People sometimes take science in the wrong direction. In that vein, consider a blog post from Jennifer K. Wagner at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Integration of Genetic Healthcare Technologies. Ms. Wagner’s post explains that North Carolina is close to paying $ 50,000 of compensation to persons who are still alive and were subjected to involuntary sterilization. The post covers interesting ground and covers similar issues in other states – here’s an excerpt:
"Charmaine S. Fuller Cooper, Executive Director of NC Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation presented (pdf) the Task Force in April 2011 with the history of NC’s eugenics program, explaining that North Carolina adopted its first sterilization law in 1919, its second in 1929, and its third in 1933. North Carolina did not abolish its eugenics board until 1977. The involuntary sterilization law, however, was not repealed until 2003. Don Akin, State Center for Health Statistics, presented (pdf) the Task Force with estimates of how many of the >7,500 individuals sterilized through the program were expected to still be alive, calculating roughly 40% of the victims (~2,900 victims) would have survived to the year 2010, but placing a “realistic” estimate at 1,500-2,000 surviving victims."
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