HSQ: N. Carolina Forced Sterilization

I wish I could say that this didn’t happen in Norway, but it did up to 1977. The racial cleansing program that was initiated in 1935 under Alfred Ploetz’s influence targetted mentally disabled, Romanis and other misfits.

The year after, Alfred Ploetz was nominated for Nobel’s peace prize, and the year after that he joined the Nazi party.

I think genocide, as it was called in the linked-to documentary, is an apt description. When you attack the right of a group of people to have children, you also attack their continued existence.

edited 18th Dec '11 3:00:26 PM by nils

The origins of the Eugenics and it's practice in the original form right through the 70's in most places is a damn ugly thing.

Some people splintered off supposedly and wanted the overall goal of Eugenics(Overall genetic improvement of humanity) via things like genetic engineering, medical tech, and science instead of trying breed humans like cattle.

Of course these processes raise an additional slew of questions and problems in and of themselves. Especially genetic engineering. There are lots of issues to deal with concerning genetics including mutations and other issues.

Lots of people still don't want anything to even remotely be associated with Eugenics because of what happened in Nazi Germany. There are also a slew of nutjobs who still believe in the disproved views of the Original Eugenics movement.

The overall ideal is not horrid but how so many go about it frequently ends up being terrible.

Forced sterilizations like described in this article became a hallmark of what was wrong with Eugenics.

It's already been said by the more sane people in this thread, but I can't see any benefit to eugenics. Let's be honest, in the effort to weed out the "undesirable" (however someone would define that) traits in humanity, we'd still have horrible things (rape, murder, insanity, taxes) in the world that aren't inherited.*

Not to mention, forcing sterilization upon someone is one of those breaches of human rights that I'd equate with murder, rape, slavery, and torture. Maybe I'm being a bit extreme here, but it's a pretty heinous way to defile someone to completely take away one of their natural human functions.

And before someone chimes in with this again, no, I don't even think that rapists deserve sterilization. They're horrible human beings, but they're still human beings, and that's enough for them to still deserve the same very basic God-given rights as everyone else.

This, seriously. Forced sterilization is horrible and just thinking that someone would actually support forced sterilization of rape victims makes me vomit.

I still can't even follow the logic they used, that rape victims were essentially "asking for it" and that, due to their perceived promiscuity, they have a mental illness. Not for nothing, but that's just some of the most whacked-out reasoning ever.