Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924
66-537: Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924 The term feeble-minded was used from the late 19th century in Europe, the United States and Australasia for disorders later referred to as illnesses or deficiencies of the mind . At the time, mental deficiency encompassed all degrees of educational and social deficiency. Within the concept of mental deficiency, researchers established a hierarchy, ranging from idiocy , at
132-439: A Eugenic Philosophy" framed eugenics as a social philosophy —a philosophy with implications for social order . That definition is not universally accepted. Osborn advocated for higher rates of sexual reproduction among people with desired traits ("positive eugenics") or reduced rates of sexual reproduction or sterilization of people with less-desired or undesired traits ("negative eugenics"). In addition to being practiced in
198-465: A cause of physical and social pathology as much as a defense against it. "When under any kind of noxious influence an organism becomes debilitated, its successors will not resemble the healthy, normal type of the species, with capacities for development, but will form a new sub-species, which, like all others, possesses the capacity of transmitting to its offspring, in a continuously increasing degree, its peculiarities, these being morbid deviations from
264-646: A focus on intelligence. Early critics of the philosophy of eugenics included the American sociologist Lester Frank Ward , the English writer G. K. Chesterton , and Scottish tuberculosis pioneer and author Halliday Sutherland . Ward's 1913 article "Eugenics, Euthenics, and Eudemics", Chesterton's 1917 book Eugenics and Other Evils , and Franz Boas ' 1916 article " Eugenics " (published in The Scientific Monthly ) were all harshly critical of
330-610: A group known as The Famous Five , also pushed for various eugenic policies. Following the Mexican Revolution , the eugenics movement gained prominence in Mexico. Seeking to change the genetic make-up of the country's population, proponents of eugenics in Mexico focused primarily on rebuilding the population, creating healthy citizens, and ameliorating the effects of perceived social ills such as alcoholism, prostitution, and venereal diseases. Mexican eugenics, at its height in
396-724: A number of countries, eugenics was internationally organized through the International Federation of Eugenics Organizations . Its scientific aspects were carried on through research bodies such as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics , the Cold Spring Harbor Carnegie Institution for Experimental Evolution , and the Eugenics Record Office . Politically,
462-488: A popular eugenics movement emerged in the United Kingdom, and then spread to many countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, and most European countries (e.g. Sweden and Germany ). In this period, people from across the political spectrum espoused eugenic ideas. Consequently, many countries adopted eugenic policies, intended to improve the quality of their populations' genetic stock. Historically,
528-806: A short story, " Told in the Drooling Ward " (1914), which describes inmates at a California institution for the "feeble-minded". He narrates the story from the point of view of a self-styled "high-grade feeb". The California Home for the Care and Training of Feeble-minded Children, later the Sonoma Developmental Center , was located near the Jack London Ranch in Glen Ellen, California . Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924 The Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924
594-399: Is a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population . Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes by inhibiting the fertility of people and groups they considered inferior, or promoting that of those considered superior. The contemporary history of eugenics began in the late 19th century, when
660-661: Is aimed at encouraging reproduction among the genetically advantaged, for example, the eminently intelligent, the healthy, and the successful. Possible approaches include financial and political stimuli, targeted demographic analyses, in vitro fertilization, egg transplants, and cloning. Negative eugenics aimed to eliminate, through sterilization or segregation, those deemed physically, mentally, or morally "undesirable". This includes abortions, sterilization, and other methods of family planning. Both positive and negative eugenics can be coercive; in Nazi Germany, for example, abortion
726-423: Is artificially pieced together of bits of mental hygiene, child guidance, nutrition, speech development and correction, family problems, wealth consumption, food preparation, household technology, and horticulture. A nursery school and a school for little children are also included. The institute is actually justified in an official publication by the profound question of a girl student who is reported as asking, “What
