 |
| Sadie Long, left, of Charlotte, N.C. talks to sterilization victim Lela Dunston, 63, following the Governor's Eugenics Compensation Task Force meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2012 in Raleigh. People sterilized against their will under a discredited North Carolina state program should each be paid $50,000, a task force voted Tuesday, marking the first time a state has moved to compensate victims of a once-common public health practice called eugenics. The panel recommended that the money go to verified, living victims, including those who are alive now but may die before the lawmakers approve any compensation. The Legislature must still approve any payments. |
| |
| Sadie Long, left, of Charlotte, N.C. talks to sterilization victim Lela Dunston, 63, following the Governor's Eugenics Compensation Task Force meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2012 in Raleigh. People sterilized against their will under a discredited North Carolina state program should each be paid $50,000, a task force voted Tuesday, marking the first time a state has moved to compensate victims of a once-common public health practice called eugenics. The panel recommended that the money go to verified, living victims, including those who are alive now but may die before the lawmakers approve any compensation. The Legislature must still approve any payments. |
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- As many as 2,000 people forcibly sterilized decades ago in North Carolina should get $50,000 each, a task force said Tuesday, marking the first time a state has moved to compensate victims of eugenics programs that weeded out the "feeble-minded" and others deemed undesirable.
The payout of up to $100 million still needs approval from the Legislature. But passage of some sort of compensation is considered promising, since the Democratic governor immediately embraced the task force recommendation, and the Republican leader of the state House has said the victims should get payments.
While dozens of states had programs in the 20th century that allowed people to be sterilized against their will in the name of improving the human race, none of the others has offered anything more than apologies.
Compensation "sends a clear message that we in North Carolina are people who pay for our mistakes and that we do not tolerate bureaucracies that trample on basic human rights," said panel chairwoman Dr. Laura Gerald, a pediatrician.
More than 7,600 people were surgically rendered unable to reproduce in North Carolina from 1929 to 1974 under state laws and practices that singled out epileptics and others considered mentally defective. Many were poor, black women deemed unfit to be parents.
A task force report last year said 1,500 to 2,000 of the victims were still alive, though the state has verified only 72 so far.
Last year, Gov. Beverly Perdue created the five-person task force to decide how to compensate victims. It consisted of a judge, a doctor, a former journalist, a historian and a lawyer.
The panel had discussed amounts between $20,000 and $50,000, and some victims and family members had bitterly complained that the payouts were too low. The panel also weighed whether to compensate victims' family members or descendants - some people were sterilized after giving birth - but decided against it.
On Tuesday, some victims said they were simply looking forward to seeing the issue resolved.
Elaine Riddick, 57, was sterilized at 14 after she gave birth to a son who was the product of a rape.
"I was a victim twice: once by the rapist and one by the state of North Carolina. Normally, if you commit a crime, you pay for it. They committed the biggest crime. They committed a crime against God. They committed a crime against humanity," she said, wiping tears from her face. "And this is all I can do is just accept what they said today and go on with my life."
While taking away someone's ability to have children sounds barbaric today, eugenics programs gained popularity in the U.S. and other countries in the early 1900s, promoted as a means of raising the overall health and intellectual level of the human race.
More than 30 states enacted laws allowing surgical sterilization for certain people, though not all of them carried out such procedures. More than 60,000 were forcibly sterilized under such programs, and some historians think the same thing was done to thousands more in other states under the authority of doctors or local officials.
Most states abandoned those efforts after World War II when such practices became closely associated with Nazi Germany's efforts to achieve racial purity, though North Carolina stood out because it actually ramped up its program after the war. Sterilizations in North Carolina peaked in the 1950s, according to state records.
People as young as 10 were sterilized, in some cases for not getting along with schoolmates or for being promiscuous. Although officials obtained consent from patients or their guardians, many did not comprehend what they were signing.
North Carolina is among about a half-dozen states to apologize.
Melissa Hyatt, whose stepfather was sterilized, said the task force "did what was reasonable as far as budgets and economy."
"It's not really about the money," she said. "It's about the suffering and the pain."
Mike Marion, whose 59-year-old aunt was sterilized at 18 because she was seen as mildly disabled mentally, said estates or descendants should get some compensation, too.
"If you're going to admit wrong, admit wrong in its whole capacity," he said. "By offering compensation to only the living, that's taking partial responsibility and not full responsibility."
Despite the potentially high price tag in this economy, there is bipartisan support for compensation. The governor promptly issued a statement endorsing the task force recommendation. And GOP House Speaker Thom Tillis has said the state should pay victims and wants the Legislature to vote on the matter in the spring.
Gerald urged passage: "Any state or group of people can make a mistake, but it takes courage and strength of character to acknowledge wrongs and try to right them."
