North Carolina's involuntary sterilization victims may be compensated

GlobalPost

North Carolina moved closer this week to becoming the first US state to compensate victims of an involuntary sterilization program aimed at filtering out poor people deemed mentally or otherwise unfit to reproduce.

The practice was declared legal by the US Supreme Court in 1927 but tapered off in most states during World War II. North Carolina's program is unusual because it continued for so long, from 1929 to 1974, Charmaine Fuller Cooper, the executive director of the N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation, told USA Today.

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North Carolina lawmakers held a hearing in Raleigh this week on a reparations bill that would give victims of the program $50,000 each.

It won near unanimous support and was forwarded to the state finance and appropriations committees. If approved by those bodies, it would be sent to the full House and, later, the Senate if endorsed, Charlotte radio station WFAE reported.

“This is not a perfect bill,” bill sponsor Rep. Larry Womble said. “But it is a bill that separates North Carolina from the rest of the world. This is a proud day. This is an auspicious time in the history of North Carolina.”

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The North Carolina Eugenics Board ordered the forced sterilization of about 7,600 people during the program's 45-year history, an estimated 2,000 of which are still living, The Daily Caller reported.

One of the most vocal victims, Elaine Riddick, wept after the hearing Tuesday -- not just because the bill passed, but because it hadn't passed unanimously. She was sterilized by the state at age 14.

"You want to think we live in a better world," she told WFAE. "And it's not fair that people think like that. I'm so crushed that they still think the same way."

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