Despite the furor over the eugenic programs run by more than 30 states during the last century, North Carolina still has a law that allows sterilization of mentally retarded adults without their consent.

The law, G.S. 35-36, allows the sterilization of mentally retarded people in state institutions. The parents of a patient or the head of an institution can request sterilization through a petition that must be approved in district court.

Sterilizations can be requested if the operation is "considered in the best interest of the mental, moral or physical improvement of the resident or patient, or for the public good." The statute has been challenged in court several times in the past 25 years, but never successfully.

The state does not keep track of the number of sterilization petitions approved every year, according to officials with the Administrative Office of the Courts. Records are kept only in the courthouse where the petitions are approved.

The N.C. Department of Justice would become involved in any petition that involved a state institution, said John Bason, a spokesman for the department. No one in the office can recall any petitions from state institutions during the past 15 years, he said.

But there have been requests that the court has acted upon, said Ellen Russell, the director of advocacy and chapter services for the Arc of North Carolina. Officials with the Arc, who sometimes consult on the cases, don't approve of involuntary sterilization for any reason, Russell said.

"You go back to the (19)30s or '40s and people were trying to cure society's ills by manipulating the human race. And that is - from a policy standpoint - still what that is," Russell said. "As with any other policy, there may be individuals who need one thing or need another on a case-by-case basis."

The reasons that people request sterilization vary, Russell said. Some parents think that their daughters can't handle the responsibility associated with a monthly menstrual period. Some worry that their daughter will become pregnant through either consensual sex or through sexual abuse.

"Certainly sexual abuse of women with disabilities is a tremendous issue. But sterilization doesn't in any way solve that problem. It solves the parental concern about the result of that abuse," Russell said.

Sterilization, besides being an invasive and potentially dangerous way of solving these problems, also takes away a choice that some disabled people would like to be able to make - whether to have children, Russell said.