South Carolina
Number of victims
Approximately 277 people had been sterilized in South Carolina by the end of 1963. Out of these 277 people about 92% were women (Paul, p. 467). About 41% of all those sterilized were deemed mentally ill. 94% of these mentally ill were women and 6% were men. The remaining 59% of all those sterilized were deemed mentally deficient. 91% of the mentally deficient were women and the remaining 9% were men. Overall, South Carolina had the 23rd highest number of sterilizations in the United States.
Period during which sterilizations occurred
Sterilizations occurred in South Carolina during a period that lasted from 1938 to 1963.
Temporal pattern and rate of sterilizations
After South Carolina’s sterilization law was passed in 1935 sterilizations were performed at a very slow rate for the first few years. Between 1940 and 1950 sterilizations were performed at a rate of about 9 per year. Between 1950 and 1960 the number of sterilizations rose dramatically, practically doubling. The three year period spanning from 1955 to 1958 accounted for more than one third of all sterilizations performed in South Carolina (Paul, pp. 465-466). During this peak period, the rate of sterilization per 100,000 residents was close to 2 per year. The number of sterilizations then dropped after 1960, with the last 25 operations performed between 1960 and 1963.
Passage of law(s)
South Carolina was the 31st and second-to-last state to implement a sterilization law. The first sterilization bill was drafted in 1931 by B. O. Whitten, who was superintendent of the State Training School for the Feeble-minded. Whitten was unable to find a sponsor for the bill that year and the next. In 1933, however, he was sponsored by attorney-legislator Shepard K. Nash. The bill was passed by the state Senate but was quickly revoked among opposition from the state’s House of Representatives. The bill was similarly passed and then shot down the following year before finally getting passed for good in 1935 (Larson, pp. 126-29).
Groups identified in the law
The sterilization bill in South Carolina was aimed at “any inmate of such institution who is afflicted with any hereditary form of insanity that is recurrent, idiocy, imbecility, feeble-minded[ness] or epilepsy” (Larson, p. 126).
Process of the law
The sterilization bill was very broad and applied to all patients of state mental health or penal institutions. Power was given to the superintendents of these institutions to request a patient for sterilization. The board of each institution was required to give each patient notice and a hearing before authorizing sterilization. In order to legally find someone eligible for sterilization the board had to determine that they “would be the probable parent of socially inadequate offspring…and that the welfare of such inmate and of society will be promoted by such sterilization” (Larson, p. 126).
Precipitating factors and processes
Eugenics in South Carolina faced a significant amount of resistance. South Carolina’s culture, like that many southern states, conflicted with eugenic ideals, and took issue with the government interfering in private matters. Louisiana State University political scientist Charles W. Pipkin noted that, “the public has an aversion to legislative interference with parental rights except in cases of extreme neglect” (quoted in Larson, p. 8). Large extended families also provided more support and care for the disabled and others who would have otherwise fallen prey to state institutions. Like other states in the Deep South, South Carolina had few foreign immigrants who were often the focus of eugenics programs in the north and west of the country (Larson, p. 9).
Religion played a large role in the delayed acceptance of eugenics in South Carolina. A largely religious culture created extended families beyond blood relatives which gave further support to the disadvantaged (Larson, pp. 13-14). Additionally progressivism did not hold as much sway in the south as it did in other parts of the country. This was due to a relatively smaller number of urban middle-class as well as a smaller number of educated citizens. The Deep South also did not have the scientific or educational resources that were present in other parts of the country to make the idea of eugenics go over more smoothly (Larson, p. 17). The controversial Virginia case of Buck v. Bell had tainted the public view of compulsory sterilization in South Carolina (Larson, p. 125). When eugenics in the south did get underway it occurred in a two-step process. Those deemed inferior or feeble-minded were first recommended for segregation rather than sterilization (Larson, p. 60-65). A lack of funding for facilities towards this purpose and over-crowding would eventually lead to outright sterilization (Larson, p. 91).
