930 and the following year the number of entrants was capped at 1 200 Although the specific impact of the contests was difficult to assess statistics helped to support Schweitzer s claims that the contests helped reduce infant mortality 65 66 The contest intended to educate the public about raising healthy children at a time when approximately 10 of children died in their first year of life 67 However its exclusionary practices reinforced social class and racial discrimination In Indiana for example the contestants were limited to white infants African American and immigrant children were barred from the competition for ribbons and cash prizes In addition the scoring was biased toward white middle class babies 68 69 The contest procedure included recording each child s health history as well as evaluations of each contestant s physical and mental health and overall development using medical professionals Using a process similar to the one introduced at the Louisiana State Fair and contest guidelines that the AMA and U S Children s Bureau recommended scoring for each contestant began with 1 000 points Deductions were made for defects including a child s measurements below a designated average The contestant with the most points was declared the winner 70 66 71 Standardization through scientific judgment was a topic that was very serious in the eyes of the scientific community but has often been downplayed as just a popular fad or trend Nevertheless a lot of time effort and money was put into these contests and their scientific backing which would influence cultural ideas as well as local and state government practices 72 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People promoted eugenics by hosting Better Baby contests and the proceeds would go to its anti lynching campaign 73 Fitter Families First appearing in 1920 at the Kansas Free Fair Fitter Families for Future Firesides competitions continued all the way up to World War II Mary T Watts and Florence Brown Sherbon 74 75 both initiators of the Better Baby Contests in Iowa took the idea of positive eugenics for babies and combined it with a determinist concept of biology to come up with fitter family competitions 76 There were several different categories that families were judged in size of the family overall attractiveness and health of the family all of which helped to determine the likelihood of having healthy children These competitions were simply a continuation of the Better Baby contests that promoted certain physical and mental qualities 77 78 At the time it was believed that certain behavioral qualities were inherited from one s parents This led to the addition of several judging categories including generosity self sacrificing and quality of familial bonds Additionally there were negative features that were judged selfishness jealousy suspiciousness high temperedness and cruelty Feeblemindedness alcoholism and paralysis were few among other traits that were included as physical traits to be judged when looking at family lineage 79 Doctors and specialists from the community would offer their time to judge these competitions which were originally sponsored by the Red Cross 79 The winners of these competitions were given a Bronze Medal as well as champion cups called Capper Medals The cups were named after then Governor and Senator Arthur Capper and he would present them to Grade A individuals 80 The perks of entering into the contests were that the competitions provided a way for families to get a free health check up by a doctor as well as some of the pride and prestige that came from winning the competitions 79 By 1925 the Eugenics Records Office was distributing standardized forms for judging eugenically fit families which were used in contests in several U S states 81 Compulsory sterilization See also Compulsory sterilization United States nbsp A depiction of defectives from the 1915 book Mental defectives in Virginia In 1907 Indiana passed the first eugenics based compulsory sterilization law in the world Thirty U S states would soon follow their lead 82 83 Although the law was overturned by the Indiana Supreme Court in 1921 84 in the 1927 case Buck v Bell the U S Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924 allowing for the compulsory sterilization of patients of state mental institutions 85 The number of sterilizations performed per year increased until another Supreme Court case Skinner v Oklahoma 1942 which ruled that under the 14th Amendment s Equal Protection Clause laws that permitted the compulsory sterilization of criminals were unconstitutional if these laws treated similar crimes differently 86 Although Skinner determined that the right to procreate was a fundamental right under the constitution the case did not denounce sterilization laws because its analysis was based on the equal protection of criminal defendants specifically therefore leaving those seen as social undesirables the poor the disabled and various ethnic groups as targets of compulsory sterilization 7 Therefore though compulsory sterilization is now considered an abuse of human rights Buck v Bell has never been overturned and Virginia specifically did not repeal its sterilization law until 1974 87 Men and women were compulsorily sterilized for different reasons Men were sterilized to treat their aggression and to eliminate their criminal behavior while women were sterilized to control the results of their sexuality 88 Since women bore children eugenicists held women more accountable than men for the reproduction of the less desirable members of society 88 Eugenicists therefore predominantly targeted women in