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#1732783022416792-514: Is for the best interests of the patients and of society that any inmate of the institution under his care should be sexually sterilized, such superintendent is hereby authorized to perform, or cause to be performed by some capable physicians or surgeon, the operation of sterilization on any such patient confined in such institution afflicted with hereditary forms of insanity that are recurrent, idiocy, imbecility, feeble-mindedness or epilepsy; provided that such superintendent shall have first complied with
858-490: Is the connection of Shakespeare with having a baby?” The Vassar Institute of Euthenics bridges this gap! Eugenicist Charles Benedict Davenport noted in his article "Euthenics and Eugenics," reprinted in Popular Science Monthly : Thus the two schools of euthenics and eugenics stand opposed, each viewing the other unkindly. Against eugenics it is urged that it is a fatalistic doctrine and deprives life of
924-567: The Aktion T4 campaign, is understood by historians to have paved the way for the Holocaust . "All practices aimed at eugenics, any use of the human body or any of its parts for financial gain, and human cloning shall be prohibited." Hungarian Constitution "Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority." The first and most fundamental article of German basic law By
990-702: The Catholic Church was an opponent of state-enforced sterilizations, but accepted isolating people with hereditary diseases so as not to let them reproduce. Attempts by the Eugenics Education Society to persuade the British government to legalize voluntary sterilization were opposed by Catholics and by the Labour Party . The American Eugenics Society initially gained some Catholic supporters, but Catholic support declined following
1056-474: The General Assembly of Virginia in 1988 and amended in 2013, provides the procedural requirements necessary for a physician to lawfully sterilize a patient capable of giving informed consent and incapable of giving informed consent. A physician may perform a sterilization procedure on a patient if the patient is capable of giving informed consent, the patient consents to the procedure in writing, and
1122-591: The Industrial Revolution have resulted in an increased propagation of deleterious traits and genetic disorders . Compulsory sterilization , also known as forced or coerced sterilization, refers to any government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually done by surgical or chemical means. Purported justifications for compulsory sterilization have included population control , eugenics, limiting
1188-739: The Virginia General Assembly passed a joint resolution apologizing for the misuse of "a respectable, 'scientific' veneer to cover activities of those who held blatantly racist views." In 2015, the Assembly agreed to compensate individuals sterilized under the act. During the early 20th century, Harry H. Laughlin, director of the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, New York , became concerned that states were not enforcing their eugenics laws. In 1922, he published his book, Eugenical Sterilization in
1254-510: The founding father of Singapore , actively promoted eugenics as late as 1983. In 1984, Singapore began providing financial incentives to highly educated women to encourage them to have more children. For this purpose was introduced the "Graduate Mother Scheme" that incentivized graduate women to get married as much as the rest of their populace. The incentives were extremely unpopular and regarded as eugenic, and were seen as discriminatory towards Singapore's non-Chinese ethnic population. In 1985,
1320-453: The 1930 papal encyclical Casti connubii . In this, Pope Pius XI explicitly condemned sterilization laws: "Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of their subjects; therefore, where no crime has taken place and there is no cause present for grave punishment, they can never directly harm, or tamper with the integrity of the body, either for the reasons of eugenics or for any other reason." In fact, more generally, "[m]uch of
1386-490: The 1930s, influenced the state's health, education, and welfare policies. The scientific reputation of eugenics started to decline in the 1930s, a time when Ernst Rüdin used eugenics as a justification for the racial policies of Nazi Germany . Adolf Hitler had praised and incorporated eugenic ideas in Mein Kampf in 1925 and emulated eugenic legislation for the sterilization of "defectives" that had been pioneered in
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#17327830224161452-704: The Anglican clergymen William Inge and James Peile both wrote for the Eugenics Education Society. Inge was an invited speaker at the 1921 International Eugenics Conference , which was also endorsed by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York Patrick Joseph Hayes . Three International Eugenics Conferences presented a global venue for eugenicists, with meetings in 1912 in London, and in 1921 and 1932 in New York City. Eugenic policies in
1518-505: The Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded (1904–1908), in its Report in 1908 defined the feeble-minded as: [P]ersons who may be capable of earning a living under favourable circumstances, but are incapable from mental defect, existing from birth or from an early age: (1) of competing on equal terms with their normal fellows, or (2) of managing themselves and their affairs with ordinary prudence. Despite being pejorative , in its day