Groups targeted and victimized
Apart from the mentally ill and disabled several other groups were also focused on for sterilization. One of these groups was mentally ill women. Out of the 277 people sterilized in South Carolina, 255 were women (Paul, p. 467). African-Americans were also singled out, representing 102 out of the 277 surgeries performed while twice as many white patients were admitted to state hospitals as blacks. Eugenics researcher Philip Reilly noted that of states in the south with sterilization laws “only in South Carolina, which operated a small sterilization program, is there strong evidence of racial discrimination” (Larson, p. 155). There is also evidence that African American women on welfare struggled to find doctors who were willing to deliver their children without the woman consenting to sterilization, however there is no reliable record of the number of these women that were actually sterilized (Caron, p. 213, Kluchin, p. 166, Carpio, p. 89). Beyond these qualitative accounts, it was also observed that in 1963, all 23 sterilizations performed in South Carolina were performed on black women, bringing into question the potentially racial motivation of these actions (Reilly, p. 166)
Other restrictions placed on those identified in the law or with disabilities in general
Similar to other states in the Deep South there was a preexisting law in South Carolina that invalidated marriage contracts entered into by anyone defined as “an idiot or lunatic”. This law was based on the assumption that individuals included in these categories did not possess the necessary mental capacity to enter into such a legal contract (Larson, p. 98).
Family LegislationWhen South Carolina’s statute came under repeal in 1984, Elizabeth J. Patterson introduced the change when a constituent approached her with concerns about the state’s provision that dealt with the sterilization of epileptics. When Patterson spoke to the committee about her concerns that there was “no need for [the law] anymore” (Larson, p. 163), and assured Patterson that it would not be used ever again (Larson, pp. 162-164).
Welfare
Sterilizations
Up until the 1980’s, South Carolina kept its sterilization law in the books. This resulted in pressure for poorer women to get sterilized, and caused increased fear from black women of the family planning programs run by whites (Carpio, p. 77).
In Aiken, South Carolina, many women didn’t have a choice of physician during pregnancy, as there was only on practicing physician who would accept Medicaid and welfare patients. This was Dr. Clovis H. Pierce (Carpio, p. 77, Largent, p. 162-63, Kluchin, p. 161, Roberts, p. 92, Mississippi Appendectomy). Pierce required that welfare recipients be sterilized upon the delivery of their third child, or as soon as possible if they had more than three children. In 1973, hospital records indicate that Dr. Pierce had sterilized 18 welfare recipient mothers, all but two of whom were African American women (Largent, p. 163, Kluchin, p. 161, Mississippi Appendectomy).
Pierce was by no means the only person in support of this idea. In two separate surveys given to teaching hospitals in the early 1970s, 94 percent of obstetrician- gynecologists supported the practice of compulsory sterilization of welfare-supported mothers with three illegitimate children (Caron, p. 211). Also, Representative Lucius N. Porth proposed the idea that the sterilization become mandatory in 1971, which was never passed into law (Caron, p. 211).
Appellate Judge john D. Butzner Jr. concluded that Pierce’s policies aligned with his personal politics rather than the health of the patients, as was a clear violation of both his patient’s rights as well as the code of medical ethics (Kluchin, p. 165, United States Court of Appeals).
Major proponents
The most influential proponent of eugenics in South Carolina was Benjamin O. Whitten. Whitten was the superintendent of the State School for the Feeble-minded (Larson, p. 126). He advocated for the segregation of mentally retarded blacks in 1924 (Larson, p. 93) and would eventually draft the sterilization bill in 1931. He would finally get the bill permanently passed into law on 1935 after persisting in the wake of heavy opposition from state legislators (Larson, p. 129).
Despite his direct involvement in the sterilization of many people Whitten showed no remorse and remained convinced that he was doing the right thing. He is quoted as having said that “If our institution does nothing more than incarcerate, teach, and train those admitted thereto, of course, it will have failed in many of the high purposes for which it is intended” (quoted in Noll, “Public Face”, p. 28). It is interesting to note that when he later wrote the book A History of Whitten Village, which gives an account of the early years of the South Carolina Training School and lacked any indication of its history in eugenics (Noll, “Public Face”, p. 40).
