Democratic candidate Perdue pledges to seek financial compensation for victims of sterilization

From the Winston Salem Journal:

The two leading Democrats running for governor both say they support steps to help surviving victims of North Carolina’s now-defunct forcible-sterilization program. But Beverly Perdue went a step further than her opponent, Richard Moore.

More than 7,600 people were sterilized between 1929 and 1974 under a eugenics program operated by the state.
Perdue, who is currently the state’s lieutenant governor, released a campaign proposal this week to enact the recommendations of a 2003 task force, which suggested that the state form a special foundation with the goal of providing financial reparations to survivors.

… Advocates for survivors have been pushing the state to provide reparations and other benefits since 2002, when the sterilization program was revealed to the public in a series of articles in the Winston-Salem Journal.

The program operated under a state law that endorsed sterilization for people with epilepsy, “feeblemindedness” and other disabilities. In practice, women were sterilized because they were considered “promiscuous,” even if they were the victims of rape.

Historical highlights here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 10:18 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, eugenics, history, politics, sterilization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.