1584-462: The United States were first implemented by state-level legislators in the early 1900s. Eugenic policies also took root in France, Germany, and Great Britain. Later, in the 1920s and 1930s, the eugenic policy of sterilizing certain mental patients was implemented in other countries including Belgium, Brazil, Canada , Japan and Sweden . Frederick Osborn 's 1937 journal article "Development of
1650-590: The United States , which included a "MODEL EUGENICAL STERILIZATION LAW" in Chapter XV. By 1924, 15 states had enacted similar legislation; however, unlike Virginia, many or most or all of those states failed to rigidly enforce their laws requiring specific qualities in all persons seeking to marry. Forced sterilization, however, was much more common. By 1956, twenty-four states had laws providing for involuntary sterilization on their books. These states collectively reported having forcibly sterilized 59,000 people over
1716-656: The United States once he took power. Some common early 20th century eugenics methods involved identifying and classifying individuals and their families, including the poor, mentally ill, blind, deaf, developmentally disabled, promiscuous women , homosexuals, and racial groups (such as the Roma and Jews in Nazi Germany ) as "degenerate" or "unfit", and therefore led to segregation, institutionalization, sterilization, and even mass murder . The Nazi policy of identifying German citizens deemed mentally or physically unfit and then systematically killing them with poison gas, referred to as
1782-555: The Virginia Eugenical Sterilization Act and who were living as of February 1, 2015." If the person died on or after February 1, 2015, a claim may be submitted by the estate or personal representative of the person who died. Eugenics Eugenics ( / j uː ˈ dʒ ɛ n ɪ k s / yoo- JEN -iks ; from Ancient Greek εύ̃ (eû) 'good, well' and -γενής (genḗs) 'born, come into being, growing/grown')
1848-710: The bill did not get past the Appropriations committee in either year. In 2015, Patrick A. Hope reintroduced the Justice for Victims of Sterilization Act, and although the Act did not get past the Appropriations committee, an amendment was added to the budget bill to give compensation of up to $ 25,000 per person who was "involuntarily sterilized pursuant to the Virginia Eugenical Sterilization Act." The legislature authorized compensation of up to $ 25,000 per claim to provide compensation for individuals sterilized "pursuant to
1914-865: The child was deemed incapable of living a Spartan life, the child was usually killed in a chasm near the Taygetus mountain known as the Apothetae . Further trials intended to discern a child's fitness included bathing them in wine and exposing them to the elements to fend for themselves, with the intention of ensuring that only those considered strongest survived and procreated. And so selective infanticide seems to have been as widespread in Ancient Rome as it had already long been in Athens . The term eugenics and its modern field of study were first formulated by Francis Galton in 1883, directly drawing on
1980-610: The disabled at home. Similar concerns had been raised by early eugenicists and social Darwinists during the 19th century, and continued to play a role in scientific and public policy debates throughout the 20th century. More recent concerns about supposed dysgenic effects in human populations were advanced by the controversial psychologist Richard Lynn , notably in his 1996 book Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations , which argued that changes in selection pressures and decreased infant mortality since
2046-426: The doctrines; it comprehends them both. [...] [I]n the generations to come, the teachings and practice of euthenics [...] [may] yield greater result because of the previous practice of the principles of eugenics. The more rational the race becomes, the better roads, ships, tools, machines, foods, medicines and the like it will produce to aid itself, though it will need them less. The more sagacious and just and humane
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2112-674: The early geneticists were not themselves Darwinians. Eugenics became an academic discipline at many colleges and universities and received funding from various sources. Organizations were formed to win public support for and to sway opinion towards responsible eugenic values in parenthood, including the British Eugenics Education Society of 1907 and the American Eugenics Society of 1921. Both sought support from leading clergymen and modified their message to meet religious ideals. In 1909,
2178-451: The end of World War II , many eugenics laws were abandoned, having become associated with Nazi Germany . H. G. Wells , who had called for "the sterilization of failures" in 1904, stated in his 1940 book The Rights of Man: Or What Are We Fighting For? that among the human rights, which he believed should be available to all people, was "a prohibition on mutilation , sterilization, torture , and any bodily punishment". After World War II,
