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February 27, 1931
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In view of the many letters pro and con relating to the sterilization law before the Vermont legislators and the general misunderstanding of what sterilization aims to do for society at large, allow me to give her a brief summary of what sterilization is and aims to do for the benefit of posterity.
Sir Francis Galton was the first outstanding student of the subject, followed later by Darwin and Gregor Mendel, a Moravian monk.
Sterilization is not a punitive measure. It is strictly protective.
It is aimed at criminals, paupers, insane, feebleminded, epileptics, rapists and other defectives who can be proved to have inherited such defects as make them incapable of leading ordinarily normal lives, and who, unless sterilized, are likely to transmit their defects to their children. Sterilization is accomplished in males by a very slight operation called vasectomy. In females, an abdominal operation, closing the Fallopian tubes, about equivalent to an operation for appendicitis.
As an economical consideration I call attention to the 78,090 paupers in almshouses, January 1, 1923, and to the 290,456 insane in hospitals for mental diseases in the United States. The numbers of feeble‐minded in the United States who need institutional care are estimated from 300,000 to over 1,000,000.
Sterilization does not interfere with his or her sex activity. It merely makes it impossible for the persons to reproduce. It has been estimated that the state of New York, up to 1916, spent over $2,000,000 on the descendants of the "Jukes." The "Jukes" could have been sterilized for $150. Twenty‐three states have at one time or another enacted sterilization laws. In California 5,000 persons have been sterilized since 1909; Kansas, 335 since 1913; Nebraska, 260 since 1917; Oregon, 313 since 1917; Wisconsin, 144 since 1913, etc.
Sterilization does not mean less sympathy for the unfortunate; it does mean fewer unavoidable unfortunates and is true kindness both to the victims and to society. In the many states where sterilization is law, it has reduced taxes and decreased the need for charity and has helped to alleviate misery and suffering.
Sterilization does not aim to make supermen and women. It simply aims to raise the average by excluding persons of constitutional psychopathic inferiority from reproducing their kind. Many of these people need custodial care for their own benefit as well as for that of the state by preventing their reproduction and other damage to society.
The Bible has much to say for sterilization and eugenics. It tells us that men do not gather grapes from thorns and figs from thistles.
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