Eugenics

OK-so I actually stayed awake long enough to watch the newest news show with Brian Williams. For whatever reason, I really like his personality, even when he took over for one that guy about 10ish years ago or so on the Nightly News. At any rate, he hosted a story that one of his coworkers investigated about Eugenics. In particular one woman's story about how she was sterilized at a young age and it wasn't exactly because she went to see these doctors for that reason.
I am just a bit outraged and in shock on the whole thing. I'm quite interested in learning more about the whole thing in greater detail. I just can't believe our nation sometimes! Granted, the place where most of the flack is coming from is in North Carolina, but other states performed these procedures as well and it was legal! I just don't know what to make it of it. There's so many things wrong with this whole sterilization thing.
1. It started as a government reform to reduce the number of people on welfare and the amount of monies that were going into the financial support of families/people who had to live off the state.
2. The solution: Sterilize anyone who fit the bill-promiscuous, "feeble-minded," and I guess poverty stricken, handicapped in anyway, and then it shifted to predominately a racial issue. Then this continued to spiral out of control and young girls were being sterilized against their will because how could a girl of 8 (using the report example) know exactly what the doctor was telling her? How could she know what those terms meant? How could the "legal guardian" of the time give actual permission to do so? It's possible that consent was given, but I have a reasonable suspicious to think it wasn't. I even suppose that it's possible that the doctors' might not have even explained exactly what the procedure was or the permanence of the procedure, if any explanation was given at all. Girls that were raped were considered promiscuous. This angers me. There is nothing about rape that would even make me think for one second that a girl/woman/any human being was actually promiscuous. In my opinion, rape is one of the most ugly crimes that can be committed. It is so violating,disgusting, violent, and sick! It has some of the most devastating effects on a victim, effects that can last for life, physical, emotional, and mental. AND then for the government to label a rape victim as promiscuous is like a total slap in the face. AND as a bonus they sterilize them! It's an outrage! I get a little fired up about this.
3. While in today's world, some would like to sterilize those that are a drain to our society and continue to procreate-little did we know that not too long ago, it was an actual option.
4. Some compare the procedure to Hitler-esce social cleansing. I mean, seriously, think of the long term effects if this procedure was never stopped and remained popular or worse, grew in popularity. A certain gene pool would be killed off eventually. Would it have been your family? Let's say in the early, most naive beginning of this practice, one young lady was sterilized. Imagine this lady was your great-grandma. How many fewer children would there be in the world if in fact it was your great-grandma? In my case, if I use just my grandma, it would have been 30 less children in the world, as we stand now. Now, lets move onto the ever-growing-in- popularity years and estimate about 3 women a day were getting sterilized. OK-in a week of 5 working days, that's 15 women. That will produce no offspring. Their genes have ended. Their unique genetic make-up has come to a stop. (Assuming, these women have not already had children) Now, lets move into the years where it was less about welfare reform and more about racial issues. 15 black women a week sterilized, then 60 black women a month. There will be 60 less women of that race to pass down their genes. Over time, less and less black people all together. Looks something like ethnic cleansing to me.
5. The report did state that it was 60% white being sterilized and 40% black. Well...I'd like to see how those numbers were computed. I believe that the southern states have a higher black population. Since it was occurring all over the U.S. that could skew the percentage or at least be a reasonable argument that this weak form of ethnic cleansing was occurring in the south while in northern states it was still in it's more "Welfare reform" state.
6. I would like to know were these nurses and doctors aware of the implication of what exactly they were doing. Did they have good intentions and were just ignorant and then it got into the wrong hands and it turned into something else. Civil Rights Reform was going on at this time, perhaps this was a medical means by which licensed people could control a population they wished not to keep. It just got into the wrong hands when, in fact, in the beginning, it was started with good, but ignorant, intentions. I would really like to interview someone who was involved in the procedures at the time.
7. Did anyone ever stand up and say, "No, this is wrong." "I will not perform this operation." "This practice is against my ethics and moral character."? I wonder the backlash...
This Eugenics practice was so wrong. So off the charts wrong. I am so glad it didn't grow in popularity and reach a national devastating level-our nation would have been stagnant. At the same time-I'm so sorry it happened at all to all those people who just didn't know what they were agreeing to, if they agreed at all. And I'm so sorry for those that were naive and ignorant to perform such a procedure.
8. Do I think that sterilization is a procedure that should still be performed? Yes-I do. I think any grown, mature person should have the right to go and be sterilized if they so choose. AND it's very important to me that the procedure has medical guidelines and is legal. If it were illegal, the patient wouldn't have any rights if something did go wrong and no guarantee of a safe, licensed doctor bound by many many laws to provide the procedure.
9. On my final note, in my opinion, the North Carolina governor does have it right when she said, there is not enough money in the world to make-up for what was done to these people. She's right. There's not. An apology is not good enough. Nothing is good enough. I'm afraid that there is nothing that can be done to satisfy the victims. The victims can cause as much fuss as they want, but what can anyone do? Seriously-what can be done to appease them, to make amends? IT's senseless, devastating, tragic, and nothing can be done to change it.