2244-464: The idea of eugenics has been used to argue for a broad array of practices ranging from prenatal care for mothers deemed genetically desirable to the forced sterilization and murder of those deemed unfit. To population geneticists , the term has included the avoidance of inbreeding without altering allele frequencies ; for example, British-Indian scientist J. B. S. Haldane wrote in 1940 that "the motor bus, by breaking up inbred village communities,
2310-450: The individual patient and the welfare of society may be promoted in certain cases by the sterilization of mental defectives under careful safeguard and by competent and conscientious authority, and Whereas, such sterilization may be effected in males by the operation of vasectomy and in females by the operation of salpingectomy, both of which said operations may be performed without serious pain or substantial danger to
2376-540: The inmate of his institution named in such petition, the operation of vasectomy if upon a male and of salpingectomy if upon a female. A copy of said petition must be served upon the inmate together with a notice in writing designating the time and place in the said institution, not less than thirty days before the presentation of such petition to said special board of directors when and where said board may hear and act upon such petition — Virginia General Assembly , March 20, 1924 An act, passed by
2442-407: The law as constitutional and it became a model law for sterilization laws in other states. Justice Holmes wrote that a patient may be sterilized "on complying with the very careful provisions by which the act protects the patients from possible abuse." Between 1924 and 1979, Virginia sterilized over 7,000 individuals under the act. The act was never declared unconstitutional; however, in 2001,
2508-616: The life of the patient, and Whereas, the Commonwealth has in custodial care and is supporting in various State institutions many defective persons who if now discharged or paroled would likely become by the propagation of their kind a menace to society but who if incapable of procreating might properly and safely be discharged or paroled and become self-supporting with benefit both to themselves and to society, and Whereas, human experience has demonstrated that heredity plays an important part in
2574-454: The mentally ill), compulsory sterilization , forced abortions or forced pregnancies , ultimately culminating in genocide . By 2014, gene selection (rather than "people selection") was made possible through advances in genome editing , leading to what is sometimes called new eugenics , also known as "neo-eugenics", "consumer eugenics", or "liberal eugenics"; which focuses on individual freedom and allegedly pulls away from racism, sexism or
2640-452: The midst of a severe mental epidemic; of a sort of black death of degeneration and hysteria, and it is natural that we should ask anxiously on all sides: 'What is to come next?" Max Simon Nordau (1892) The idea of progress was at once a social, political and scientific theory. The theory of evolution, as described in Darwin's The Origin of Species , provided for many social theorists
2706-477: The most severe end of the scale; to imbecility , at the median point; and to feeble-mindedness at the highest end of functioning. The last was conceived of as a form of high-grade mental deficiency. The development of the ranking system of mental deficiency has been attributed to Sir Charles Trevelyan in 1876, and was associated with the rise of eugenics . The term and hierarchy had been used in that sense at least 10 years previously. The earliest recorded use of
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2772-402: The movement advocated measures such as sterilization laws. In its moral dimension, eugenics rejected the doctrine that all human beings are born equal and redefined moral worth purely in terms of genetic fitness. Its racist elements included pursuit of a pure " Nordic race " or " Aryan " genetic pool and the eventual elimination of "unfit" races. Many leading British politicians subscribed to
2838-579: The necessary scientific foundation for the idea of social and political progress. The terms evolution and progress were in fact often used interchangeably in the 19th century. The rapid industrial, political and economic progress in 19th-century Europe and North America was, however, paralleled by a sustained discussion about increasing rates of crime, insanity, vagrancy, prostitution, and so forth. Confronted with this apparent paradox, evolutionary scientists, criminal anthropologists and psychiatrists postulated that civilization and scientific progress could be
2904-498: The normal form – gaps in development, malformations and infirmities" Dysgenics refers to any decrease in the prevalence of traits deemed to be either socially desirable or generally adaptive to their environment due to selective pressure disfavouring their reproduction. In 1915 the term was used by David Starr Jordan to describe the supposed deleterious effects of modern warfare on group-level genetic fitness because of its tendency to kill physically healthy men while preserving