their efforts to regulate the birth rate to protect white racial health and weed out the defectives of society 88 The most significant era of eugenic sterilization was between 1907 and 1963 when over 64 000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States 89 Beginning around 1930 there was a steady increase in the percentage of women sterilized and in a few states only young women were sterilized A 1937 Fortune magazine poll found that 2 3 of respondents supported eugenic sterilization of mental defectives 63 supported sterilization of criminals and only 15 opposed both 90 91 From 1930 to the 1960s sterilizations were performed on many more institutionalized women than men 92 By 1961 61 percent of the 62 162 total eugenic sterilizations in the United States were performed on women 92 A favorable report on the results of sterilization in California the state that conducted the most sterilizations 20 000 of the 60 000 that occurred between 1909 and 1960 24 was published in 1929 in book form by the biologist Paul Popenoe and was widely cited by the Nazi government as evidence that wide reaching sterilization programs were feasible and humane 93 94 After World War II eugenics and eugenic organizations began to revise their standards of reproductive fitness to reflect contemporary social concerns of the later half of the 20th century notably concerns over welfare Mexican immigration overpopulation civil rights and sexual revolution and gave way to what has been termed neo eugenics 95 Neo eugenicists like Clarence Gamble an affluent researcher at Harvard Medical school and a founder of public birth control clinics revived the eugenics movement in the United States through sterilization Supporters of this revival of eugenic sterilizations believed that they would bring an end to social issues such as poverty and mental illness while also saving taxpayer money and boost the economy 96 Whereas eugenic sterilization programs before World War II were mostly conducted on prisoners or patients in mental hospitals after the war compulsory sterilizations were targeted at poor people and minorities 96 As a result of these new sterilization initiatives though most scholars agree that there were over 64 000 known cases of eugenic sterilization in the U S by 1963 no one knows for certain how many compulsory sterilizations occurred between the late 1960s to 1970s though it is estimated that at least 80 000 may have been conducted 97 A large number of those who were targets of coerced sterilizations in the later half of the century were African American Hispanic and Native American women Eugenics sterilization and the African American community Black support for eugenics Progressive Era Early proponents of the eugenics movement included not only influential white Americans but also several proponent African American intellectuals such as W E B Du Bois Thomas Wyatt Turner and many academics at Tuskegee University Howard University and Hampton University 73 However unlike many white eugenicists these black intellectuals believed the best African Americans were as good as the best White Americans and The Talented Tenth of all races should mix 73 Indeed Du Bois believed only fit blacks should procreate to eradicate the race s heritage of moral iniquity 98 With the support of leaders like Du Bois efforts were made in the early 20th century to control the reproduction of the country s black population one of the most visible initiatives was Margaret Sanger s 1939 proposal The Negro Project 16 That year Sanger Florence Rose her assistant and Mary Woodward Reinhardt then secretary of the new Birth Control Federation of America BCFA drafted a report on Birth Control and the Negro 16 In this report they stated that African Americans were the group with the greatest economic health and social problems were largely illiterate and still breed carelessly and disastrously a line taken from W E B DuBois article in the June 1932 Birth Control Review 16 The Project often sought after prominent African American leaders to spread knowledge regarding birth control and the perceived positive effects it would have on the African American community such as poverty and the lack of education 99 Sanger particularly sought out black ministers from the South to serve as leaders in the Project in the hopes of countering any ideas that the project was a strategic attempt to eradicate the black population 16 However despite Sanger s best efforts white medical scientists took control over the initiative and with the Negro Project receiving praise from white leaders and eugenicists many of Sanger s opponents both during the creation of the Project and years after saw her work as an attempt to terminate African Americans 16 99 Eugenics during the civil rights era Opposition to initiatives to control reproduction within the African American community grew in the 1960s particularly after President Lyndon B Johnson in 1965 announced the establishment of federal funding of birth control used on the poor 46 In the 1960 s many African Americans throughout the country took the government s decision to fund birth control clinics as an attempt to limit the growth of the black population and along with it the increased political power that black Americans were fighting to acquire 46 Scholars have stated that African Americans fear about their reproductive health and ability was rooted in history as under U S slavery enslaved women were often coerced or forced to have children to increase a plantation owner s wealth 46 100 Therefore many African Americans particularly those in the Black Power Movement saw birth control and