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Deborah Josefson Nebraska
In a historic gesture Oregon’s governor, John Kitzhaber, has apologised to thousands of Oregonians who were forcibly sterilised while in the care of the state.
Between 1923 and 1981 Oregon actively practised eugenics and forcibly sterilised people who were mentally ill, had epilepsy, were criminals, or were homosexual. The state also sterilised residents of reform schools and girls who were considered promiscuous. A total of 2648 people were subjected to sterilisation by castration, tubal ligation, hysterectomy, or vasectomy.
Oregon’s eugenics bill was introduced into the state legislature in 1907 and was passed in its initial form in 1913. A Board of Eugenics was established in Oregon in 1923. Later euphemistically renamed the Board of Social Protection, it stood until 1983.
Kitzhaber had served on a subcommittee that worked to abolish the board when he was a young state senator in the early 1980s. The last known case brought before the board was in 1981.
Originally, Oregon’s eugenics law authorised the sterilisation of "habitual criminals, moral degenerates and sexual perverts." It was also used to curtail the reproductive capacity of the "feebleminded," the "insane," and those "likely to become a menace to society." Broadly interpreted, this meant that many orphans and juvenile delinquents were subjected to the procedure.
At least 100 residents of a reform school for girls were sterilised as a condition of their release.
In his speech Kitzhaber said: "A great wrong was done to over 2600 Oregonians. Most of these Oregonians were patients in state run institutions. The majority of them suffered from mental disorders and disabilities. Others were criminals, sufferers of epilepsy or other conditions which required institutional care. Many of them were children. Virtually all of them were vulnerable, helpless citizens entrusted to the care of the state by their families or by courts."
Kitzhaber concluded by apologising on behalf of the state and declaring 10 December "Human Rights in Oregon Day."
Oregon was one of 33 US states to enact eugenics laws between 1900 and 1925. It is believed that between 60 000and 100 000 people were subjected to forced sterilisation while eugenics was popular.
At the time social Darwinism was popular in the United States, and it was believed to be in the best interests of mentally ill people and wider society to limit the reproductive capability of people who were deemed genetically inferior.
The doctrine of eugenics was originally formulated by Francis Galton (1822-1911), a British scientist and cousin of Charles Darwin, who promulgated its theory and practice as a means of improving the human species. In the United States the eugenics movement gained momentum after it was endorsed by Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, son of the writer of the same name, in a landmark 1927 decision (Buck versus Bell) when he supported the procedure and declared that "three generations of imbeciles are enough."
Kitzhaber is the second governor to apologise for state endorsed forced
sterilisation. Last year Governor Mark Warner of Virginia apologised for his
state’s complicity and erected a memorial to the first woman sterilised under
Virginia’s eugenics law.
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