2970-623: The opposition to eugenics during that era, at least in Europe, came from the right." The eugenicists' political successes in Germany and Scandinavia were not at all matched in such countries as Poland and Czechoslovakia , even though measures had been proposed there, largely because of the Catholic church's moderating influence. "Any new set of conditions which renders a species' food and safety very easily obtained, seems to lead to degeneration" Ray Lankester (1880) "We stand now in
3036-521: The original nature that is bred into man, the better schools, laws, churches, traditions and customs it will fortify itself by. There is no so certain and economical a way to improve man's environment as to improve his nature. According to Plutarch , in Sparta every proper citizen's child was inspected by the council of elders, the Gerousia , which determined whether or not the child was fit to live. If
3102-443: The patient's mental disability renders the patient permanently unable to care for a child, and the procedure conforms with medical standards. In February 2001, the Virginia General Assembly passed a joint resolution , introduced by Mitchell Van Yahres , expressing regret for Virginia's experience with eugenics. In the 2002 session, Van Yahres introduced a joint resolution honoring the memory of Carrie Buck. This joint resolution
3168-402: The physician explains the consequences of the procedure and alternative methods of contraception. A court may authorize a physician to perform a sterilization on a mentally incompetent adult or child after the procedural requirements are met and the court finds with clear and convincing evidence the patient is or is likely to engage sexual activity, no other contraceptive is reasonably available,
3234-695: The practice of "imposing measures intended to prevent births within [a national, ethnical, racial or religious] group" fell within the definition of the new international crime of genocide, set out in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide . The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union also proclaims "the prohibition of eugenic practices, in particular those aiming at selection of persons". Lee Kuan Yew ,
3300-404: The preceding 50 years. Virginia implemented Laughlin's "Model Eugenical Sterilization Law" with little modification two years after it was published. An emergency existing, this act shall be enforced from its passage. Chap. 394. - An ACT to provide for the sexual sterilization of inmates of State institutions in certain cases. [S B 281] Whereas, both the health of
3366-464: The prevention and removal of contagious disease and parasites . In a New York Times article of May 23, 1926, Rose Field notes of the description, "the simplest [is] efficient living". It is also described as "a right to environment", commonly as dual to a "right of birth" that correspondingly falls under the purview of eugenics. The influential historian of education Abraham Flexner questions its scientific value in stating: [T]he “science”
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#17327830224163432-430: The rapidly growing movement. Several biologists were also antagonistic to the eugenics movement, including Lancelot Hogben . Other biologists who were themselves eugenicists, such as J. B. S. Haldane and R. A. Fisher , however, also expressed skepticism in the belief that sterilization of "defectives" (i.e. a purely negative eugenics) would lead to the disappearance of undesirable genetic traits. Among institutions,
3498-700: The recent work delineating natural selection by his half-cousin Charles Darwin . He published his observations and conclusions chiefly in his influential book Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development . Galton himself defined it as "the study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations". The first to systematically apply Darwinism theory to human relations, Galton believed that various desirable human qualities were also hereditary ones, although Darwin strongly disagreed with this elaboration of his theory. And it should also be noted that many of
3564-505: The requirements of this act. 2. Such superintendent shall first present to the special board of directors of his hospital or colony a petition stating the facts of the case and the grounds of his opinion, verified by his affidavit to the best of his knowledge and belief, and praying that an order may be entered by said board requiring him to perform or have performed by some competent physician to be designated by him in his said petition or by said board in its order, upon
3630-524: The spread of HIV , and ethnic genocide . Eugenic feminism was a current of the women's suffrage movement which overlapped with eugenics. Originally coined by the Lebanese-British physician and vocal eugenicist Caleb Saleeby , the term has since been applied to summarize views held by prominent feminists of Great Britain and the United States. Some early suffragettes in Canada, especially
3696-400: The stimulus toward effort. Against euthenics the other side urges that it demands an endless amount of money to patch up conditions in the vain effort to get greater efficiency. Which of the two doctrines is true? The thoughtful mind must concede that, as is so often the case where doctrines are opposed, each view is partial, incomplete and really false. The truth does not exactly lie between