federal support of the Pill as equivalent to black genocide declaring it as such at the 1967 Black Power Conference 46 Federal funding for birth control went alongside family planning initiatives that were a part of state welfare programs These initiatives in addition to advocating the use of the Pill supported sterilization as a means of curbing the number of people receiving welfare and control the reproduction of unfit women 95 The 1950s and 1960s were the height of the sterilization abuse that African American women as a group experienced at the hands of the white medical establishment 46 During this period the sterilization of African American women largely took place in the South and assumed two forms the sterilization of poor unwed black mothers and Mississippi appendectomies 95 Under these Mississippi appendectomies women who went to the hospital to give birth or for some other medical treatment often found themselves incapable of having more children upon leaving the hospital due to unnecessary hysterectomies performed on them by southern medical students 46 101 By the 1970s the coerced sterilization of women of color spread from the South to the rest of the country through federal family planning and under the guise of voluntary contraceptive surgery as physicians began to require their patients to sign consent forms to surgeries they did not want or understand 95 Sterilization of African American women Though it is unknown the exact number of African American women who were sterilized throughout the country in the 20th century records from a few states offer some estimates In the state of North Carolina which was seen as having the most aggressive eugenics program out of the 32 states that had one 102 during the 45 year reign of the North Carolina Eugenics Board from 1929 to 1974 a disproportionate number of those who were targeted for forced or coerced sterilization were black and female with almost all being poor 103 Of the 7 600 women who were sterilized by the state between the years of 1933 and 1973 about 5 000 were African American 7 In light of this history North Carolina became the first state to offer compensation to surviving victims of compulsory sterilization 103 Additionally whereas African Americans made up just over 1 of California s population they accounted for at least 4 of the total number of sterilization operations conducted by the state between 1909 and 1979 104 Overall according to one 1989 study 31 6 of African American women without a high school diploma were sterilized while only 14 5 of white women of the same educational status were sterilized 7 Sterilization abuse brought to media attention In 1972 U S Senate committee testimony brought to light that at least 2 000 involuntary sterilizations had been performed on poor black women without their consent or knowledge 105 An investigation revealed that the surgeries were all performed in the South and were all performed on black women with multiple children who were receiving welfare 105 Testimony revealed that many of these women were threatened with an end to their welfare benefits unless they consented to sterilization 105 These surgeries were instances of sterilization abuse a term applied to any sterilization performed without the consent or knowledge of the recipient or in which the recipient is pressured into accepting the surgery Because the funds used to carry out the surgeries came from the U S Office of Economic Opportunity the sterilization abuse raised suspicions especially among members of the black community that federal programs were underwriting eugenicists who wanted to impose their views about population quality on minorities and poor women 106 Despite this investigation it was not until 1973 that the issue of sterilization abuse was brought to media attention On June 14 1973 two black girls Minnie Lee and Mary Alice Relf ages fourteen and twelve respectively were sterilized without their knowledge in Alabama by the Montgomery Community Action Committee an OEO financed organization 95 104 The summer of that year the Relf girls sued the government agencies and individuals responsible for their sterilization 95 As the case was being pursued it was discovered that the girls mother who could not read unwittingly approved the operations signing an X on the release forms Mrs Relf had believed that she was signing a form authorizing her daughters to receive Depo Provera injections a form of birth control 95 In light of the 1974 case of Relf v Weinberger named after Minnie Lee and Mary Alice s older sister Katie who had narrowly escaped also being sterilized the Department of Health Education and Welfare HEW were ordered to establish new guidelines for its government sterilization policy 95 By 1979 the new guidelines finally addressed the concern over informed consent determined that minors under the age of 21 and those with severe mental impairments who could not give consent would not be sterilized and articulated the provision that doctors could no longer claim that a woman s refusal to be sterilized would result in her being denied welfare benefits 95 Sterilization of Latina women Main article Sterilization of Latinas The 20th century demarcated a time in which compulsory sterilization heavily navigated its way into primarily Latino communities against Latina women Locations such as Puerto Rico and Los Angeles California were found to have had large amounts of their female population coerced into sterilization procedures without quality and necessary informed consent nor full awareness of the procedure Puerto Rico Between the span of the 1930s to the 1970s nearly one third