Forced Sterilization Quotes
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.
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}.
Hitler’s Germany promptly passed the law which was the beginning of their program of human extermination and the Holocaust.
Critics of Roberson observe that he had made much of his $100 million personal fortune evangelizing against abortion and communism, and yet he was willing to tolerate the Chinese government controlling procreation and using abortion as one of the methods. Then it was revealed that Robertson had large investments in China. If the Chinese had not reduced their birth rate, the huge increase in the Chinese standard of living that has been achieved would have been much less. Robertson did think that the abortion policy would hurt the Chinese but he was advising a foreign policy of non-interference.
At the time there were some Americans who supported Hitler and Fascism. Even senior military men like Osborne.
The President had instituted a policy whereby convicted pedophiles would be chemically castrated. He Indonesian Medical Society however voted overwhelmingly that such a practice would be unethical and immoral, and it would be improper for any doctor to participate in such a program. Jokowi was asked by a BBC interviewer what he would do about his new policy if the doctors refused to carry it out. This was his response. His program is illustrative of a reaction of many political leaders when faced with a problem that concerned most people but for which there was no known specific solution. They reach out for ideas regardless of how draconian they were or how extensively they violate human rights—even when they themselves know there is no evidence that the new idea will be successful. If there is a problem and a national leader does not appear to try and do something, he/she is often accused of not caring rather than the reality of not taking a chance with “solutions” that will do some harm and may not do any good.
