RALEIGH
Advocates for the disabled told legislators yesterday that they oppose forced sterilizations of mentally ill and mentally retarded people when the operations are ordered to prevent the patient from having a baby or making someone else pregnant.

But they cautioned that efforts to strike an existing law that allows District Court judges to order involuntary sterilizations could have unintended consequences.

A guardian for a mentally disabled woman battling ovarian cancer could be barred from letting the woman get a hysterectomy because one effect of the operation would be to leave her infertile, Deborah Greenblatt of Carolina Legal Assistance Inc. told a legislative committee.

Greenblatt's comments came during a hearing yesterday before the N.C. House's Health Committee on a bill backed by Rep. Larry Womble, D-Forsyth. Legislators did not vote on the bill.

Womble said he wants to repeal the involuntary sterilization law because it is a "distasteful" vestige of the state's eugenic-sterilization program. The eugenics movement wanted to eradicate mental illness, genetic defects and social ills, including out-of-wedlock births.

About 65,000 sterilizations were performed nationwide as part of the movement, including more than 7,600 in North Carolina. Only California and Virginia performed more sterilizations.

The Eugenics Board of North Carolina - which ordered the operations for epilepsy, mental disease and "feeblemindedness" - operated from 1929 to 1974. After legislators disbanded the group, they shifted responsibility for approving sterilizations to the judicial system.

The existing law allows involuntary sterilizations for the "public good" or for a patient's "mental, moral or physical improvement."

Parents or guardians of a mentally challenged person or the head of a state medical institution can request the operation.

The law is seldom used. Three petitions were granted in 2001-02. Over the past five years, only one patient at a state mental hospital was sterilized. Dave Richard, the executive director of The Arc of North Carolina, said that the law clearly looks "horrible."

"We don't like the way it is," he said. "We know that people with mental retardation can be parents. They can be very good parents."

But Richard agrees with Greenblatt that any changes should allow for medically necessary operations and should clearly define what those are.

Greenblatt also proposed a penalty for doctors and hospitals that perform involuntary sterilizations without following proper legal procedure.

Advocates say they know of several instances in which health officials accepted a guardian's written consent to sterilize a patient - without judicial approval - because the doctor didn't know the law. They want to make sure that caregivers don't skirt proper procedures in the future.

Carmen Hooker Odom, the secretary of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, acknowledged the concerns but reminded the committee of the context behind Womble's bill. Womble proposed the legislation after a series of stories in the Winston-Salem Journal revealed details about the eugenics board.

People were sterilized based on social class, race and imperfections, Hooker Odom said.

The legislation was designed "to make sure that that dark history in North Carolina will never, ever happen again," she said. "Please, as you work through this bill ... don't ever lose sight of why the bill was filed in the first place."

Hooker Odom was charged by Gov. Mike Easley to lead a committee to study the state's eugenics program and possible reparations for its victims. The group is scheduled to meet again March 14.

• Dana Damico can be reached in Raleigh at (919) 833-9916 or at ddamico@wsjournal.com