of the female population in Puerto Rico was sterilized at the time this was the highest rate of sterilization in the world 107 Some viewed sterilization as a means of rectifying the country s poverty and unemployment rates Following legalization of the procedure in 1937 a U S government endorsed initiative saw health department officials advocating for sterilization in rural parts of the island Sterilized women were also encouraged to join the workforce in particular the textile and clothing related industries The procedure was so common that it was often referred to solely as la operacion garnering a documentary referenced by the same name 107 This intentional targeting of Latino communities exemplifies the strategic placement of racial eugenics in modern history This targeting is also inclusive of those with disabilities and those from marginalized populations which Puerto Rico is not the only example of this trend Eugenics did not serve as the only reason for the disproportionate rates of sterilization in the Puerto Rican community Contraceptive trials were inducted in the 1950s towards Puerto Rican women John Rock and Gregory Pincus were the two men spearheading the human trials of oral contraceptives In 1954 the decision was made to conduct the clinical experiment in Puerto Rico citing the island s large network of birth control clinics and lack of anti birth control laws which was in contrast to the United States thorough cultural and religious opposition to the reproductive service 108 The decision to conduct the trials in this community was also motivated by the structural implications of supremacy and colonialism Rock and Pincus monopolized off of the primarily poor and uneducated background of these women countering that if they could follow the Pill regimen then women anywhere in the world could too 108 These women were purposely ill informed of the oral contraceptives presence the researchers only reported that the drug which was administered at a much higher dosage than what birth control is prescribed at today was to prevent pregnancy not that it was tied to a clinical trial in order to jump start oral contraceptive access in America through FDA approval CaliforniaIn California by the year 1964 a total of 20 108 people were sterilized making that the largest amount in all of the United States 109 It is an important note that during this period in California s population demographic the total individuals sterilized was disproportionately inclusive of Mexican Mexican American and Chicana women Andrea Estrada a UC Santa Barbara affiliate said 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 110 In 1966 Nancy Hernandez was the first one to reach National and public attention and resulted in protests on women s rights and reproductive rights across the country Her story was published in Rebecca Kluchin s book Fit to be Tied Sterilization and Reproductive Rights in America 1950 1980 111 Cases such as Madrigal v Quilligan a class action suit regarding forced or coerced postpartum sterilization of Latina women following cesarean sections helped bring to light the widespread abuse of sterilization supported by federal funds The case s plaintiffs were 10 sterilized women of Los Angeles County Hospital who elected to come forward with their stories Although a grim reality No mas bebes is a documentary that offers an emotional and candid storytelling of the Madrigal v Quilligan case on behalf of Latina women whom were direct recipients of the coerced sterilization of the Los Angeles hospital The judge s ruling sided with the County Hospital but an aftermath of the case resulted in the accessibility of multiple language informed consent forms These stories among many others serve as backbones for not only the reproductive justice movement that we see today but a better understanding and recognition of the Chicana feminism movement in contrast to white feminism s perception of reproductive rights Sterilization of Native American women Main article Sterilization of Native American women An estimated 40 of Native American women 60 000 70 000 women and 10 of Native American men in the United States underwent sterilization in the 1970s 112 A General Accounting Office GAO report in 1976 found that 3 406 Native American women 3 000 of which were of childbearing age 113 were sterilized by the Indian Health Service IHS in Arizona Oklahoma New Mexico and South Dakota from 1973 to 1976 114 115 116 The GAO report did not conclude any instances of coerced sterilization but called for the reform of IHS and contract doctors processes of obtaining informed consent for sterilization procedures 114 The IHS informed consent processes examined by the GAO did not comply with a 1974 ruling of the U S District Court that any individual contemplating sterilization should be advised orally at the outset that at no time could federal benefits be withdrawn because of failure to agree to sterilization 115 In examining individual cases and testimonies of Native American women scholars have found that IHS and contract physicians recommended sterilization to Native American women as the appropriate form of birth control failing to present potential alternatives and to explain the irreversible nature of sterilization and threatened that refusal of the procedure would result in the women losing their children and or federal benefits 112 114 115 Scholars also identified language barriers in informed consent processes as the absence of interpreters for Native American women hindered them from fully understanding the sterilization procedure and its implications in some cases 115 Scholars have cited