Eugenics in the U.S.
Nov. 16, 2002
Oregon governor plans apology for state sterilizations, victims' advocates say

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Gov. John Kitzhaber plans to apologize next month to hundreds of Oregonians who were sterilized by the state, according to victims' advocates. A statement by Kitzhaber would make him the second governor, after Mark Warner of Virginia, to offer an official apology for his state's eugenics laws. A spokesman for Kitzhaber, however, stopped short of saying the governor will offer a formal apology.

May 2, 2002
Virginia governor apologizes for forced sterilization under eugenics law

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- Gov. Mark R. Warner apologized Thursday for Virginia's forced sterilization of thousands of people from 1924 to 1979, calling it "a shameful effort" that must never be repeated. Virginia conducted about 7,450 sterilizations under the banner of eugenics, or selective human breeding and social engineering. ... read more

May 2, 2002
Unwed mother recalls forced sterilization done by state claiming she was `feebleminded'

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- Rose Brooks caught the eye of the state when she had twin sons out of wedlock. A few months later, she was taken to the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded and surgically sterilized. Virginia conducted 7,450 sterilizations from 1924 to 1979 under the banner of eugenics, or selective human breeding and social engineering. On Thursday, Brooks was there when Virginia became the first of the 30 states that conducted such sterilizations to apologize. ... read more

May 1, 2002
1941 Virginia eugenics victim who became WWII hero honored by state lawmakers

LYNCHBURG, Va. -- The state that in the 1940s labeled Raymond W. Hudlow a "mental defective" and surgically sterilized him honored him on Wednesday for his decorated service as a combat soldier in World War II. ... read more

Feb. 15, 2002
Full Va. Legislature expresses regret for forced sterilizations

RICHMOND, Va. -- The Legislature expressed its "profound regret" Wednesday for the state's involvement in a now-discredited science that forced the sterilizations of 7,450 Virginians in the name of purifying the white race. ... read more

Feb. 15, 2002
Virginia lawmakers express 'regret' for forced sterilizations

LYNCHBURG, Va. -- In the 1940s, the state labeled Raymond W. Hudlow a "mental defective" and surgically sterilized him. Years later, his nation honored him as a war hero, awarding him the Bronze Star for valor, the Purple Heart and the Prisoner of War Medal for service in World War II. Now the Virginia General Assembly has refused to apologize to Hudlow and the more than 7,400 other Virginians sterilized under the state's eugenics program between 1924 and 1979. ... read more

Feb. 3, 2001
Va. lower house passes resolution saying it 'regrets' eugenics

RICHMOND, Va. -- The state's lower house passed a resolution Friday expressing regret for the forced sterilizations of about 8,000 people since the 1920s when the state embraced the phony science of eugenics. The bill, which passed through the House of Delegates by an 85-10 vote and now goes to the Senate, did not include the word "apology." The bill's sponsor, Mitchell Van Yahres, said he decided to strike the word before the vote. ... read more

Aug. 7, 1999
Doctoral student uncovers records of eugenic project

BOSTON -- A doctoral student has uncovered a dark secret in Vermont's past: Scientists in the 1920s and 30s had an active eugenics plan to eliminate the state's "degenerate" bloodlines and replenish "old pioneer stock." In a book to be published later this year, Nancy Gallagher details the plan called the "Vermont Eugenics Survey." ... read more

Aug. 15, 1997
Report: Group to postpone award to psychologist accused of being racist

NEW YORK -- The American Psychological Association postponed a lifetime achievement award to the creator of many standard personality and intelligence tests after critics claimed his writings are racist, The New York Times reported today. Mehler maintained that Cattell has long held the view that average human intelligence is declining and groups with low intelligence should be prevented from having children. ... read more

Eugenics Worldwide
June 16, 2001
German science elite apologizes for Nazi medical experiments

BERLIN -- Grisly medical experiments and killings carried out in the name of German science rank among the most horrific crimes committed under Hitler's Third Reich. But only now has Germany's elite scientific club apologized to the victims, coming clean on the role played by doctors such as the Auschwitz "Angel of Death," Josef Mengele. ... read more

May 18, 2001
German president: Nazi abuses should play part in ethics debate

BERLIN -- The horrors of the Nazi past must be considered in debating genetic research and euthanasia, recalling that scientific experiments were done during the Third Reich "without moral scruples," Germany's president said Friday. '"Eugenics,' 'euthanasia' and 'selection' are terms that are bound with bad memories in Germany" after the Nazis' mass murder and medical experiments, Johannes Rau said in the annual Berlin Speech. ... read more

March 28, 2001
Report finds many controversial sterilization cases were voluntary

STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Investigators looking into Sweden's sterilization scandal said Tuesday that about half of the 63,000 procedures performed from 1935 to 1975 were voluntary - but that politicians stood by for four decades as other victims were sterilized against their will. The operations were largely forced on poor people and those with mental problems in the 1940s, but there was little evidence that ethnic groups were targeted. ... read more

Sept. 12, 2000
Rights group files complaint of forced sterilization of handicapped women

PARIS -- A handicapped rights group on Monday filed a complaint over the alleged forced sterilization of 14 mentally handicapped young women at a state-run care facility in France. Reports in French media on Monday said that 14 women, in their 20s, had allegedly been sterilized without their consent since 1995 at a state facility in the town of Sens, in the Yonne region of central France. ... read more

