Lec 10- eugenics and forced sterilization Flashcards
saudi arabia
sharia law’s introduction was significant liberalization where lots of human rights violations and justified by religion
because politics like history is not binary
eugenics definition
science of encouraging the breeding of the fit while discouraging breeding among the unfit
3 core ideas of eugenics
- feeblemindendess is hereditary
- the feeblemeinded were out breeding the fit
- heredity + differential fertility = race suicide
features of eugenics
- distinctly political and policy relevant
- held widespread support among the great and the good - the Webbs, Keynes - and particularly strong support among progressives
- powerful case of ideas mattering
- some 66,000 people eugenically sterlized in North America
explanations to eugenics
institutional account:
homes for the feebleminded and superintendents
intermediate institution: functions as a bridge or middle ground between other levels or states or institutions
superintendents
vast majority of forced sterilization occured within HFM (north carolina was the exception)
superintendents lobbied for sterilization kills and were decisive in CA, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Virginia, etc
he decided whether the institution would sterilize, who would be
power was unrestricted until the creation of Eugenics boards in the 1930s: the superintendent joined them and forwarded cases to them
they often conducted sterilizations, with or without the force of law
they embodied a lethal comination of medical power and biological knowledge
across the US, superintendents lobbied governors to adopt legislation
they lobbied hard and had a scientific consensus: medicaly, psychiotic, and social work professions were a constant source of support
how did eugenics thrive
- they had the prestige of science,
- the support of actors with privileged connetions to state legislators,
- and promised to save cast amounts of money
roman catholic church
eugenics’s NUMBER 1 OPP: only national organization opposing eugenics and led a seven-decade campaign against it
institutional continuity post WW2
superintendents remained int heir posts
pro-sterilization advocates re-anchored their argument
main lobbyists developed ever new arguments to justify sterilization
3 arguments reframed
- ensuring the rights of the child
- curbing excessive overall population growth
- curbing welfare abuse
1st argument: ensuring the rights of the child
1930s main american eugenic lobby groups. SLNJ (a lobby group) was the child of its founder Mrian S. Olden
birthright is born
should we not protect the birthright of the unborn from violation by defective and irresponsible parents?
1950s: during this period, the links between the birth control movement and the eugenics movement tightened: birth control leaders on both sides of the atlantic
2nd argument: population control
1930s: eugenicsts decided that population increase rather than decline was the big worry
1952: rockefeller money creates the population council
1957: gamble founds the pathfinder fund, designed to export birth control to the 3rd world
Paul Ehrlich
a prophet of doom
coined and heavily advocated for “the population bomb”
recommended a neo-imperialist project
it was apparently brutal and heartless but necessary for cutting out the cancer
did not take account how the global birth rates are decreasing
argument 3: welfare
until the 1960s, almost all sterlizations occured within state institutions
- the legal basis for extra-institutional sterilizations had been there for decades: since the early 1930s North Carolina authorized the sterilization of people outside institutions, making it an exception in the U.S.
social workers began recommending for sterilizations african americans on welfare
by the late 1960s, N.C. was repsonsible for the third larges number of sterilization in the USA
- from 1930, birthright, largely bankrolled by clarence gamble, helped set up a dense network of birth control clinics throughout the south
- once the civil rights act of 1964 granted african americans fulla ccess to federal welfare programs african american take up rate for welfare rose sharply
enter the federal government
from the 1950s, federal government began providing funds for birth control through departmnet of health, education and welfare
funds flowed out to the states, who in turn provides them to doctors and the birth control clinics set up by Gamble and Planned Parenthood
how eugenics ended
Planned parenthood oeprated 2/5 community action agencies providing birth control and sterilization
result: large-scale, largely coercive sterilization of black americans
100,000 in 1972-1973 alone
1973: the case of relf girls in alabama blew the story open thanks to the help of the RCC and judge forbid the practice in Relf v. Weinberg
conclusion
- role of home for the feebleminded and the superintendent
- institutional continuity plus reframing of argument in postwar years
- the choice, world population growth, and environmental movemnts were shot through with eugenicists and eugenic arguments
- argument is a mixed one: coercive sterilization above all post war was a function of the superintendents using their instituional position and the eugenic lobby groups successful reframing arguments
- success or failure was a function of the role of another lobby group: RCC
- WPG movement founded on a deeply misanthropic, neo-eugenic concern with differential fertility
institutions and abuse
possible links with indigenous, irish and people with developmental disabilites in residental schools
all institutions were isolated, all accorded inordinate, unregulated authority to governors
entering the institution was a rights-demanding process; the pwoer imbalance was incomplete and the invitation to abuse open
paradox with RCC
a defnder of the mentally ill and disabled in one narrative and was the main persecuotr of indigenous children in residential schools that it oeprated
When did alberta stop doing eugenics
1972