physicians individual paternalism and beliefs about the population control of poor communities and welfare recipients and the opportunity for financial gain as possible motivations for performing sterilizations on Native American women 114 115 116 Native American women and activists mobilized in the 1970s across the United States to combat the coerced sterilization of Native American women and advocate for their reproductive rights alongside tribal sovereignty in the Red Power movement 114 115 Some of the most prominent activist organizations established in this decade and active in the Red Power movement and the resistance against coerced sterilization were the American Indian Movement AIM United Native Americans Women of all Red Nations WARN the International Indian Treaty Council IITC and Indian Women United for Justice founded by Constance Redbird Pinkerton Uri a Cherokee Choctaw physician 114 115 Some Native American activists have deemed the coerced sterilization of Native American women a modern form of genocide 114 and view these sterilizations as a violation of the rights of tribes as sovereign nations 114 Others argue that the sterilization of Native American women is interconnected with colonialist and capitalist motives of corporations and the federal government to acquire land and natural resources including oil natural gas and coal currently located on Native American reservations 115 113 Scholars and Native American activists have situated the forced sterilizations of Native American women within broader histories of colonialism violations of Native American tribal sovereignty by the federal government including a long history of the removal of children from Native American women and families and population control efforts in the United States 112 114 115 116 The 1970s brought new federal legislation enacted by the United States government which addressed issues of informed consent sterilization and the treatment of Native American children The U S Department of Health Education and Welfare released new regulations in 1979 on informed consent processes for sterilization procedures including a longer waiting period of 30 days before the procedure the presentation of alternative methods of birth control to the patient and clear verbal affirmation that the patient s access to federal benefits or welfare programs would not be revoked if the procedure were refused 114 The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 officially recognized the significance and value of the extended family in Native American culture adopting minimum federal standards for the removal of Indian children to foster or adoptive homes 115 and the central importance of the sovereign tribal governments in decision making processes surrounding the welfare of Native children 115 Influence on Nazi Germany See also Nazi eugenics After the eugenics movement was well established in the United States it spread to Germany California eugenicists began producing literature promoting eugenics and sterilization and sending it overseas to German scientists and medical professionals 15 By 1933 California had subjected more people to forceful sterilization than all other U S states combined The forced sterilization program engineered by the Nazis was partly inspired by California s 117 The Rockefeller Foundation helped develop and fund various German eugenics programs 118 including the one that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz 15 Upon returning from Germany in 1934 where more than 5 000 people per month were being forcibly sterilized the California eugenics leader C M Goethe bragged to a colleague You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch making program Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought I want you my dear friend to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people 119 Eugenics researcher Harry H Laughlin often bragged that his Model Eugenic Sterilization laws had been implemented in the 1935 Nuremberg racial hygiene laws 120 In 1936 Laughlin was invited to an award ceremony at Heidelberg University in Germany scheduled on the anniversary of the 1934 purge of Jews from the Heidelberg faculty to receive an honorary doctorate for his work on the science of racial cleansing Due to financial limitations Laughlin was unable to attend the ceremony and had to pick it up from the Rockefeller Institute Afterward he proudly shared the award with his colleagues remarking that he felt that it symbolized the common understanding of German and American scientists of the nature of eugenics 121 Henry Friedlander wrote that although the German and American eugenics movements were similar the U S did not follow the same slippery slope as Nazi eugenics because American federalism and political heterogeneity encouraged diversity even with a single movement In contrast the German eugenics movement was more centralized and had fewer diverse ideas 122 Unlike the American movement one publication and one society the German Society for Racial Hygiene represented all German eugenicists in the early 20th century 122 123 After 1945 however historians began to try to portray the U S eugenics movement as distinct and distant from Nazi eugenics 124 Jon Entine wrote that eugenics simply means good genes and using it as synonym for genocide is an all too common distortion of the social history of genetics policy in the United States According to Entine eugenics developed out of the Progressive Era and not Hitler s twisted Final Solution 125 Eugenics after World War II Genetic engineering After the Second World War the extreme version of eugenics practiced by