From the Winston-Salem [NC] Journal:

RALEIGH – A legislative committee recommended yesterday that the state pay out financial reparations and give other benefits to victims who were sterilized under a state-sponsored eugenics program that lasted from 1929 to 1974.

The committee called for each living victim to be given $20,000.

“The state needs to take responsibility,” said state Rep. Larry Womble, D-Forsyth.

“When the government starts sterilizing children, that’s about the worst thing I can think of,” Womble said. “I put it right up there with the Holocaust.”

The state of North Carolina performed forcible sterilizations on an estimated 7,600 people over 45 years, with the vast majority of the sterilizations occurring after 1945. Many of those people had intellectual disabilities or were mentally ill. It is estimated that some 2,800 of them are still alive.

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 1:11 pm and is filed under eugenics, history, intellectual/developmental disabilities, 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.