The bill - filed by Rep. Larry Womble, D-Forsyth - would create a legislative research commission to determine how to compensate and counsel victims.

It assumes that the General Assembly agrees that those among the more than 7,600 people sterilized from 1933 to 1974 who were sterilized against their will should be compensated.

And it stops just short of requiring the General Assembly to create a compensation program, regardless of the commission's findings.

"It is the goal of the General Assembly after reviewing the results of the commission's study to create and fund a program during the 2004-05 fiscal year to compensate, in some form, and counsel persons who were sterilized through the state's eugenic sterilization program," the bill reads.

"I know a great many people are talking about money," Womble said. "But it's not limited to just the finances. It's also education and health and any other kinds of concerns. That's what we're working toward."

The bill aims to redress the wrongs of the state's eugenics program - the third largest in the country, after California and Virginia.

Nationwide, about 65,000 sterilizations were performed as part of the eugenics movement. It sought to end mental illness, genetic defects and social ills thought to be passed down from parent to child.

Gov. Mike Easley apologized in December for the state's involvement in the program after a series in the Winston-Salem Journal gave details about the workings of the Eugenics Board of North Carolina.

Easley then appointed a panel to examine the program and consider compensation. The group, which includes Womble, has met several times since February and heard emotional testimony from two women who were sterilized against their will. The panel is scheduled to meet again today.

Womble wants to create a separate commission because he said that it's not certain what the panel will suggest.

"It's not guaranteed that there will be some kind of reparation or compensation," Womble said.

Carmen Hooker Odom, the state secretary of health and human services who heads the panel, supports efforts to compensate victims and has suggested that the state could offer health coverage or counseling. But she warned that it would be hard to find victims and families.

State officials cannot review all the documents related to the eugenics program because of confidential medical information in them.

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

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