Margaret Sanger Quotes
The undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind.
Sanger, Margaret. The Pivot of Civilization. Brentano's, 1922, p. 101.
This book was the first popular attempt to spread the eugenics concept. Is was translated into German in 1925 and unfortunately read by Adolf Hitler who sent Grant a complimentary letter. See {603544}
Many Leading American supported forced sterilization of mentally handicapped people. Indiana passed the first forced sterilization laws and other states followed. The Supreme Court upheld the practice. See {603680}.
There was a substantial movement to prevent mentally defective and people of low intelligence from being able to reproduce. Over 20 states, with the approval of the then Supreme Court performed forced state sterilizations. Of course the then definition of “degenerates” changed from state to state. A century later, American values changed so much that there is no state that would even consider involuntary sterilization and if they did, the Courts would hold it un-Constitutional.
Writing a majority opinion allowing forced sterilization of the mentally retarded: In the ultimate tragic irony, the legal opinion in the case never questioned the assumptions of the case—that Carrie Buck, her mother, and daughter were all mentally retarded. Later scientists established that two of the three were normal and there was no real evidence about Buck’s mother. It seems that sexual promiscuity of unmarried women was the evidence upon which mental retardation was reached.
400,000 Germans were forcibly sterilized for “mental illness”, “slow learning”. “poor posture”, and a number of other characteristics. Soon, sterilization would be replaced by murders and extermination. Ironically, Hitler and other Nazis would quote American advocates of eugenics to further justify their practice of forced sterilization. A number of American states actually sentenced “defective” people to forced sterization.
Note that under the rubric of protecting children, this organization was advocating the forced sterilization of people who their primitive and unreliable instruments and biases determined were “feeble minded”. Although many states actually did this for a few decades with the conservative Supreme Court approval at the time, and the gross immorality, the method of forced sterilization is genetically flawed and did not even work to achieve their own objectives. Also not their “image” of the “feeble minded” that appeared on the cover of this report. Virginia did not repeal their law mandating forced sterilization until 1974.
The Association commissioned a study to develop:
The Eugenics Record Office was an activist organization advocating the forced sterilization of those people who they deemed to be inferior from a hereditary point of view. Most Americans are today shocked to find that this organization and its ideas were so influential that more than 30 states had passed similar laws. Only California and Virginia however were zealous in carrying them out . By 1935, 20,000 forced sterilizations had been carried out in the United States. The Supreme Court at the time even found such laws Constitutional. See {603680}.
When a couple sought assistance from a fertility clinic, the best medical procedure to fertilize a few female egg cells with sperm. After a few days of development, the seemingly best embryo is selected for implantation in the mother. The others are usually frozen so that they can be used later if there is a miscarriage or the baby dies in childbirth. The Senator and a few other religious fundamentalists believe that the fertilized cell clusters are actually human beings. Therefore if there is a successful birth, the remaining ones should not be used for research using the embryonic stem cells. On the other hand, many are often discarded as most people do not see the cell clusters as a human being but as a potential human being just as a pile of bricks and a truck of cement is not a house but is a potential house if things are done properly.
Hitler’s Germany promptly passed the law which was the beginning of their program of human extermination and the Holocaust.
At the time there were some Americans who supported Hitler and Fascism. Even senior military men like Osborne.
Margaret Higgins Sanger was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. Sanger popularized the term "birth control", opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established organizations that evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
