TITLE: For decades, North Dakota allowed the sterilization of those deemed ‘unfit’ or ‘feeble-minded’
https://www.inforum.com/news/north-dakota/for-decades-north-dakota-allowed-the-sterilization-of-those-deemed-unfit-or-feeble-minded
EXCERPT: At its height, a third of the nation’s population lived in the 32 states that had laws allowing sterilization, according to [history grad student Levi] Magnuson. Indiana passed the first sterilization law in 1907.
Before allowing sterilization, North Dakota’s first step along the path to eugenics came with passage of a miscegenation law in 1909, prohibiting marriages between white and Black residents, Magnuson found.
It was the first law in North Dakota, Magnuson believes, to define which groups can or cannot marry.
Four years later, in 1913, North Dakota joined a growing number of states in passing sterilization laws. Although legal, sterilization was at first slow to be adopted in North Dakota.
Some of the hesitancy came from the fact that there was no appeal process for sterilization, a point made by the state attorney general in 1925.
“A lot of it had to do with consent,” Magnuson said. Also, he said, there were concerns about possible legal ramifications for those who performed the procedure.
The law was revised in 1927, including a new appeal process. Also in 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that states can sterilize people, a decision that included the memorable line from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
Further clarification came in 1931, Magnuson said, when North Dakota defined a "feeble-minded" person as “... any person, minor or adult, other than an insane person, who is so mentally defective as to be incapable of managing himself and his affairs, and to require supervision, control and care for his own, or the public’s welfare.”
Following the legal clarifications, the onset of the Great Depression and the resulting financial strains caused sterilizations to “skyrocket” in the 1930s in North Dakota, reaching a total of 536 by 1942.
TITLE: Over 500 Survivors of Forced Sterilization Applied for Reparations. Fewer Than a Quarter Have Been Accepted.
https://jezebel.com/over-500-survivors-of-forced-sterilization-applied-for-1850999872
EXCERPT: California’s eugenics program—considered one of the most ruthlessly effective in the U.S. during a period when state-funded eugenics programs were rampant—lasted from 1909 to 1979, in which thousands were sterilized, most of whom were targeted for being disabled, Black, Indigenous, or for just being poor. Between 1919 and 1952, at least 20,000 people were sterilized in state institutions alone. And, despite a 2014 law banning the forced sterilization of incarcerated people in California, one report found doctors sterilized nearly 150 incarcerated women between 2006 and 2010. The 2020 documentary Belly of the Beast reported that prison records showed close to 1,400 people may have been subjected to forced sterilizations in state prisons between 1997 and 2013.
TITLE: A Vermont eugenics historian repeatedly hears ‘What is the relevance today?’ A new book offers an answer.
https://vtdigger.org/2023/11/07/a-vermont-eugenics-historian-repeatedly-hears-what-is-the-relevance-today-a-new-book-offers-an-answer/
EXCERPT: “Despite growing scholarship, we continue to have limited knowledge about the extent of eugenics,” writes [Historian Mercedes] de Guardiola, who testified before the state Legislature in 2021 when it formally apologized for past practices. “Forgetting or ignoring eugenics further allows eugenicists’ work to fester by precluding any attempt to address its impact.”
TITLE: The Eugenic Circus Comes to Town: A Downtown hotel is hosting a natalist, eugenics-aligned conference in December. Why Austin?
https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2023-11-03/the-eugenic-circus-comes-to-town/
EXCERPT: Eugenics, an early 20th-century movement, was defined by the erroneous belief that desirable and undesirable traits are inscribed in genes and that social policy could surpass natural selection to create a superior species. That reasoning was a basis for Nazis committing genocide. The fact that natalists pair white nationalism with pseudoscientific genetics talk isn't surprising to Jonathan Marks, a UNC Charlotte anthropologist and expert in the history of eugenics. "What's new is the encouragement of people they think are good to have more babies."
Razib Khan – one of two conference speakers with an Austin address – has spent the last decade blogging and speaking on podcasts in support of the idea that race is a biological truth. Khan is a genetics Ph.D. program dropout. "Basically, he gave up a potential scientific career to be a darling for the racist factions of the right," said Aaron Panofsky, a sociologist at UCLA's Institute for Society and Genetics. An article authored by Panofsky and other sociologists identified Khan, specifically, as one of the faces of a "loosely organized, mostly-online movement of amateur science enthusiasts (with a few ties to professional scientists) aiming to corral contemporary genetics toward racial realism and hierarchy."
There's broad scientific consensus that race isn't genetic, but "a social category invented to justify slavery," as a 2021 article in the journal of Evolution, Medicine, & Public Health put it. Khan, though, has discussed "race" as something akin to species. In a 2012 blog post for Discover he asserted that African tribes should be considered "distinct races." In the same blog, he questioned whether African "Bushmen" should be considered human while bonobos are not, asking, "Where do you draw the line?