Eugenics in America After 1945: Term Post #2

...Here are some examples:

North Carolina had a sterilization program in place from 1929-1974 in which approximately 7,600 individuals were sterilized with over 70% of those coming after 1945 when the program expanded after World War II. One unique aspect of North Carolina's laws was that they were written allowing people to be recommended for sterilization by doctors, social workers and other government employees they dealt with in their communities and homes. About 85% of those referred for sterilization were women. One guideline for sterilization was if a person had an IQ of less than 70. In July 2013, the state set aside ten million dollars for compensation to the verifiable victims of this program of which approximately 3000 are thought to be still alive.

In the 1950’s, black women in the south became targets of forced sterilization via tubal litigation or hysterectomy, commonly referred to by women as “Mississippi appendectomies,” because women entered hospitals to have abdominal surgery and left unknowingly without their uteri. In 1972, testimony before a US Senate committee brought to light at least 2,000 involuntary sterilizations that had been performed on poor black women who were mothers with multiple children. They were usually told that their appendix needed to be removed and were sterilized at that time or at the birth of a child, especially if the women was unmarried. There is evidence that many women may never have known why they couldn't conceive.

Forced sterilization practices changed and were focused on specific populations in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s through newly established federal family planning programs. Mexican and Mexican-American women were coerced or tricked into forced sterilization at the Women’s hospital of the University of Southern California- Los Angeles County Medical Center. Public concerns that the rise in Mexican immigration was overpopulating the state and purposely expanding state welfare needs was high. The idea that women became pregnant and then worked their way across the American – Mexican border to give birth and give themselves and their new family a secure financial benefit through the various welfare programs available is still an active concern in our present political climate. There is no known number of how many involuntary and coerced sterilizations there were before the federal class court case Madrigal v. Quilligan - a lawsuit brought against a hospital and their doctors by some women who discovered their unwanted sterilization. However, statistics show that elective hysterectomies had a 742% increase and tubal ligations a 470% increase within a two year time frame. At least 140 women shared their stories of being forced to agree or not being given any kind of informed consent at all. Some described situations that can only be described as blackmail. i.e.; I will not give you pain medication to finish your labor and delivery unless you comply. The lead defendant in the court case, Dr. Edward Quilligan, was quoted by a medical technician as stating, “poor minority women in L.A. County were having too many babies; that it was a strain on society; and that it was good that they be sterilized.” The plaintiffs lost their case, but the case did change and created stronger informed consent rules through legislation in California including bilingual language on the consent forms.

In 1955, the federal government changed the way that health care for Native American populations was provided. Depending on many factors, the quality of care throughout the Indian Health System varied considerably due to individual facilities, staff opinions/prejudices, and changes in 'coverage' due to Congressional appropriation hearings and decisions. These changes had some significant benefits as the new program was much better funded which helped increase services and decrease mortality. Another potential benefit which was added was the provision of family planning services. On reservations, Native American women became targets of physicians employed by the Indian Health Services who believed that restricting these women’s reproduction would reduce their poverty and dependence on the state. Through the

sharing of stories, complaints of coercion or harassment, and from research and interviews preformed through investigations, it is estimated that IHS hospitals and their affiliates sterilized between 25 and 42 percent of all Native American women of childbearing age between 1970 and 1976. Even with mandated changes requiring informed consent, added waiting periods and added safeguards, in 1974 more accusations cropped up that IHS staff in some places were not following the new guidelines and questionable sterilizations were still taking place - almost all subsidized with federal funds. Evidence shows that these types of experiences not only changed the relationships between Native Americans and the government/Indian Health System but also caused significant changes in an individual’s life and their standing in the community, as well causing economic and familial harm- some marital relationship were also severed over the procedure. In 1976, Congress passed the Indian Health Care Improvement Act which gave tribes the right to control Indian Health Service programs and there is no evidence that inappropriate sterilizations have happened after that time.

