North Carolina has a bit part in the dark history of genocide
by Michael Cook | 2 Aug 2020 |
A dark chapter in North Carolina’s history is its 20th century eugenics program. Apart from denying the human rights of many disabled people, it had a disproportionate effect on black citizens. According to a study from Duke University, it was designed to “breed out” non-working black residents.
“This suggests that for Blacks, eugenic sterilizations were authorized and administered with the aim of reducing their numbers in the future population -- genocide by any other name,” the authors state.
The article in the American Review Of Political Economy surveyed reports from the North Carolina Eugenics Board about 2,100 authorized sterilizations between 1958 and 1968.
Sterilization rates were much higher in counties with higher numbers of non-working black residents. This was not the case with other racial groups, suggesting, the authors say, that blacks were deemed to be inferior.
“The United Nations’ official definition of genocide includes ‘imposing measures to prevent births within a (national, ethnically, racial or religious) group,’ ” says co-author William A. Darity Jr., a professor of public policy, African and African American Studies and economics at Duke University. “North Carolina’s disproportionate use of eugenic sterilization on its Black citizens was an act of genocide.”
“Controlling Black bodies and their reproductive choices is nothing new,” says co-author Rhonda Sharpe. “Our study shows that North Carolina restricted reproductive freedom, using eugenics to disenfranchise Black residents.”
Bertween 1929 and 1974, the state’s eugenics program sterilized close to 7,600 men and woman, making it impossible for them to have children, according to the Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation. The youngest victims were 10 years old; 85% were female; 40% were minorities including African Americans and Native Americans.
The program had strong defenders -- as this paragraph from a 1950 pamphlet by the Winston-Salem-based Human Betterment League of North Carolina shows:
You wouldn't expect a moron to run a train or a feebleminded woman to teach school. You wouldn't want the state to grant driver's licenses to mental defectives. Yet each day the feebleminded and the mentally defective are entrusted with the most important and far reaching job of all the job of PARENTHOOD!
Michael Cook is editor of BioEdge
With borders still closed around the world, news is emerging of the plight of babies born to surrogate mothers who are separated from the parents or parent who commissioned them. In George there appear to be a few dozen, in Ukraine a couple of hundred. That was bad enough. Now it appears that there may be a thousand in Russia. How many are in the United States, the premier destination for parents who want a supportive legal system and good medical care? In Albania? In Kenya? In Cyprus? We report below on what is currently known.
NEWS THIS WEEK
by Michael Cook | Aug 02, 2020
A thousand babies -- at least -- are stranded in Russia with their surrogate mothersby Michael Cook | Aug 02, 2020
The case of Godelieva de Troyer shows the entrenched conflict of interest in Belgian euthanasiaby Michael Cook | Aug 02, 2020
Bertween 1929 and 1974, the state’s eugenics program sterilized close to 7,600 men and womanby Michael Cook | Aug 02, 2020
Pay people to be vaccinated, says Julian Savulescuby Michael Cook | Aug 02, 2020
What are the 'cancel culture' activists?by Michael Cook | Aug 02, 2020
The euthanasia pandemic. Super-spreaders. Sperm donors in Israel.IN DEPTH THIS WEEK
by Gary Schwitzer | Aug 02, 2020
Will we have one by the US election? By Christmas?by Patrick Foong | Aug 02, 2020
A thorny question for researchers and ethicistsBioEdge
L1, Unit 7, 11 Lord Street · Botany, NSW 2019 · Australia
Phone: +61 2 8005 8605
Mobile: 0422-691-615
.png)
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario