California has become the fifth state to apologize for its eugenic sterilization program, but North Carolina is still the only state that is examining the possibility of reparations for victims.

Tuesday's statement by Gov. Gray Davis of California was very similar to ones made in December by Gov. Mike Easley and Gov. John Kitzhaber of Oregon. Gov. Jim Hodges of South Carolina issued an apology in January, just before leaving office. Virginia made the first apology, early last year.

"Our hearts are heavy for the pain caused by eugenics. It was a sad and regrettable chapter in the state's history, and it is one that must never be repeated again," Davis said.

Easley appointed a commission in February to investigate how the program unfolded in North Carolina, how to prevent a similar scenario in the future and how to redress the victims.

The commission will meet again Friday. None of the other states have such panels.

After years of silence, the nationwide trend of apologies is being driven by a network of scholars and activists who follow the issue across state lines.

Advocates of disability rights brought up the apologies made by other states for sterilization programs during a meeting with Davis this week, said his spokesman, Russ Lopez.

Davis agreed to the idea, a decision helped by the fact that Paul Lombardo, a eugenics scholar from the University of Virginia, was testifying before a California Senate committee on Tuesday, Lopez said.

California passed a sterilization law in 1909, and it led the nation with more than 20,000 operations. Virginia was second, with about 8,000, and North Carolina was third, with about 7,600.

Most of the California sterilizations were done before 1945, and most in North Carolina during the 1950s and 1960s.

Lopez said that in California, as in other states, most people simply didn't know that such things had taken place in the past.

"When a lot of folks heard of this they were shocked," he said.

James Dunn, a professor of Christianity and public policy at the Wake Forest University Divinity School, welcomed the trend.

"The apologies are very important. They're not the last word, but they may be the first word" in a process, he said.

"They recognize that there is an ethic and morality that is greater than, higher than, anything that the law may allow. The law may have permitted or allowed or even encouraged something that is now wrong," Dunn said. "But the law can't determine whether anything is moral or ethical. It may nudge us in the right direction, but it doesn't have the final say."

Lombardo said he was pleased that other states are apologizing for sterilizations, but that isn't enough by itself.

"The apologies are only the first step. I hope the lack of originality in the language they choose is not an indication that the process is becoming trivialized," said Lombardo.

Kitzhaber said in December, "Our hearts are heavy for the pain you endured."

Davis said, "Our hearts are heavy for the pain caused by eugenics."

Easley said in December, "This is a sad and regrettable chapter in the state's history, and it must be one that is never repeated again."

Lombardo, the director of the program of law and medicine at the University of Virginia's Center for Biomedical Ethics, said, "We will have to wait to see how much follow-up and attention to these issues remains after the initial sentiments are voiced."

The eugenics movement was founded in the 1880s by Charles Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton. It made exaggerated claims that mental illness, genetic defects, and social ills could be eliminated by sterilization. The laws concerning sterilization varied between states, but the U.S. Supreme Court legitimized the basic idea of forced sterilization in a 1927 ruling.

Even critics of eugenics agree that any formal step beyond an apology is complicated by legal, medical, and historical uncertainty. A small number of operations in North Carolina were done because the patient wanted the surgery, and many other records are incomplete, or still under seal in the state archives. Many records in other states have been lost or destroyed.

Dunn said he didn't have a formula for how to proceed on possible reparations. Lombardo said last month he thinks that the only realistic possibility would be to limit payments to the actual victims of sterilization who are still alive - not relatives of people who are dead.

Nationwide about 65,000 people were sterilized, but there are no reliable estimates of how many victims are still alive.

• Kevin Begos can be reached in Washington at (202) 662-7672 or at kbegos@mediageneral.com

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