Eugenics in race and state.

  • International Congress of Eugenics 1921 : American Museum of Natural History)
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Eugenics in race and state. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    304/534 (page 288)
    288 HARRY H. LAUGHLIN Such punishment was held neither cruel nor unusual, was ordered as a part of the original sentence, and was considered especially appropriate retribu¬ tion for certain sexual offences. MOTIVES or THE STATUTES But the greatest difficulty which the several sterilization laws have met with in the courts is not the problem of two punishments for the same offense nor constituting a bill of attainder, nor being a cruel or unusual punishment. In the latter consideration the best laws have no punitive element about them, nor have they any special therapeutic consideration. As was pre¬ viously stated, the present surgical laws permit, for medical reasons, neces¬ sary operations, regardless of whether or not they may cause sexual steril¬ ity. Due punishments are found by our present punitive system for all crimes, without calling sterilization into use. Race betterment is the only motive which eugenical sterilization laws have to justify them. The most successful statutes omit punitive or therapeutic purposes, and set forth only eugenical aims. Their one purpose is to exercise the undoubted right of the state to prevent reproduction by persons of proven degenerate stock, that is persons whose children, because of the inheritance of certain handi¬ capping mental, physical and moral qualities, would probably be unable to develop into seH-sustaining and valuable members of society, but which children, on the other hand, would constitute a drag upon the self-support¬ ing portion of the commonwealth. CLASS LEGISLATION The principal legal difficulty makes it necessary to meet the matter of so- called class legislation. Some of the courts have held that the sterilization law which is applicable to epileptics within a state institution and not to epileptics of the same degree of degeneracy in the population at large, constitutes an undue discrimination, that is, it creates an artificial and un¬ natural classification, and is therefore unjust and unconstitutional in those states in which the constitution forbids class legislation. But not all states have made this very strict interpretation. Some have held the ap¬ plication to institutional inmates only to be a fair primary classification and not unduly discriminating. PERSONS SUBJECT It is possible, however, to circumvent such possible attacks by the courts by making all persons of the same natural hereditary degeneracy of the same