A Century of Eugenics in America: From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Era

7. Reassessing Eugenic Sterilization: The Case of North Carolina

141 seven Reassessing Eugenic Sterilization: The Case of North Carolina Johanna Schoen On March 5, 1968, Elaine Riddick, a 14-year-old African American girl from Winfall, North Carolina, was sterilized under authority of the North Carolina Eugenics Board. Elaine had just given birth to a baby boy—after being repeatedly raped by a 20-year-old man with a history of assault and incarceration. Taught not to talk about sex and fearing for her life as her rapist had threatened to kill her if she reported him, Elaine did not tell anybody about those rapes. Both of Elaine’s parents were alcoholics who were intermittently in prison. When her father lost custody of his children, Elaine’s six younger siblings were placed in an orphanage while Elaine and her older sister went to live with their grandmother, Miss Peaches. After Elaine’s pregnancy became apparent, a Perquimans County social worker concluded that Elaine must be both promiscuous and feebleminded and drew up a petition for eugenic sterilization. Although he no longer had custody of Elaine, her father was allowed to sign the consent form and, after authorization by the Eugenics Board, Elaine was sterilized.1 Elaine was one of more than 7,000 people sterilized between 1929 and 1975 under the authority of the North Carolina Eugenics Board. Eugenic science gained the ear of policy makers in the last quarter of the nineteenth century when many feared that immigration and the development of birth control threatened a strong United States dominated by a native-born white population. During the 1910s and 1920s, eugenicists helped to shape legislation that aimed to stem this perceived threat by restricting marriage, controlling immigration, and sterilizing members of the community whose offspring they considered undesirable. A U.S. 142 · Joh a nna Schoen Supreme Court decision in 1927, Buck v. Bell, upholding a Virginia court order to sterilize 17-year-old Carrie Buck for her supposed feeblemindedness , encouraged promoters of sterilization programs throughout the United States. The court was persuaded not only that Carrie Buck and her mother were “feebleminded” but also that Carrie Buck’s 7-monthold daughter had inherited the family’s feeblemindedness. Henceforth it was within the power of any state, unless specifically forbidden by its own constitution, to enact sterilization legislation. The Supreme Court decision was followed by a wave of new sterilization laws, and by 1929, 30 states—including North Carolina—had passed sterilization laws inspired by eugenic science.2 From the passage of the first sterilization law until the mid-1970s, when the last states ceased operation of their sterilization programs, over 63,000 people nationwide received eugenic sterilizations. With almost 20,000 sterilizations between 1909 and 1953, Californialedtheway,followedbyNorthCarolinaandVirginiawithover 7,000 sterilizations between the late 1920s and the mid-1970s.3 The wave of sterilization legislation of the 1910s and 1920s mainly addressedwhateugeniciststermed “inheritablefeeblemindedness.”During the first decades of the twentieth century, eugenic theorists thought that feeblemindedness was the result of defective “germ plasm.” This germ plasm, eugenicists believed, was carried from generation to generation. Astheexistenceofbadgermplasmcouldnotbediagnosedmedically,one could recognize feeblemindedness only by such social symptoms as poverty ,promiscuity,criminality,alcoholism,andillegitimacy—phenomena that were considered to lie at the root of many societal ills. Since eugenic scientists considered feeblemindedness, and thus undesirable social behaviors , to be hereditary, sterilization seemed to offer an easy medical solution to complex social problems.4 Thanks to the development of intelligence testing in the 1910s, scientists felt confident that they could measure mental capacity and confirm the diagnosis of feeblemindedness to which certain social problems had pointed. To eugenicists, tests of the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) were an unfailing tool for the diagnosis of feeblemindedness, lending scientific legitimacyandauthority.5 Testingallowedfortheimplementationofsterilization programs that depended on the ability of authorities to verify a diagnosis of feeblemindedness. An IQ rating of 70 and below quickly R eassessing Eugenic Ster ilization · 143 identifiedthefeeblemindedandpermittedhealthandwelfareprofessionals to move from diagnosis to treatment. North Carolina’s eugenic sterilization law fit squarely with state public welfare policies. Introduced by a former member of the Burke County Board of Public Welfare, the law permitted the sterilization of individuals who were “mentally diseased, feeble minded, or epileptic” and whose sterilization was considered “in the interest of the mental, moral, or physical improvement of the patient or inmate or for the public good.”6 Between1929and1932,stateofficialsmadesomewhathalfhearted use of the law, sterilizing only 49 people. But in 1932, a lawsuit resulted in the redrafting...