Between 1934 and 1939, in the interests of evolutionary hygiene, the eugenic program in Nazi Germany forcibly sterilized about 400,000 people. The victims were men and women suffering from hereditary and mental illnesses along with the deaf, the blind, alcoholics and others judged unfit to reproduce. At the time, another government was also busy sterilizing citizens it deemed racially unhygienic. Measured for eugenic enthusiasm, this other state entity ran second to Germany worldwide. And what state was that?
Why, the United States, but in particular the state of California. In the first half of the 20th century, the U.S. sterilized 60,000 Americans, to which California contributed a very robust 20,000. One of the more haunting features of an excellent new cable documentary coming out this summer, What Hath Darwin Wrought?, is the setting where many of its interviews with scholars were conducted: the grounds of the old Stockton State Hospital in Stockton, California.
Read more at The Huffington Post
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