SOCIAL CONTROL
Recently the New York Times published an article on forced sterilization on people who were deemed unfit to have children in North Carolina. Although, North Carolina isn’t the only state to have a Eugenics program, it is the first to apologize and offer compensation to the victims. North Carolina gave social workers the power to force sterilize seven thousand six hundred people between 1933 and 1977 based on IQ level and competency (NY Times). Most of the victims were children who were raped, abandoned or in mental institutions. The state was able to get permission by coercion from family members who were usually illiterate and didn’t understand the effects it would have on their children. North Carolina and the other states that had a Eugenics program violated human’s right to pro-create. What is the point of a free country if the government gets to pick and choose who can and can’t have children? They violated every women and man’s right to live and create life. It is the reason God put us on this earth. As a mother I couldn’t imagine my life without my son. He is the reason I’m up at six every day (literally). He fills my day with joy and laughter and I can and relate to how the victims are feeling. To live in a county that preaches “Freedom and Liberty for All” and yet the government itself is taking away that same freedom of its own people to have a choice in pro- creating. Someone without a conscience and any regard for human life chose their life for them; it’s disturbing to think this happened in the U.S. How did the government know they are unfit to be parents? Did they see the future these people would have had? Did they even think about that? No they didn’t, they just liked playing God for a day. I am a single mother, would I have been sterilize after I had my son because his father and I chose not to be together? Would I have been sterilized because I was Arab American and considered incompetent because English is a second language to me? It’s so sad to even think about how easy it was for them to pick and choose who got to have children and who didn’t. What is scares me is that I was born ten years after the last recorded forced sterilization in North Carolina had occurred. What else is scary is that this was going on in the U.S. and no one knew about it. It makes me wonder what else the government has done that we do not know about. But, what breaks my heart the most is the victims who have and will pass away without anyone to keep their memories alive. The government didn’t just take away their freedom to pro-create; they took away the memories they would have had with their loved ones. Who knows what kind of future they would have had if they were able to have children? They could have been the parent of someone who would find a cure for cancer, or HIV or they could have been the next president. It just doesn’t make sense to me that our government did the same think that Hitler did to his people. North Carolina claims that it did it to help the victims so they don’t get victimized by someone else. But, all they wanted was social control over people. They chose to sterilize them to gain money, power and control. It’s despicable that politicians will threaten human existence to please themselves. I think that North Carolina’s apologizing is a small step forward. These victims have been violated physically, psychologically and emotionally. They had their right to pro-create taken from them without their knowledge. I think that every state should follow North Carolina’s actions and take responsibility for what there governors have done. Although, no price should be put on life or children; they should at least be compensated the highest amount possible for the pain they have endured because of the actions of selfless human beings who were able to go with their lives while these victims suffered in silence.