Washington State Eugenics

Joanne Woiak Disability Studies Bioethics & Humanities University of Washington [email protected]

Eugenics and Disability website: http://eugenics.washington.edu

Disability studies

• Framework for answering “ what is disability?

” • Restricted participation or oppression caused by social barriers.

– Attitudes, architecture, policies, representations.

– Disability rights movement seeks equality through changing the environment, not the individual.

Disability history of sterilization in Washington

1. How were “ disability ” and “ normal ” socially – constructed in that context?

Roles of professionals and patients in creating identities and knowledge.

2. What were the meanings of “ coercion ” “ consent ” in that context?

and – Constraints on choice, and potential for agency.

History of eugenics

• 1900-1945, organized eugenics movements in 30+ countries.

• Positive eugenics – Encourage the “ fit ” to pass on their genes.

• Negative eugenics – Persuade, pressure, or compel the “ unfit ” pass on “ defective ” genes. • • Permanent institutionalization.

Forced sterilization.

not to

The

“

burden

”

of disability

“ It is a reproach to our intelligence that we as a people should have to support about half a million insane, feebleminded, epileptic, blind and deaf; 80,000 prisoners and 100,000 paupers at a cost of over 100 million dollars per year.

” -Charles Davenport, Eugenics Record Office, 1910

30 states with compulsory sterilization laws by 1930s

1909 Washington ’ s criminal statute: second forced sterilization law in the nation “ Whenever any person shall be adjudged guilty of carnal abuse of a female person under the age of ten years, or of rape, or shall be adjudged to be an habitual criminal, the court may, in addition to such other punishment or confinement as may be imposed, direct an operation to be performed upon such person, for the prevention of procreation.

” still on the books, RCW 9.92.100

1921 sterilization statute: targeted a broader range of “ hereditary defectives ” “ Superintendents of all state mental hospitals and custodial schools must report all feebleminded, insane, epileptic, habitual criminals, moral degenerates and sexual perverts, who are persons potential to producing offspring, who because of inheritance of inferior or anti-social traits, would probably become a social menace or wards of the state.

”

• • • • Implementation of the 1921 law (1935 1941) The superintendents of the state institutions reported that 685 operations were performed.

– 3 state mental hospitals – 2 state custodial schools Disability – 403 “ Insane ” – 276 “ Feebleminded ” Gender – 184 Men – 501 Women The law was overturned in 1942.

– On the grounds that it violated procedural due process.

Sources in Washington archives

• • • Correspondence of superintendents.

– – Backlogs of cases.

Cases on appeal.

Mental hospital records.

– – Admissions Surgeries Institutional Board of Health meetings.

– – – Vote tallies Forms for notification and consent Hearing transcripts

Disability as the cause of all “ social ills ” : Juvenile Protection Association of Cincinnati, 1915