Eugenics: NY Times Exposes North Carolina Involuntary Sterilization Campaign

Brunius' Better For All The World - a readable history of the U.S. Eugenics Movement

It’s a good article on the North Carolina sterilization campaign in the New York Times. It follows a well worn pattern of such revelations:

• surprise – how could it have happened here
• an interview with a victim, some poor guy (literally) who is as normal  and as bright as most but was incarcerated in a state institution. To get out he had to accept a vasectomy which screwed up his life and stripped him of much human dignity
• the state which committed the crime now repents…but is trying not to give financial restitution, because giving financial restitution to 7000 people will cost them alot.

There are some new juicy details unknown to me, like the fact that recently deceased CBS commentator Charles Kuralt’s father was really into the stuff. So was Humphrey Bogart’s. Bogart’s pop wrote regular commentaries on eugenics in medical journals. Slimey stuff, don’t know if Bogie ever talked about it. Much literate has been written on the subject in general. My favorite: Harry Brunius’s Better For All The World

The story continues (January 14, 2012) with an article in the