the Nazis brought the movement into disrepute However aspects of the eugenics movement such as forced sterilization were still taking place just not with as much public visibility as before 126 As technology developed the field of genetic engineering emerged Instead of sterilizing people to remove traits deemed to be undesirable genetic engineering changes or removes genes to prevent disease or improve the body in some significant way 112 Proponents of genetic engineering cite its ability to cure and prevent life threatening diseases Genetic engineering began in the 1970s when scientists began to clone and alter genes From this scientists were able to create life saving health interventions such as human insulin the first ever genetically engineered drug 127 Because of this development over the years scientists were able to create new drugs to treat devastating diseases For example in the early 1990s a group of scientists were able to use a gene drug to treat severe combined immunodeficiency in a young girl 128 However genetic engineering also further allows for the practice of eliminating undesirable traits within humans and other organisms for example with current genetic tests parents are able to test a fetus for any life threatening diseases that may impact the child s life and then choose to abort the baby 112 Some fear that this could lead to ethnic cleansing or alternative form of eugenics 129 The ethical implications of genetic engineering were heavily considered by scientists at the time and the Asilomar Conference was held in 1975 to discuss these concerns and set reasonable voluntary guidelines that researchers would follow while using DNA technologies 130 Compulsory sterilization prevention and continuation The 1978 Federal Sterilization Regulations created by the United States Department of Health Education and Welfare or HEW now the United States Department of Health and Human Services outline a variety of prohibited sterilization practices that were often used previously to coerce or force women into sterilization 131 These were intended to prevent such eugenics and neo eugenics as resulted in the involuntary sterilization of large groups of poor and minority women Such practices include not conveying to patients that sterilization is permanent and irreversible in their own language including the option to end the process or procedure at any time without conceding any future medical attention or federal benefits the ability to ask any and all questions about the procedure and its ramifications the requirement that the consent seeker describes the procedure fully including any and all possible discomforts and or side effects and any and all benefits of sterilization failing to provide alternative information about methods of contraception family planning or pregnancy termination that are nonpermanent and or irreversible this includes abortion conditioning receiving welfare and or Medicaid benefits by the individual or his her children on the individuals consenting to permanent sterilization tying elected abortion to compulsory sterilization cannot receive a sought out abortion without consenting to sterilization using hysterectomy as sterilization and subjecting minors and the mentally incompetent to sterilization 131 132 73 The regulations also include an extension of the informed consent waiting period from 72 hours to 30 days with a maximum of 180 days between informed consent and the sterilization procedure 132 131 73 However several studies have indicated that the forms are often dense and complex and beyond the literacy aptitude of the average American and those seeking publicly funded sterilization are more likely to possess below average literacy skills 133 High levels of misinformation concerning sterilization still exist among individuals who have already undergone sterilization procedures with permanence being one of the most common gray factors 133 134 Additionally federal enforcement of the requirements of the 1978 Federal Sterilization Regulation is inconsistent and some of the prohibited abuses continue to be pervasive particularly in underfunded hospitals and lower income patient hospitals and care centers 132 73 The compulsory sterilization of American men and women continues to this day In 2013 it was reported that 148 female prisoners in two California prisons were sterilized between 2006 and 2010 in a supposedly voluntary program but it was determined that the prisoners did not give consent to the procedures 135 In September 2014 California enacted Bill SB1135 that bans sterilization in correctional facilities unless the procedure is required to save an inmate s life 136 See also nbsp United States portalCompulsory sterilization Elizabeth Tuttle Eugenics Board of North Carolina Eugenics in California Franz Boas International Federation of Eugenics Organizations Nazi human experimentation Poe v Lynchburg Training School amp Hospital 1981 Racial Integrity Act of 1924 Racial segregation in the United States Racism in the United States Skinner v Oklahoma 1942 Society for Biodemography and Social Biology Sterilization law in the United States Stump v Sparkman 1978 The Kallikak Family Tuskegee syphilis experiment Unethical human experimentation in the United StatesReferencesNotes A social register of fitter families and better babies The Milwaukee Sentinel 26 May 1929 Eugenics Unified Medical Language System Psychological Index Terms National Library of Medicine 26 September 2010 Eugenics Its Definition Scope and Aims 1 Nature 70 1804 82 May 1904 Bibcode 1904Natur 70 82 doi 10 1038 070082a0 S2CID 41155237 Susan Currell Christina Cogdell 2006 