When other states saw that they could justify medical abuse of women with this precedent, sterilizations increased dramatically in the 20th century. According to some estimates, at least 70,000 women have been forcibly sterilized due to state laws, and other sources estimate the number of victims at between 100,000 and 150,000. The uncertainty surrounding these amounts is significant. “[Buck v. Bell] gave states the green light to create or encourage the sterilization of undesirable populations,” Harris says, referring to those whose bodies and lives exist outside the norm of able-bodied white men, namely black and brown women. Forced sterilization remains legal at the federal level in the United States today due to a 1927 Supreme Court case known as Buck v. Bell. U.S. eugenicists used the case to investigate the constitutionality of a Virginia state law allowing forced sterilizations to see if they could conduct the trial nationwide, says Jasmine E. Harris, a law professor at the University of California`s Davis School of Law. An 8-1 decision concluded that Carrie Buck`s institutionalization for “imbecility” and her subsequent sterilization were both legal and justified.

The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action recognizes forced sterilization as an act of violence and affirms the right of women, including women with disabilities, to found and maintain a family, to achieve the highest standards of sexual and reproductive health and to make reproductive decisions without discrimination, coercion and violence. [20] Vermont has no documentation of its sterilization laws available to the public. “Our understanding” of all the laws created regarding sterilization in this state is that all types of sterilization were completely voluntary. [80] In 1991, the Washington Court of Appeals heard an application for sterilization filed by the parents of an incapacitated child named K.M. [83] The Court held that sterilization of a mentally incompetent patient may be constitutional; However, the incompetent person must be represented by independent counsel, and the incompetent lawyer must play an adversarial role in defending the incapable person`s reproductive rights. [83] However, two physicians testified in support of K.M.`s psychological need for sterilization; The court ruled that K.M.`s lawyer did not play an opposing role, as doctors and witnesses should have been cross-examined and all the arguments of K.M.`s defence should have been made. [83] The Court of Appeal “was remanded in custody for a new hearing, with defence counsel appointed to represent K.M.” [83] All forced sterilization campaigns, whenever and wherever they are, have one thing in common. They involve the dehumanization of a certain subset of the population that is considered less worthy of reproduction and family formation. They merge perceptions of disability with racism, xenophobia and sexism – leading to a disproportionate sterilization of minority groups. How the Nazis Borrowed from the U.S.

Eugenic Sterilization Program In 1991, the Arkansas Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the part of the Arkansas Sterilization Act that allowed sterilization of an incompetent person through direct medical channels, rather than court approval, because it denied the patient due process. [17] In 2008, the Illinois Court of Appeals ruled that when deciding an application to sterilize an incompetent position, a court should apply the superseded consent standard if there is clear and convincing evidence as to how the ward would decide whether the position was responsible; However, the court must apply the patient`s best interests standard if the service`s superseded judgment cannot be supported by clear and convincing evidence. [35] [1] Mosby`s Medical Dictionary, 8th edition, 2009, Elsevier. Voluntary sterilization refers to the process or action performed with the free and informed consent of the person. Conversely, involuntary sterilization refers to the process or action performed without the free and informed consent of the person, such as when a person is forced or forced to undergo a sterilization procedure. In 1982, the Massachusetts Court of Appeals ruled that a court of general jurisdiction has the power to hear an application for sterilization of a mentally retarded person. The court said the court must use substitute consent to determine whether sterilization should be allowed, and that “no sterilization may be forced on the basis of state or parental interest.” [47] The United States has a long history of forced sterilization campaigns motivated by the false “science” of eugenics, racism, and sexism. In Nazi Germany, in the peak years of sterilization between 1934 and 1939, about 75 to 80 sterilizations per 100,000 inhabitants took place. In Delaware, the rate during the peak period of sterilizations (late 1920s to late 1930s) was 18, about a quarter to one-fifth of Germans during the peak period, or half the rate in Bavaria in 1936. [1] While the difference in sterilization rates remains significant for a totalitarian regime with a federal sterilization law that will soon commit mass murder on a scale unprecedented in history, and a democratically governed state in a democratic nation,[2] it is much smaller than one might expect.

CRC has identified forced sterilization of girls with disabilities as a form of violence[13] and noted that states parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child are expected to prohibit by law the forced sterilization of children with disabilities. [14] The Committee has also stated that the principle of the “best interests of the child” cannot be invoked to justify practices contrary to the child`s human dignity and the right to physical integrity. [15] Bertha`s story is one of 35,000 sterilization stories we are reconstructing in the Sterilization and Social Justice Lab. Our interdisciplinary team explores the history of eugenics and sterilization in the United States through data and stories. So far, we have collected historical records from North Carolina, California, Iowa, and Michigan. Indian Health Service (IHS) is a division of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. IHS offers sterilization as a method of family planning. Tubal ligation and vasectomy are the only procedures that can be performed for the primary purpose of sterilization.

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