Posted on 06/23/2011 7:17:26 AM PDT by surroundedbyblue
There is nothing the state of North Carolina can do, Elaine Riddick says, to make up for forcing her to be sterilized when she was 14 years old.
"They cut me open like I was a hog," the woman who now lives in Atlanta said at a Wednesday hearing in Raleigh held by a panel working to determine compensation for thousands of victims of the state's defunct eugenics program. "My heart bleeds every single day. I'm crushed. What can they do for me?"
Riddick, 57, was one of 13 people who spoke at the meeting, and one of nearly 3,000 living victims of the program, which was shuttered in 1977, three years after the last sterilization was performed. The public hearing is part of a process unprecedented not just in North Carolina, but nationally. About a half dozen other states have joined North Carolina in apologizing for past eugenics programs, but none of the others have put together a plan to compensate victims of involuntary sterilization.
"It's hard for me to accept or understand or even try to figure out why these kinds of atrocious acts could be carried out in this country," said Gov. Beverly Perdue, who appointed the Eugenics Task Force that convened Wednesday's hearing.
Any plan that involves financial compensation will be a hard sell, though, in a year when the state budget includes deep cuts to numerous programs. The General Assembly passed the $19.7 billion spending plan over Perdue's veto. Bills in the legislature aimed at providing specific financial and medical compensation for victims have stalled.
"We've made some baby steps, but as we get closer to the big one, there's some pushback," said state Rep. Larry Womble, D-Forsyth, the lawmaker who's been most active on the issue.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Actually, it’s Al Gore asking people to curtail their breeding habits so that human environmental impact is diminished.
There’s that abortion thing too.
Which is worse?
A nation endorsing eugenics as population control to reduce the number of unwanted black and minority children
or
A nation endorsing abortion as population control to reduce the number of unwanted black and minority children?
I am legitimately shocked and horrified. How is this Constitutional at all? I had no idea such evil was going on in the US.
What else don’t we know?
Neither is appropriate, moral, right, or acceptable. What’s your point?
the past IS rather interesting...
Freepmail wagglebee to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.
FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
The eugenics program ended 34 years ago.
Could this be more rewritting of history to create avenues for wealth redistribution?
No.... Our governments wouldn't stoop so low. Would they?
And I still do. Someone who is irresponsible enough to pop out or sire a child (or in many situations, children) that will have to be paid for by the state should be required to be spayed or neutered as a condition of taking welfare (I'd throw in exceptions if a girl or woman was raped). Our country is going broke paying for these kinds of programs and the population of people who spend their entire lives on some form of welfare is going higher and higher. These people continue to lavish themselves at the expense of those of us who actually contribute something to society. Where does it end?
Will any rewards paid out to these people have the costs that the state paid to raise their children deducted?
It ends when the entitlements end, not when we devale human life.
I pity people like you who just don’t get it. Sick.
It ends when the entitlements end, not when we devalue human life.
I pity people like you who just don’t get it. Sick.
Yes, but several thousand of the victims are still alive.
Could this be more rewritting of history to create avenues for wealth redistribution?
Are you some sort of statist that believes the government should not be held accountable when they deprive someone of their rights?
I assume that if the government arbitrarily took YOU into custody, and performed invasive medical procedures against your will, YOU would think it was okay?
And how do you end entitlements when we keep getting outvoted by people who do not work, pay no taxes and suck out more and more government benefits off of the back of those of us who do work and pay taxes?
And yes, I do devalue any person who believes that he or she is entitled to my paycheck. As I am forced to pay for that person's lifestyle, I have every right, moral, legal or otherwise, to hold this opinion.
So, I assume you think that "Three generations of imbeciles is enough," was one of the Supreme Court's greatest rulings?
Are you aware that very few of the victims of the eugenics programs ever had children? Or, do you think it was probably better that way?
Since you believed that it is okay for the government to forcibly sterilize people do you also believe that it would be okay for the government to force women to have abortions? What about death panels, I assume you are all in favor of them too?
You do realize that Free Republic is a PRO-LIFE forum don't you?
I don’t agree with it. It was wrong, but if you read the article the reason this is being dregged up now is that the “social justice” crew have the victims seeing dollar signs. To paraphrase the old saying, “Crap Happens” most of the people involved in the creation of the original Eugenics laws are long since dead. Why should the taxpayers now be forced to pay huge monetary settlements for something the state did decades ago?
You never heard of the Mississippi appendectomy or the Carrie Buck case? People who were considered feeble minded were regularly sterilized with the approval of their families and most of the folks in the community up to the late 60s.
I’d say eugenics...those people have had to live with it.
Got that right, especially if it involves Muslims.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.