In case we believe that our society’s beliefs and behavior has changed since the late 1970's, we have other more recent examples. In 1909, California was the third state to pass a eugenics sterilization law and over the years had sterilized around 20,000 patients or around 1/3 of all the sterilizations in the country. That law was finally repealed in 1979 after a lawsuit by several women who had been coerced or forced into their own sterilizations. Yet, at least 148 women incarcerated in four California prisons were illegally sterilized in the years 2006-2011 costing the state $147,460 for the procedures. One of the physicians, Dr. James Heinrich, has stated that the practice of sterilizing female prisoners saves the state money because the patients would no longer have “unwanted children as they procreated more.” Auditors found in those cases that sometimes paperwork was altered to look like compliance with current laws was achieved and in many cases, no informed consent was attained. On September 25, 2014 California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill prohibiting forced sterilization in the state.

That the United States has not been able to shake the ideas and prejudices that informed and created the original Eugenics movement. Today eugenical ideas and procedures are still officially permitted. Voluntary sterilization for therapeutic or for reproductive reasons is a great blessing for thousands of people and should be accessible for those who need it. However, its availability gives eugenic proponents the tools they need to pressure individuals to give up their dignity and human right to reproduction. Some women may lose that right without being told of the procedure or are given false information such as it is reversible. There is even incidental evidence that federal money is being spent on experiments and science that are clearly eugenic in nature. In the end, eugenics is still very much successful in America. I am aware that I personally fit several of the ideals for eugenic sterilization –I am so myopic I am considered legally blind, suffer from celiac disease, and have two other severe medical issues as well as PTSD, and severe sensory/ anxiety issues. I have given birth to a child that also has problems with celiac disease, has sensory problems and had seizures for seven years before outgrowing them. And yet, my son is a wonderful human being and he is well liked in his community. He is smart and compassionate in spite of his disabilities and my life wouldn’t really feel worth much without him. I have chosen to not have any more children and being able to make that choice for myself is one of the most wonderful things I appreciate in my life. I am hopeful that as society recognizes the individual worth of all individuals, may the concept of eugenics pass away… and rest in peace.

pictures from: http://www.carolinapublicpress.org/9854/house-passes-eugenics-compensation-bill, http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/the-american-eugenics-movement-after-world-war-ii-part-1-of-3/Content?oid=2468789&storyPage=3, http://gloriamolina.org/2014/01/15/looking-back/, http://www.quora.com/Native-Americans, http://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/SD/SD.html, http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jul/12/opinion/la-ed-sterilization-female-prisoners-california-20130712, http://www.examiner.com/article/illegal-sterilizations-forced-on-women-california-prisons, http://rt.com/usa/167660-california-illegal-sterilization-women/

Eugenics in America After 1945: Term Post #1

The study of human history shows the many achievements and journeys of our race. From our humble beginnings, through the development of culture, religion, communities, hierarchy and power structures, to what and who we are today... well, as a less-than-humble commercial suggests- 'You've come a long way, Baby!’ The path to the twenty-first century has not been smooth nor painless and, like our predecessors, we view ourselves, our lives, and our world as an improved and civilized place with the human race as the most intelligent and virtuous beings on it. Looking at the history of the human race, I see many recurring themes that are a part of every society; hope, love, beauty, want, etc. The theme of self-improvement or change that benefits ourselves and, in turn, society has been a reappearing idea that became more pronounced after the Enlightenment and the Renaissance along with the concept of improving groups of people to improve society. However, like all virtues, self-improvement or personal development can come with a dark side that is exposed when the virtue itself is placed on a pedestal or idolized without regard to the thoughts and rights of those we consider 'lesser' than us. When this happens, any noble or virtuous ideas are shown to be the shallow horrors that they can become ... the virtue is pulled and stretched out of its normal view to a pained and stretched mask of what it actually is. During the twentieth century, the themes of human breeding, genetics, prejudice, self-improvement and social progress collided to serve the virtue of better breeding and health of human beings. Eugenics, which means 'well born', was created in

