To view this report as a PDF, see: Overview of Legislation and Litigation Involving Protections Against Down Syndrome Discrimination Abortion Last updated: March 21, 2019. Five states have enacted legislation to prohibit the eugenic practice of Down syndrome discrimination abortion. Courts have enjoined the law in three of the states. Several additional states have […]
In a recent op-ed at The Daily Signal, CLI President Chuck Donovan responded to tragic news about the disappearance of children with Down Syndrome from Iceland due to genetic screening and abortion: This week, the CBS News program “On Assignment” included a long feature on what it described as the near eradication of Down syndrome in Iceland. […]
Debra Blackmon was 13 years old when two social workers visited her home in North Carolina, assessed her to be “severely retarded,” and put in motion the process for her sterilization. The year was 1972. Though the state passed a law in 2013 to compensate victims of involuntary sterilization under the North Carolina Eugenics Board, Blackmon was denied because her paperwork stated that she was sterilized under county authority – not state authority, a technicality written into the law.
In February, Virginia became the second state in the union to legislate in favor of compensating victims of the state’s infamous eugenic sterilization program. The living victims of state sponsored forced sterilization are set to be awarded $25,000 following a protracted battle in the legislature. In 2013, North Carolina was the first state to compensate surviving victims, at $50,000 each.
This news of the decision has been welcome relief for Virginia survivors of this program, most of whom are quite elderly and were only teenagers when they were forced to undergo these procedures. “I couldn’t have a family like everybody else does,” stated 87-year-old Lewis Reynolds. “They took my rights away.”
The concept of “designer babies” may sound like science fiction, a literal Brave New World, but it is decidedly not fictional – it is here now and being pushed rapidly into fertility clinics.
After only a brief debate today in the House of Commons, British Members of Parliament (MPs) approved a proposal to create genetically-engineered babies who contain the DNA of three parents: two mums and a dad. The vote to approve wasn’t even close – 382 ayes to 128 noes.
When Virginian E. Lewis Reynolds was a child, he was hit on the head in a tragic accident that resulted in epileptic-like convulsions that lingered for years. Mr. Reynolds ultimately did manage to overcome this affliction and he was able to enlist in the Marine Corps where he served in Korea and Vietnam in the […]
Despite signals earlier this year that the State of North Carolina would once again not include plans compensation for the victims of the state’s infamous eugenics programs in the state’s budget, it seems that those who suffered forcible or coerced sterilization at the hands of the state will see some restitution after all as North […]
A report emerged recently that at least 148 female inmates in the California penal system had been sterilized without authorization. The outcry justifiably focused on the fact that some women did not give informed consent, that it was against the law without prior authorization, and that in some cases it appeared there had been coercion. But the underlying […]
Information released this week by the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) has revealed that doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation used state funds to sterilize at least 148 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approval.
Wednesday marked the first working session of the North Carolina General Assembly and already a bill has been filed to compensate victims of North Carolina’s infamous, state-run eugenics and forced sterilization program, a representative for House Speaker Thom Tillis (R-Mecklenburg) confirms.
In his book War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race, New York Times bestselling author Edwin Black paints one of the most complete pictures to date of the history of the eugenics movement in America. In this remarkable work, originally published in 2003 and expanded in 2012, Black chronicles a shameful […]
For months it has seemed that the recompense due to the victims of the horrific North Carolina Eugenics program was assured. The measure to award a monetary compensation to these people whose human dignity has been so grossly violated seemed only just and entertained enthusiastic support from North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue, the State House […]
The Journal of Medical Ethics (JME) is one of those highly specialized, relatively expensive publications that cater to a targeted group of professionals. Because these journals are expensive (a print/online U.S. annual subscription for the JME is $431) and have such a very specific audience, they are rarely read by laypeople outside the professional circles they are intended to address.
The state of North Carolina has now identified more than 100 victims of their massive state-sponsored eugenics program which lasted from 1929 to 1974 according to reports out recently. In an effort to compensate for the wrongs of the past, Demoicratic Gov. Bev Perdue established the N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation. The foundation seeks to provide justice […]