N.C to compensate victims of sterilzation program..feelings?

[vintagelover229]

Here is the article. I am horrified that our government would even allow this. Just goes to show how little we really DO know about what they are and aren't getting away with. Because 50k will totally compensate for not being able to ever have children.


http://news.yahoo.com/n-c-compensate-victims-sterilization-20th-century-eugenics-141035445--abc-news.html


They did this until the 1980's to about 65 THOUSAND people. One girl was raped at 14 and went to the hospital and they sterilized her after her delivery!

I get that some people aren't the best parents and that there are issues with that. But taking away someones right to bare a child is NOT something we should be allowing other people to determine for them

 

[LaraOnline]

Re: N.C to compensate victims of sterilzation program..feeli

Holy cow! That is outrageous!!!!
And they call this the free world??!
And isn't it interesting how this programme grew into a monster, to the point where pretty much anyone recommended for sterilisation was made to undergo the programme. And how doctors were put in position to become judge, jury and executioner?!

un-be-lievable

...and only a three-year opening for people to claim, too.
Surely, a violation is a violation regardless of whether you claim in the time frame.
although apparently most of the innocent have already passed away

Counselling is going to be offered...how does one come to terms with this experience, exactly?

You'd expect this kind of thing to come to light in China, frankly, not the US

 

[ame]

Re: N.C to compensate victims of sterilzation program..feeli

There seriously is not enough money in the world to offset this mess. I mean money isn't even enough. You took away someone else's chances to make a choice for themselves. I think it's such crap that someone in government thought that it was their right and their job to homogenize the country.

 

[Circe]

Re: N.C to compensate victims of sterilzation program..feeli

Horrifying on so, so many levels.

There's not enough money in the world to compensate those women for the loss of autonomy they suffered: there's not enough money in the world to slap those responsible on the wrist. 50K per person for the less than 2000 survivors they're estimating? Outrageous. What I would like is to see those responsible brought up on criminal charges, or at least stripped of their licenses - this is the clearest violation of the Hippocratic oath that I've seen since Tuskagee.

That said, can anybody clarify this line for me? "In North Carolina, 85 percent of sterilization were performed on women as young as 9-years-old. "The author doesn't cite it, and the wording is ... ambiguous. If it's saying what I think it's saying, there's all that much more to be disgusted by ....

 

[kenny]

Re: N.C to compensate victims of sterilzation program..feeli

Now disgusting.

This is even more embarrassing than Guantanamo.

 

[justginger]

Re: N.C to compensate victims of sterilzation program..feeli

I am glad to see some compensation being offered - usually when governments behave this outrageously it just gets denied and ignored (the rape of Nanking, anyone?). The act itself is something I'm fairly knowledgable about - wrote a 20 page research paper in college about how American eugenics influenced (or dare I say resulted in) Nazi Germany. Forced sterilizations, governmental declarations of "feeblemindedness", IBM developing and servicing the equipment use to track movement of Jews, "fitter family" competitions, government allocation of rewards and incentives for "superior" Americans to breed, cruel medical research on unknowing and unconsenting classes of people, etc. All true of the US in the early to mid 1900s, prior to the "cleansing" of Europe, and where Nazis all the way up to Hitler got the vast majority of their ideas. Every society has its black marks.

 

[MissStepcut]

Re: N.C to compensate victims of sterilzation program..feeli

I know some doctors who still encourage women they think shouldn't reproduce not to, and tell perfectly healthy women they "can't" have more. It's odd how people assume doctors approach their practices totally sterile of their own agendas.

 

[Gypsy]

Re: N.C to compensate victims of sterilzation program..feeli

I learned about the state eugenics programs years ago. The horror still hasn't dulled. The entire article is chilling but I think the last line will give me nightmares.

At the very least they are admitting to wrong and are apologizing for it in a tangible way and admit that there is no way to recompense the victims.

 

[Lady_Disdain]

Re: N.C to compensate victims of sterilzation program..feeli

Holy cow! That is outrageous!!!!
And they call this the free world??!

In my experience, Americans are convinced of the "free world" and "American democracy" myths and many are ignorant of many of the darker aspects of their own history. Some things, like the camps for Japanese and Japanese descendants during WWII, are being more discussed, which is good. I thought that eugenics in the USA was a commonly known historical fact. I guess it still isn't.

Recently, an American acquaintance commented that she had no idea why Latin Americans were so paranoid (her word) about American imperialism in the continent and that it made no sense, since the US represented democracy and free thought. I gave her a small primer on Latin American history in the 2nd half of the 20th century (CIA, puppet dictators, supporting coups against legitimate, democratic governments, etc) as well as the story of the United Fruit Company, which originated the term Banana Republic. She refused to accept that the USA could have been involved.

 

[ksinger]

Re: N.C to compensate victims of sterilzation program..feeli

Holy cow! That is outrageous!!!!
And they call this the free world??!

In my experience, Americans are convinced of the "free world" and "American democracy" myths and many are ignorant of many of the darker aspects of their own history. Some things, like the camps for Japanese and Japanese descendants during WWII, are being more discussed, which is good. I thought that eugenics in the USA was a commonly known historical fact. I guess it still isn't.

Recently, an American acquaintance commented that she had no idea why Latin Americans were so paranoid (her word) about American imperialism in the continent and that it made no sense, since the US represented democracy and free thought. I gave her a small primer on Latin American history in the 2nd half of the 20th century (CIA, puppet dictators, supporting coups against legitimate, democratic governments, etc) as well as the story of the United Fruit Company, which originated the term Banana Republic. She refused to accept that the USA could have been involved.

Had a long reply. Lost it. Grrr.

OK...for any number of reasons that fact might not be taught in schools, not the least of which is time constraints butting up against curriculum requirements. History is always growing, while the time to teach it in is not. The American eugenics movement, while real and interesting/chilling, won't pass muster when put up against all the other historical facts that MUST be taught. The teaching of history in the US is also politically loaded, to the point that even simply teaching a balanced view is viewed by certain groups as "revisionist" and is pushed against at the state and local levels. Much more could be said here, but no time this morning to say it in.

So, anyway...unless you're a self-starting history buff, you probably won't know about that, it's true.

LD - your assessment is pretty good as far as it goes, although not all Americans are unable to deal with/in denial about the darker aspects of our history, like your friend. Part of the American mythos we're weaned on is always seeing the US as "the good guys", and most are content with that. Reality, like always, is much more complicated and hard to deal with. And Americans, as a rule, don't like complicated....