America. This movement was so strong and large that it was able to spread into other cultures and countries before its horrors and Machiavellianism tendencies became apparent enough to create a sizeable opposition that attempted to crush it. In response to the common belief that eugenics was no longer an important movement after World War II, I will discuss briefly the history of eugenics in the United States before WWII and then analyze the way the movement changed after the war. I will show that the ideas behind eugenics are still alive, well and being acted upon in our society today. Recognizing the way the movement itself has adapted to our changing culture and its opposition helps place us in an informed position to focus on the fearful and reactive areas of ourselves and our society so we may work to create a more lasting and peaceful change in our thoughts and fears. Hopefully, that will help us change how we act upon our fears and prejudices and how we justify acting on them in our communities and society.

The idea of eugenics is a simple idea with more complex answers. The word was coined in 1883 by Sir Francis Galton who advocated the scientific regulation of human breeding to ensure that 'better' genes had a larger chance of predominating in the continuation of the human species. Eugenics encompassed the progress of medical practice and scientific thought and recognized the inseparable relationship between medicine and social progress. To be blunt, the idea of the eugenics movement was that better breeding would lead to a healthier population and was an effective way to deal with social problems. It provided a comfortable way to rationalize people's prejudices about race, poverty, etc... and also suggested that 'undesirable traits' could be minimized within a few generations if people were only brave and good enough to work towards it. Undesirable traits that were thought

to be correctable through eugenical reproduction included epilepsy and other physical disabilities, alcoholism, tendencies towards rape (rapists), and other criminal behavior, promiscuity, and more. Races and immigrants that were not of Anglo-Saxon heritage were also of 'suspect' genetic material and poverty was thought to be a characteristic of genetic inferiority. Always a controversial movement, eugenics has had its loyal adherents since its conception and even the tragedy and knowledge of the German Holocaust in World War II didn't change those who believed and followed its tenets. Before the war, it was common to institutionalize the ‘feebleminded’ or those that those in power worried about reproducing. The rationale was that the only way to stop a living being from reproducing was to limit its movements, monitor it in risky situations, or make it biologically impossible for breeding to take place. Institutions for those who were ill, the ‘feebleminded’ or those who had medical difficulties were created to isolate and remove those individuals from active society. Laws were passed that forbade marriages between people who had specific medical or mental health problems. However, locking people up costs a lot of money and the inability to remove everyone from the community that fit the criteria (due to lack of funds or institutional space) made the original eugenics process less effective than its early adherents wished. Sterilization allowed the individuals to be released back into their local communities to support themselves while not crating any more individuals like ‘them’. Because of that, sterilization became the easy, cheap, and irreversible weapon in the eugenics supporter’s arsenal.

The Holocaust did shift some of the popular views of how eugenics should work, but didn’t change any of the eugenic and popular thoughts of a large part of the populace nor did it change the most popular procedures that were used. In 1927, psychologist George Ordahl explained at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco that if it was possible to calculate “the economic burden of the moron” that [was] paid for by taxpayers, “every patriotic citizen would become a eugenicist in search of methods of prevention even more drastic than any now known.” The tone may have softened since WWII, but not by much. Dr. Charles Gamble wrote in 1947, “Tomorrow's population should be produced by today's best human material” and he complain[ed] that only one in forty-one people with severe mental illness had been sterilized, leaving dozens of others to spread defective genes. In 1966, C. Lee Buxton published an article titled

“The Doctor’s Responsibility in Population Control” in which he reminded his colleges that “medical responsibility demands more action than just passing resolutions and making recommendations...” and advocated sterilization as a solution to the ‘problem’ of unwed mothers on welfare. In his view, the problem was multiplying “because the medical profession has controlled the death rate but has done very little about the birth rate.” The exact number of women- for women were by far the more common victims of eugenics- involuntarily sterilized after the end of World War II into the 1980’s remains unknown due to the lack of collected statistics, listings in medical records of coerced sterilizations as ‘voluntary’, the social and reluctance of women to file formal complaints, and the ignorance of individuals who never knew or were never told that they had been sterilized. (The reason I stop at the 1980’s is due to a lack of information on current trends.)

