[To Hell With Poverty]

Frustrating that “the State” should have to pay for what the doctor did. I know this woman deserves something, but why force today’s taxpayers to face the punishment deserved by yesterday’s lawmakers?

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Unfortunately, the people of the State of North Carolina left the burden of this misguided, brutal, and monstrous policy for future generations to bear. What a horrible, sickening story.

[fetal heart beats by 21st day]

Unfortunately, this was state-sanctioned and wide-spread in North Carolina and Virginia.

There were appeals all the way to the SCOTUS, and they ENDORSED it.

Black’s book “ America’s War Against the Weak” chronicles it.

Wagglebee, I think I am missing part of the title. Do you know it?

[AmericanExceptionalist]

Frustrating that “the State” should have to pay for what the doctor did. I know this woman deserves something, but why force today’s taxpayers to face the punishment deserved by yesterday’s lawmakers?

You make a fair point. I simply don't know what the most just solution might be.

As you point out, the victim mentioned above does deserve some compensation--although monetary damages seem hugely inadequate. To penalize today's taxpayers for the misdeeds of yesteryear's lawmakers, however, does not seem quite like an equitable solution. In fact, it is reminiscent of "affirmative action" programs that punish college applicants, prospective employees, or anyone else because of the misdeeds of others in past generations.

However, since it would be impossible to have this woman (or other victims of eugenics) "made whole," in the words of one North Carolina lawmaker, by simply excoriating past lawmakers, this seems like a non-solution.

But that still does not prove that it is okay to penalize those who are innocent of any wrongdoing in this case.

It is a serious conundrum. I just don't know what sort of action would most nearly satisfy the interests of justice.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Because the states were up to their eyeballs in the sterilization movement, beginning in the 1920s and extending into the early 1970s. Virginia and its Lynchburg institute was notorious, and in fact, a couple of my relatives were picked-up off the road, sent to Lynchburg, and sterilized in the 1930s because they were poor, not stupid, but poor.

If the North Carolina was involved in this woman's sterilization, then it ought to be held accountable, even though it happened over 30 years ago.

Here're more details on state-sponsored sterilizations:

http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay8text.html