“Feeder institutions” and institutions where sterilizations were performed
The two main feeder institutions in South Carolina were the South Carolina State Hospital and the State Training School for the Feeble-minded. Both were sites for sterilization in South Carolina. Between the two sites, approximately 28.6 individuals per 100,000 were institutionalized in 1937, as compared to the national average of 72.8, and the 97.9 for other mid atlantic states (Noll, Feebleminded, pp. 40-41)
South
Carolina State Hospital: Photo origin: Ancestry.com,
available at
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~asylums/columbia_sc/index.html
Although both institutions participated in eugenics, the State Hospital was unique in South Carolina because it sterilized only female patients. Unlike other hospitals, the State Hospital also admitted African Americans; in fact, 102 out of the 104 sterilizations performed there were on African Americans (Larson, p. 155). Located in Columbia, South Carolina, it continues to function as a hospital, though it no longer accepts mental patients, and makes no mention of its eugenic history on the hospital web site.
The State Training School was built partially using money from the Works Progress administration. In 1935, the state Public Works Administration used WPA money to build three new dormitories and a small hospital for the school. Again, three years later, federal money was used for the construction of a new water supply, a 90 bed dormitory, and a recreational center, including a pool, park and bathhouse (Noll, Feebleminded, p. 137). Through the institutions, however, it was known that under the state’s laws, no more than one hundred individuals were sterilized per year (ibid, p. 77).
The State Training School functions today as the Whitten Center (Noll, "Public Face," p. 29).
Opposition
There was much opposition and resistance to the use of eugenics in South Carolina. The greatest opposition came from the state House of Representatives, whose members felt that the outrage incited by compulsory sterilization far outweighed its benefits. Representative William R. Bradford stated that the practice of sterilization was “inhuman” and that “the state has no right to butcher its citizens”. The main proponent, Whitten, also came under fire when one legislator remarked that were the sterilization bill to come into law Whitten himself should be the first sterilized (Larson, p. 126).
Political
Acknowledgements
In 2003, South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges made a public apologetic statement for the forced sterilizations that took place in his home state, and for all of the people that were robbed of their rights to have children. It is said, “no one encouraged Hodges to make the apology,” but it was aimed to educate the residents of the past offenses, and to “make them more accepting of their differences” (Associated Press).
Bibliography
Associated Press.
"South Carolina governor apologizes for forced sterilizations."
Available at http://extras.journalnow.com/againsttheirwill/parts/epilogue/story6.html
Avery, Sharon G., and Terry W.
Lipscomb. 1976. “Records of Whitten Village.” The South
Carolina
Historical Magazine 77, 4:272-274.
Caron, Simone M. 2008. Who Chooses?: American Reproductive History Since 1830. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Carpio, Myla F. 1995. "Lost Generations: The Involuntary Sterilization of American Indian Women." Master's Thesis, Department of American Indian Studies, Arizona State University.
Kluchin, Rebecca M. 2009. Fit To Be Tied: Sterilization and Reproductive Rights in America, 1950-1980. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Larson, Edward J. 1995. Sex, Race, and Science: Eugenics in the Deep South. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press.
Mississippi Appendectomy, “Sterilization- black women” available at http://mississippiappendectomy.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/black-women-in-the-1960s-and-1970s/
Noll, Steven. 1995. Feebleminded in Our Midst: Institutions for the Mentally Retarded in the South, 1900-1940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Noll, Steven. 2005. “The Public Face of Southern Institutions for the ‘Feeble-Minded.’” The Public Historian 27, 2: 25-42.
Paul, Julius. 1965. "'Three Generations of Imbeciles Are Enough': State Eugenic Sterilization Laws in American Thought and Practice." Unpublished ms. Washington, D.C.: Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
Reilly, Philip R. 1987. "Involuntary Sterilization in the United States: A Surgical Solution." The Quarterly Review of Biology 62, 2: 153-170.
Roberts, Dorothy. 1999. Killing The Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and The Meaning of Liberty. New York: Vintage Books.
Stern, Alexandra. 2005. Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America. Berkeley: University of California Press.
United States Court of Appeals, Walker and Brown v. Pierce, Walker and Brown v. Pierce and Poda. Available at http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/560/560.F2d.609.75-2213.75-2212.html