March 4, 1999
Sweden proposes compensation to those forcibly sterilized

STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- The Swedish government proposed Thursday that victims of its previous forced-sterilization program receive compensation payments of $21,000 apiece. ... read more

March 11, 1998
Alberta drops plan to limit payments to sterilization victims

EDMONTON, Alberta -- After a public outcry, Alberta abandoned a plan Wednesday to place tight limits on compensation to people involuntarily sterilized at provincial mental institutions. The bill was withdrawn by the province a day after it was introduced. It would have given victims of the sterilization program up to $105,000 each but would have cut off their right to sue for more money. ... read more

Dec. 19, 1997
Victims begin to talk about Japan's sterilization program

HIGASHIMURAYAMA, Japan -- Just weeks before his wedding 47 years ago, Yasuji Hirasawa was given an ultimatum - be sterilized, or the wedding would be stopped. When a nurse broke the news, Hirasawa felt he had no choice. He was a victim of Hansen's Disease - leprosy - and he had grown accustomed to accepting official limits on his freedom. But now the 70-year-old Hirasawa, one of hundreds of thousands of Japanese sterilized under a sweeping eugenics program that ended just last year, feels only anger. ... read more

Sept. 10, 1997
Government to investigate reports of forced sterilizations

PARIS -- The French government ordered an investigation Wednesday into allegations that 15,000 French women deemed mentally or physically inferior were sterilized without their consent, French television said. The women were sterilized after being ruled unfit for motherhood by the state-run institutions responsible for their care, according to a report in the investigative weekly Charlie-Hebdo, published Wednesday. ... read more

Aug. 30, 1997
Report: Research reveals larger Finnish sterilization program

HELSINKI, Finland -- New research reveals that Finland forcibly sterilized more than 11,000 people - about eight times more than previously reported, Finland's largest daily newspaper said Saturday. In addition, the practice continued as late as 1970, the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper said. Previous reports had said the policy of involuntary sterilizations, which began in 1935, ended in 1955. ... read more

Aug. 29, 1997
Denmark to investigate its involuntary sterilization program

COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- Denmark has decided to conduct an official investigation into its onetime program of forced sterilization, a move the social affairs minister says should have been made a generation ago. The announcement by Karen Jespersen comes as neighboring Sweden endures uncomfortable international attention in the wake of a newspaper series detailing that country's forced sterilization of 60,000 people in 1935-76. ... read more

Aug. 27, 1997
Europeans face up to past forced sterilizations

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- A Belgian woman says no one listened when she complained about being sterilized against her will. A Swede describes how hard it was when colleagues would ask why she never had children. Women who were deemed physically or mentally inferior and were sterilized are now speaking out, after revelations in Sweden drew attention to government programs that were common in many parts of Europe. ... read more

Aug. 25, 1997
Sweden painfully re-examining past sterilizations

STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- They were found to be "inferior," flawed by bad eyesight, mental retardation or "undesirable" racial characteristics. To prevent this genetic heritage from being passed on, they were sterilized - sometimes involuntarily. Sweden had as many as 60,000 of its own citizens sterilized between 1935 and 1976. Adults and children were singled out by doctors, school authorities or other officials and were pressured to consent to the procedures. ... read more

Genetics and sterilization
Nov. 4, 2002
FDA approves first nonsurgical sterilization for women

WASHINGTON -- The government has approved the first nonsurgical method of sterilizing women, a tiny device called Essure that could transform the way many women end their childbearing years. Scientists long have tried, and failed, to develop a way to sterilize women without surgery; sterilization remains the most widely used form of birth control. More than 180 million women worldwide have had the procedure performed, including an estimated 700,000 Americans a year. ... read more

Dec. 28, 2001
2001: From deciphering the genome to germ warfare, a big year in biotech

SAN FRANCISCO -- At the dawn of the new millennium, biotechnology finally began to matter to people outside laboratories and brokerage houses. Scientist began deciphering the human genome in 2001, human embryos were cloned and gene research gained new urgency as microbiologists joined the battle against a suddenly very real danger - bioterrorism. ... read more

Nov. 15, 2000
First genetically screened baby born in France

PARIS -- A French woman has given birth to the nation's first genetically screened baby after she lost two other children to a deadly genetic disease, doctors said Wednesday. The couple, who have no trouble conceiving naturally, underwent invitro fertilization and a process called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD, in an effort to ensure their baby did not have the gene defect. ... read more

June 19, 1999
Contested patent may force government to answer basic question

WASHINGTON -- An application rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and destined to end up in the courts may force the federal government to address a perplexing question: What is a human being? The patent application sought to claim rights to all laboratory processes involving the combined use of human and animal cells and was rejected by the patent office because it "embraces human beings." ... read more

March 3, 1998
Papal panel condemns cloning, warns of genetic research dangers

VATICAN CITY -- A Vatican panel issued a stinging condemnation of human cloning Tuesday and warned against the misuse of genetic information. Human cloning, it said, "represents a grave attack on the dignity of conception and on the right to an unrepeatable, unpredetermined set of genes." ... read more