A Century of Controlling Reproduction:
The Impact of Sterilization on American Society and Culture
Because sterilization’s birth really was in eugenics, its impact on American society and culture must first be considered along with eugenics. Eugenics and sterilization were well received by an America at the early twentieth century which was obsessed with reproduction and driven by an ideology of progress and science. Eugenic sterilization promised to be a panacea against the rising tide of degeneracy and eugenicists believed this “surgical solution” could bring about a new American utopia—one based on science, race, and progress rather than Christianity.
Eugenic education was a crucial component of selling sterilization to the American masses and reveals the great impact of eugenics and sterilization on American culture. Historian Steven Selden has illustrated the extensive infiltration of eugenics into the American textbook. High school and college students were regularly bombarded with eugenic rhetoric in their natural sciences lessons. Selden has concluded that between 1914 and 1948, eugenics was cited in 85 percent of high school biology textbooks while the science was recommended in 70 percent of them. In these books, 15 percent of them recommended involuntary sterilization as sound social policy.35One popular eugenics textbook, Applied Eugenics, even included an entire chapter on the need for eugenic sterilization.36
Beyond the textbook, eugenics and sterilization penetrated other realms of American culture. International eugenics conferences were held in New York City, eugenics exhibits appeared at state fairs in the Midwest, American families and babies participated in contests where they were judged for their eugenic fitness, Margaret Sanger’s American Birth Control League called for involuntary sterilization, and even film served as an important source of cultural infusion. Tomorrow’s Children, a 1934 film actually attacking eugenic sterilization and the 1927 Supreme Court ruling upholding it, was banned by New York state censors for its unpleasant nature. An even more controversial 1917 film, The Black Stork, dealt with the killing of eugenically defective babies. Historian Martin Pernick has revealed dozens of other American films dealing with heredity and eugenics as well as their popularity during the early twentieth century.37In 1937, a survey by Fortune magazine revealed that more than two-thirds of Americans favored the involuntary sterilization of criminals and mental defectives—clearly, Americans had become receptive to the new medical technology.38
One last way to comprehend the impact of eugenic sterilization in America is examining the impact it had within the international context—namely the developments in Nazi Germany. The National Socialists turned to the United States for eugenic inspiration as they regarded America in high esteem for her pioneering efforts and success in sterilization. Some historians even argue that American developments in eugenic sterilization were partly responsible for Nazi genocide and the Holocaust. For example, one Nazi war criminal at Nuremberg, SS General Otto Hofmann, cited the United States as justification for his nation’s actions, “In a judgment of the [U.S.] Supreme Court…it says, among other things: ‘It is better for everybody if society, instead of waiting until it has to execute degenerate offspring or leave them to starve because of feeble-mindedness, can prevent obviously inferior individuals from propagating their kind.”39American eugenicists tried to ignore these associations and connections after the war.
OPPOSITION
Not every American was completely receptive to the sterilization procedure during the first half of the twentieth century. Opposition did develop, mostly in the form of religious organizations, especially Catholic groups, anti-eugenic geneticists and social scientists, some physicians, and even some eugenicists who believed that sterilization was not the solution for race betterment.
By far, Catholic groups were the most outspoken due to traditional opposition to all forms of birth control and the racial nature of eugenics. Some geneticists, social scientists, and physicians resisted the new technology of sterilization out of a belief that the data used to justify its use was not scientific and fears of what the Nazi regime was using it for. Finally, some eugenicists believed that sterilization as a eugenic weapon was ineffective as it potentially prevented the birth of some useful individuals—they hoped other solutions would solve the defective problem in America.
Sadly, few opponents resisted sterilization out of a desire to defend the rights of defectives. It is arguable that a strong majority of Americans agreed on the subhuman nature of America’s mentally and physically handicapped during the early twentieth century.40...
http://www.umw.edu/hisa/resources/Student%20Projects/Cincinnati/students.umw.edu/_ncinc5ce/impact.html
Marie Stopes, Francis Galton, Emma Goldman (Sangers mentor), Margaret Sanger, Sidney and Beatrice Webb were all enthusiastic advocates for compulsory sterilization of whom they regarded as unfit.
A commentator (19th Feb 09 11.29)on the Guardian editorial (comment is free) draws attention to the Fabian Tract of 1906 written by the Webbs in which they say:
In Great Britain at this moment, when half, or perhaps two-thirds of all the married people are regulating their families, children are being freely born to the Irish Roman Catholics and the Polish, Russian and German Jews, the thriftless and irresponsible. This can hardly result in anything but national deterioration, or this country falling to the Irish and the Jews.
Fry and Hitchens go around calling the Holy Father a Nazi. I wonder what they think of Marie Stopes who sent letters and poems to Hitler? But then the ability for double-think is a necessary requirement if you want to be considered for the liberal elite.