Popular Eugenics National Efficiency and American Mass Culture in the 1930s Ohio University Press pp 2 3 ISBN 978 0 8214 1691 4 Leonard Thomas C 2005 Eugenics and Economics in the Progressive Era Journal of Economic Perspectives Retrieved January 29 2022 Freeden Michael February 11 2009 Eugenics and Progressive Thought a Study in Ideological Affinity Cambridge University Press Retrieved 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science Edwin Black 9 November 2003 Eugenics and the Nazis the California connection San Francisco Chronicle Retrieved 2 February 2017 Jackson John P Weidman Nadine M 2005 Race Racism and Science Social Impact and Interaction Rutgers University Press p 123 ISBN 978 0 8135 3736 8 Lombardo 2008 pp 211 213 a b Friedlander Henry 2000 The Origins of Nazi Genocide From Euthanasia to the Final Solution Univ of North Carolina Press p 13 ISBN 978 0 8078 4675 9 Although the German eugenics movement led until the Weimar years by Alfred Ploetz and Wilhelm Schallmayer did not differ radically from the American movement it was more centralized Unlike in the United States where federalism and political heterogeneity encouraged diversity even with a single movement in Germany one society the German Society for Race Hygiene Deutsche Gesellschaft fue Rassenhygiene eventually represented all eugenicists while one journal the Archiv fur Rassen und Gsellschafts Biologie founded by Ploetz in 1904 remained the primary scientific publication of German Eugenics Rubenfeld Sheldon Benedict Susan 2014 Human Subjects Research after the Holocaust Springer p 13 ISBN 978 3 319 05701 9 Considering America s strong interest in eugenics it is reasonable to ask why America did not slide down the same slippery slope as Germany Kuhl 2001 p xiv Let s Cautiously Celebrate the New Eugenics Huffington Post 30 October 2014 Begos Kevin 18 May 2011 The American eugenics movement after World War II part 1 of 3 INDY Week Retrieved 31 October 2019 How did they make insulin from recombinant DNA www nlm nih gov Retrieved 31 October 2019 Wyke Alexandra 19 March 1994 Engineering health The Economist Vol 330 no 7855 pp 13 15 ProQuest 224175700 Take stock of research ethics in human genome editing Nature 549 7672 307 September 2017 Bibcode 2017Natur 549 307 doi 10 1038 549307a PMID 28933445 S2CID 47161780 Berg P Baltimore D Brenner S Roblin R O Singer M F 1 June 1975 Summary statement of the Asilomar conference on recombinant DNA molecules Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 72 6 1981 1984 Bibcode 1975PNAS 72 1981B doi 10 1073 pnas 72 6 1981 PMC 432675 PMID 806076 a b c US Department of Health Education and Welfare 42 Code of Federal Regulations 441 250 259 1978 a b c Bowman Cynthia Grant Rosenbury Laura A Tuerkheimer Deborah Yuracko Kimberly A 2010 Feminist Jurisprudence Cases and Material St Paul MN West Publishing Company pp 413 419 ISBN 978 0 314 26463 3 a b Borrero Sonya Zite Nikki Creinin Mitchell D 2012 Federally Funded Sterilization Time to Rethink Policy American Journal of Public Health 102 10 1822 1825 doi 10 2105 ajph 2012 300850 PMC 3490665 PMID 22897531 Borrero Sonya Abebe Kaleab Dehlendorf Christine Schwarz Eleanor Bimla Creinin Mitchell D Nikolajski Cara Ibrahim Said January 2011 Racial variation in tubal sterilization rates role of patient level factors Fertility and Sterility 95 1 17 22 doi 10 1016 j fertnstert 2010 05 031 PMC 2970690 PMID 20579640 Sterilization Abuse in State Prisons News 07 23 2013 author Alex Stern SB 1135 CA Gov Retrieved 17 September 2014 Bibliography Bender Daniel E 2009 American abyss savagery and civilization in the age of industry Cornell University Press ISBN 978 0 8014 4598 9 Black Edwin 9 November 2003 Eugenics and the Nazis the California connection San Francisco Chronicle Boudreau Erica Bicchieri October 2005 Yea I have a Goodly Heritage Health Versus Heredity in the Fitter Family Contests 1920 1928 Journal of Family History 30 4 366 387 doi 10 1177 0363199005276359 PMID 16304739 S2CID 2438862 Engs Ruth C 2005 The eugenics movement an encyclopedia Greenwood Press ISBN 978 0 313 32791 9 Kevles Daniel J 1986 In the Name of Eugenics genetics and the uses of human heredity Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 520 05763 0 Kuhl Stefan 2001 The Nazi Connection Eugenics American Racism and German National Socialism Oxford University Press US ISBN 978 0 19 514978 4 Larson Edward J 1996 Sex Race and Science Eugenics in the Deep South Baltimore Maryland Johns Hopkins University Press ISBN 978 0 8018 5511 5 Lombardo Paul A 2008 Three generations no imbeciles eugenics the Supreme Court and Buck v Bell JHU Press ISBN 978 0 8018 9010 9 Lombardo Paul A 2011 A Century of Eugenics in America From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Era Indiana University Press ISBN 978 0 253 22269 5 McWhorter Ladelle 2009 Racism and sexual oppression in Anglo America a genealogy Indiana University Press ISBN 978 0 253 22063 9 Murphy Timothy F Lappe Marc eds 1994 Justice and the human genome project University of California Press ISBN 978 0 520 08363 9 Ordover Nancy 2003 American eugenics race queer anatomy and the science of nationalism University of Minnesota Press ISBN 978 0 8166 3559 7 Pernick Martin S 1999 The Black Stork Eugenics and the Death of Defective Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures Since 1915 Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 513539 8 Pernick Martin S May 2002 Taking Better Baby Contests Seriously American Journal of Public Health 92 5 707 708 doi 10 2105 ajph 92 5 707 PMC 1447148 PMID 11988430 Selden Steven 2005 Transforming Better Babies into Fitter Families Archival