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 March, a bill was introduced to broaden the qualifications of the eugenics compensation program and close the loophole that excluded Blackmon from receiving a portion of the $10 million set aside for victims. The number of people the extension might affect is difficult to estimate; however, by the June 2014 deadline to apply for compensation, there were 786 applications and only 220 were approved.