Tonight I spent a few hours after work sitting on my tail and sorting through piles and piles of school paperwork. I have stacks of completed assignments, essays, research papers, and more that have been stacked up waiting for me to figure out what I should do with them. Quite a few of them are probably going to be posted here over time so that other people can read them, but I suspect most will be thrown away. While I was combing through the pile, I found this little gem. It is a copy of a pamphlet produced by the North Carolinian state government back in the 1950s. I did some research a few years ago on eugenics in the United States after I discovered the subject and jumped down that rabbit hole of awfulness for a few months. I still struggle to understand why this happened so many years ago, but why is still happening *now* in areas of our country. There are not only people still living who are dealing with the trauma of their involuntary sterilizations from the 1950s, but today some medical providers also use their position of power to force sterilizations onto women in their charge- in prisons, on reservations, or in hospitals. I found myself looking over this pamphlet and thinking of our current political situation and I can't help but wince. I am also bothered by the fact that so many people who believe in eugenics are also Christian and can worship and practice their faith and see no friction between Christian ideology and eugenics... whereas I can't see that eugenics can ever fit into any true Christian faith journey.
Without further ado, here is the pamphlet in its entirety. I will spend the rest of my evening continuing to shuffle through the copious quantity of paperwork at my disposal. I wonder what else I will find...
Here are links to previous blogposts on the subject: One, Two, Three.
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