I watched in dread as the Personhood group tried to ram their sharia-like legislation down the throats of the Mississippi citizenry. Thankfully, there are enough sane people in Mississippi to vote down the proposal. Imagine a law that would allow the local government to control your reproductive status right down to the type of birth control you use! This is America! We don’t do things like that here! Or do we?
Years ago I became aware of just such a shocking law that was on the books of more than 30 states, including my own state of North Carolina where it stayed on the books until 1973.
I am talking about eugenics laws that many states and countries (most notably Germany) adopted in the 1920s and 1930s. The law allowed a board to approve the forced sterilization of any man, woman or child (some as young as 9 years old) deemed to be mentally deficient or overly promiscuous. In North Carolina alone nearly 8000 sterilizations took place.
In the beginning these sterilizations were aimed at poor white women but this would change after WWII when the focus was shifted to black citizens. Forced sterilization became the silent shame – victims didn’t want to disclose their mutilation for fear they would be branded retarded or slutty. Many signed the consent forms or had relatives who did without understanding exactly what they were signing or in response to threats of punishment.
Girls who were raped and victims of incest were frequent targets. The stories of their abuse at the hands of the state are shocking and heartbreaking and they suffered in silence for years. Many died taking their shameful secret to their graves.
But they are not all gone yet and some states including North Carolina are forming committees to find living victims who will hopefully get some compensation although they can never get back the lost years of parenthood they never knew or the self esteem and joy lost forever.
Many are finally giving voice to the horror committed against them. They are standing up and telling their stories with family and friends at their side, giving them the courage to finally speak. Janice Black is just one of many whose tragic stories are coming to light. You can read about her HERE. She was one of the last victims. And Elaine Riddick, HERE.We women have long been targets of practices meant to marginalize our existence and take control of our bodies. We have defeated eugenics laws and anti abortion laws but each year it seems some supposedly well meaning group of folks (usually made up of religious fanatics and predominately men) try to take control of our bodies in some sick, sadistic way.
We owe it to Janice and Elaine and all the others whose names we will never know to keep fighting back and NEVER EVER allow any group, panel, state or country that much control over our bodies.
As a post script let me add that we need to remember our sisters in other countries who are being subjected to mutilations, rapes, slavery and other forms of torture and forced captivity. They need our voice to cry out for the justice they deserve but are unable to do so themselves for fear of reprisals against them and their children.
The "Personhood" movement, and I use the term for the lack of a better one is misguided and dangerous.
ReplyDeleteIt is fortunate the people of Mississippi had the good sense to vote it down, just as the people of Colorado did some time back.
And what better place to go down to defeat than in a "Bible Belt" state. Just sayin...
Mississippi is an unlikely state to bring me encouragement about the status of women's rights in America, but I'll take every sign of hope I can get. Especially in the same week that Herman Cain's campaign has treated women as if no progress had been made whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteSheria;
ReplyDeleteI was really shocked to find out that this eugenics thing was going on until the 1970's. I thought it ended in the late 30's when the Nazis embarrassed us out of some of our more embarrassing habits, like listening to Father Coghlin and blaming the Depression on our poor genetic stock and lazy workers.
But you know, those "survival of the fittest" pseudo-Darwinian ideas are still lurking around amongst Rand's Rangers and various right wing groups - you know, the Herman Cain stuff about if you don't have a job, it's your own fault and how certain people or übermenchen, if you prefer, need to be unfettered by responsibility or decency so that they can lead us into a bright, mostly Aryan future.
Rocky,
ReplyDeleteExcellent post. The effect of such laws is certainly abominable, reducing women to reproductive units in a way that men would never accept if it were done to them. Such attempts bring the views of de Beauvoir and other feminist authors into sharp focus. Traditionally, men have been encouraged to go out into the big world and define themselves by what they DO; women have often been denied this experience and have then been kept down on that basis as if it were their own choice. The Mississippi proposal takes such posited "inauthenticity" as its basis: women must not be trusted to make their own decisions, manage their own lives, etc.
Thank you all for the thoughtful comments. I too was shocked to find out that not only were eugenics laws still on the books but actually being enforced into the 1970s. And yes, the take away from this is we must continue to fight every attempt of others to control our bodies and/or force mutilation. It is high time women were on equal footing with men when it comes to reproduction.
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