Euthanasia programs never gained popular ground in the Unites States, but did have their supporters before WWII. One egregious example is Dr. Harry Haiselden who advocated and practiced denial of life saving treatment (even of newborns) and thought it was acceptable for an institution to give inmates tuberculosis through infected milk because only those with ‘defective’ genes would get the disease and die. In the end, after the Holocaust, sterilization was the procedure of choice and was perfectly legal through the decision in Buck vs Bell decided by the Supreme Court. This court decision has never been overturned and has been used to support involuntary sterilizations since its publication and over the last sixty years. Here are some examples....

pictures from: https://mediachecker.wordpress.com/2013/11/10/bill-gates-its-gods-work-monsanto-vaccines-eugenics/, http://www.uvm.edu/~eugenics/whatis1.html, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Galton, http://predicthistunpredictpast.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-horrifying-american-roots-of-nazi.html, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/05/darwin_day_in_may_buck_vs_bell003669.html, http://galleryhip.com/american-eugenics.html, http://365daysofthis.blogspot.com/2013/02/define-eugenics.html
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Eugenics in America after World War II /1945 : An Introduction to the Term Paper

I know a few people have been waiting for this paper so here it is! I will need to break up the paper into a few posts but it will give a very basic outline of eugenics before World War II and our influence on other countries… and then move into how eugenics changed and what groups were affected by these legal policies. I do give current examples when I was able to find some and I am hopeful that after I share this research, maybe we can have a discussion about how to create community awareness and change in our areas…..

Here is my abstract paragraph:

The study of human history shows the many achievements and journeys of our race. From our humble beginnings, through the development of culture, religion, communities, hierarchy and power structures, to what and who we are today... well, as a less-than-humble commercial suggests- 'You've come a long way, Baby!' The path to the twenty-first century has not been smooth nor painless and, like our predecessors, we view ourselves, our lives, and our world as an improved and civilized place with the human race as the most intelligent and virtuous beings on it. Looking at the history of the human race, I see many recurring themes that are a part of every society; hope, love, beauty, want, etc. The theme of self-improvement or change that benefits ourselves and, in turn, society has been a reappearing idea that became more pronounced after the Enlightenment and the Renaissance along with the concept of improving groups of people to improve society. However, like all virtues, self-improvement or personal development can come with a dark side that is exposed when the virtue itself is placed on a pedestal or idolized without regard to the thoughts and rights of those we consider 'lesser' than us. When this happens, any noble or virtuous ideas are shown to be the shallow horrors that they can become ... the virtue is pulled and stretched out of its normal view to a pained and stretched mask of what it actually is. During the twentieth century, the themes of human breeding, genetics, prejudice, self-improvement and social progress collided to serve the virtue of better breeding and health of human beings. Eugenics, which means 'well born', was born and This movement was created in America and was so strong and large that it was able to spawn into other cultures and countries before its horrors and Machiavellianism tendencies became apparent enough to create a sizeable opposition that attempted to crush it. In response to the common belief that eugenics was no longer an important movement after World War II, I will discuss briefly the history of eugenics in the United States before WWII and then analyze the way the movement changed after the war. I will show that the ideas behind eugenics are still alive, well and being acted upon in our recent history. Recognizing the way the movement itself has adapted to our changing culture and its opposition helps place us in an informed position to focus on the fearful and reactive areas of ourselves and our society so we may work to create a more lasting and peaceful change in our thoughts and fears. Hopefully, that will help us change how we act upon our fears and prejudices and how we justify acting on them in our communities and society.

pictures from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Eugenics_supporters_hold_signs_on_Wall_Street.jpg, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States