We are lucky to have a choice about our birth control options. Some people, world-wide, have not been given that choice. Forced sterilizations have been performed in the United States and Canada as well as globally. Find out why these atrocities were committed, and learn about your contraceptive rights.
Eugenics
Eugenics is the practice of trying to make the human species better. This is the bid to build a faster, smarter, and better human. Many sterilization programs, including the programs in numerous American states, were created to improve the gene pool. These forced sterilizations focused on mentally disabled people, or people with physical disabilities, such as being blind.
Timeline
In 1897, Michigan became the first state bring up forced sterilization legislature. This legislature did not pass; nor did Pennsylvanias attempts a few years later. The first state to introduce sterilization laws was Indiana, in 1907; Washington and California followed suit in 1907. In 1927 the famed sterilization case Buck v. Bell was heard in the supreme courts, which legalized forced sterilizations, and began the age of the most forced sterilizations. In 1942 the...