3762-566: The term in the English language dates from 1534, when it appears in one of the first English translations of the New Testament , the Tyndale Bible . A biblical commandment to "Comforte the feble mynded" is included in 1 Thessalonians. A London Times editorial of November 1834 describes the long-serving former Prime Minister Lord Liverpool as a "feeble-minded pedant of office". The British government's Royal Commission on
3828-592: The term was considered, along with idiot , imbecile , and moron , to be a relatively precise psychiatric classification. The American psychologist Henry H. Goddard , who coined the term moron , was the director of the Vineland Training School (originally the Vineland Training School for Backward and Feeble-minded Children) at Vineland, New Jersey . Goddard was known for strongly postulating that "feeble-mindedness"
3894-753: The theories of eugenics. Winston Churchill supported the British Eugenics Society and was an honorary vice president for the organization. Churchill believed that eugenics could solve "race deterioration" and reduce crime and poverty. As a social movement, eugenics reached its greatest popularity in the early decades of the 20th century, when it was practiced around the world and promoted by governments, institutions, and influential individuals. Many countries enacted various eugenics policies, including: genetic screenings , birth control , promoting differential birth rates, marriage restrictions , segregation (both racial segregation and sequestering
3960-783: The transmission of sanity, idiocy, imbecility, epilepsy and crime, now, therefore 1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That whenever the superintendent of the Western State Hospital, or of the Eastern State Hospital, or of the Southwestern State Hospital, or of the Central State Hospital, or the State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded , shall be of opinion that it
4026-615: Was a U.S. state law in Virginia for the sterilization of institutionalized persons "afflicted with hereditary forms of insanity that are recurrent, idiocy, imbecility, feeble-mindedness or epilepsy”. It greatly influenced the development of eugenics in the twentieth century. The act was based on model legislation written by Harry H. Laughlin and challenged by a case that led to the United States Supreme Court decision of Buck v. Bell . The Supreme Court upheld
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#17327830224164092-488: Was a common criterion for many states in the United States, which embraced eugenics as a progressive measure, to mandate the compulsory sterilization of such patients. In the 1927 US Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell , Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes closed the 8–1 majority opinion upholding the sterilization of Carrie Buck , with the phrase, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." Buck, her mother and daughter were all classified as feeble-minded. Jack London published
4158-458: Was a hereditary trait, most likely caused by a single recessive gene. Goddard rang the eugenic "alarm bells" in his 1912 work, The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness , about those in the population who carried the recessive trait despite outward appearances of normality. In the first half of the 20th century, a diagnosis of "feeble-mindedness, in any of its grades"
4224-853: Was a powerful eugenic agent." Debate as to what exactly counts as eugenics continues today. Early eugenicists were mostly concerned with factors of measured intelligence that often correlated strongly with social class. Although it originated as a progressive social movement in the 19th century, in contemporary usage in the 21st century, the term is closely associated with scientific racism . New, liberal eugenics seeks to dissociate itself from old, authoritarian eugenics by rejecting coercive state programs and relying on parental choice. Eugenic programs included both positive measures, such as encouraging individuals deemed particularly "fit" to reproduce, and negative measures, such as marriage prohibitions and forced sterilization of people deemed unfit for reproduction. In other words, positive eugenics
4290-447: Was illegal for women deemed by the state to be fit. Euthenics ( / j uː ˈ θ ɛ n ɪ k s / ) is the study of improvement of human functioning and well-being by improvement of living conditions . "Improvement" is conducted by altering external factors such as education and the controllable environments , including environmentalism , education regarding employment , home economics , sanitation , and housing , as well as
4356-620: Was passed by the House and Senate in February 2002. In the same year, Bob Marshall , introduced a joint resolution referencing the 2001 eugenics resolution and calling for the establishment of a subcommittee to study issues related to stem cell research; however, this resolution did not pass the Rules committee. In 2013 and 2014, Marshall introduced the Justice for Victims of Sterilization Act to give compensation for up to $ 50,000 per person; however,
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