Resources and the History of the American Eugenics Movement 1908 1930 Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 149 2 199 225 JSTOR 4598925 PMID 16208870 Stern Alexandra 2005 Eugenic nation faults and frontiers of better breeding in modern America University of California Press ISBN 978 0 520 24444 3 The Groundwork of Eugenics The Hospital 46 1188 198 22 May 1909 PMC 5200292 PMID 29815643 Further reading Allen Garland E 1987 The role of experts in scientific controversy In Engelhardt Hugo Tristram Caplan Arthur L eds Scientific controversies case studies in the resolution and closure of disputes in science and technology Cambridge University Press pp 169 202 ISBN 978 0 521 27560 6 Barkan Elazar 1993 The Retreat of Scientific Racism Changing Concepts of Race in Britain and the United States Between the World Wars Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 45875 7 Bashford Alison Levine Philippa eds 2010 The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 537314 1 Bauman Zygmunt 2000 Modernity and the Holocaust Cornell University Press ISBN 978 0 8014 8719 4 Black Edwin 2004 War against the weak eugenics and America s campaign to create a master race Thunder s Mouth Press ISBN 978 1 56858 321 1 Cuddy Lois A Roche Claire M eds 2003 Evolution and eugenics in American literature and culture 1880 1940 essays on ideological conflict and complicity Bucknell University Press ISBN 978 0 8387 5555 6 Currell Susan 2006 Popular eugenics national efficiency and American mass culture in the 1930s Ohio University Press ISBN 978 0 8214 1692 1 Dowbiggin Ian Robert 1997 Keeping America sane psychiatry and eugenics in the United States and Canada 1880 1940 Cornell University Press ISBN 978 0 8014 8398 1 Gould Stephen Jay 1996 The Mismeasure of Man 2nd revised ed W W Norton amp Company ISBN 978 0 393 31425 0 Haller Mark H 1963 Eugenics Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought Rutgers University Press Hansen Randall and King Desmond eds Sterilized by the State Eugenics Race and the Population Scare in Twentieth Century North America New York Cambridge University Press Hasian Marouf Arif 1996 The rhetoric of eugenics in Anglo American thought University of Georgia Press ISBN 978 0 8203 1771 7 Kline Wendy 2005 Building a Better Race Gender Sexuality and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom University of California Press ISBN 978 0 520 24674 4 Kohn Marek 1995 The Race Gallery The Return of Racial Science London Jonathan Cape Lusane Clarence 2002 Hitler s black victims the historical experiences of Afro Germans European Blacks Africans and African Americans in the Nazi era Psychology Press ISBN 978 0 415 93295 0 Maxwell Anne 2010 Picture Imperfect Photography and Eugenics 1870 1940 Sussex Academic Press ISBN 978 1 84519 415 4 McCann Carole Ruth 1999 Birth control politics in the United States 1916 1945 Cornell University Press ISBN 978 0 8014 8612 8 Mendelsohn Everett March April 2000 The Eugenic Temptation When ethics lag behind technology Harvard Magazine Rafter Nicole Hahn 1988 White Trash The Eugenic Family Studies 1877 1919 Northeastern University Press ISBN 978 1 55553 030 3 Reilly Philip R 1991 The Surgical Solution A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States Johns Hopkins University Press ISBN 978 0 8018 4096 8 Rosen Christine 2004 Preaching eugenics religious leaders and the American eugenics movement Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 515679 9 Ross Loretta 2000 Eugenics African American Case Study Eugenics and Family Planning Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women Education Health to Hypertension Vol 2 Psychology Press p 638 ISBN 978 0 415 92089 6 Schoen Johanna 2005 Choice and Coercion Birth Control Sterilization and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare Chapel Hill NC University of North Carolina Press ISBN 978 0 8078 5585 0 Solinger Rickie 2005 Pregnancy and Power A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America New York NYU Press ISBN 978 0 8147 9828 7 Smith J David 1993 The Eugenic Assault on America Scenes in Red White and Black George Mason University Press ISBN 978 0 913969 53 3 Spiro Jonathan P 2009 Defending the Master Race Conservation Eugenics and the Legacy of Madison Grant University of Vermont Press ISBN 978 1 58465 715 6 Tucker William H 2007 The funding of Scientific Racism Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund University of Illinois Press ISBN 978 0 252 07463 9 External linksThe Color of Democracy A Japanese Public Health Official s Reconnaissance Trip to the U S South Takeuchi Demirci Aiko Southern Spaces 18 March 2011 Eugenics Scope Note 28 Bioethics Research Center Georgetown University Plotz David The Better Baby Business The Washington Post 13 March 2001 Web 25 April 2010 Plotz David 14 March 2001 The Better Baby Business Slate Magazine Eugenics Compulsory Sterilization in 50 American States Kaelber Lutz ed Eugenics in the United States and Britain 1890 1930 a comparative analysis Eugenics in the United States Buck v Bell 1927 by N Antonios and C Raup at the Embryo Project Encyclopedia Pernick M S November 1997 Eugenics and public health in American history American Journal of Public Health 87 11 1767 1772 doi 10 2105 ajph 87 11 1767 PMC 1381159 PMID 9366633 Garver KL Garver B November 1991 Eugenics past present and the future American Journal of Human Genetics 49 5 1109 1118 PMC 1683254 PMID 1928094 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Eugenics in the United States amp oldid 1204764593, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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