Sterilization System in North Carolina
North Carolina's Sterilization Laws
North Carolina was the first state to enact a voluntary sterilization law and created more state-owned sterilizations per capita in the 1960s [8]. North Carolina was also the only state to allow welfare officials to recommend sterilizations for their patients and attempted to minimize state welfare aid for women [8].
Two years after the court case, Buck v. Bell, North Carolina allowed the State Eugenics Board to authorize the sterilizations of the "mentally diseased, feebleminded, or epileptic" [9]. Although the state allowed women to request sterilizations, the law did not make sterilizations accessible for all women since they had to seek the operation from their physicians who sought approval from the Eugenics Board. The sterilization program was also created to reduce welfare payments and stop the reproduction of women with mental illnesses [8].
In the 1960s, eugenic laws in North Carolina targetted white women and women of color because of the welfare they received [8]. However, involuntary sterilizations affected African American women by 23% from the 1930s to the 1940s. By 1966, African American women accounted for 64% of sterilization operations [8].
Shirley:
There was a case of a white woman named Shirley in 1966, who experienced schizophrenia and decided to place her three children in foster care. She presented a request for approval of becoming sterilized with the consent of her doctor to the North Carolina Eugenics Board of Sterilization [8]. The board denied Shirley the option to become sterilized because her husband wanted her to continue to have children [8]. Therefore, the board placed her mental health below her husband's desire for her to bear more children.
Elaine Riddick:
Another example is of Elaine Riddick, who was sterilized without her permission, at the age of fourteen, on March 1, 1968, by her nurses in a hospital in North Carolina after she delivered her first children [9]. The right to bear another child was taken away from Elaine Riddick at a young age.
In 2002, North Carolina apologized for engaging in eugenics through sterilization of 7,600 people and announced $10 million would be given to victims within in the state in 2015 [10].
Elaine Riddick expressed, "You can't put a price on someone taking your womb or castrating you, it's humiliating," which many victims agreed with [10].
Resources:
[8] Schoen, Johanna. "Between Choice and Coercion: Women and the Politics of Sterilization in North Carolina, 1929-1975." Journal of Women's History 13, no. 1 (Spring, 2001): 132-156. doi:http://dx.doi.org.mutex.gmu.edu/10.1353/jowh.2001.0034. https://search-proquest-com.mutex.gmu.edu/docview/203246733?accountid=14541
[9] Kluchin, Rebecca M. "Sterilizing “Unfit” Women." In Fit to Be Tied: Sterilization and Reproductive Rights in America, 1950-1980, 73-113. Rutgers University Press, 2009. Accessed October 11, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hj13v.7.
[10] Naggiar, Stacey. “Victims of Forced Sterilization to Receive $10 Million from North Carolina.” NBCNews.com. NBCUniversal News Group, July 25, 2013. https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/victims-forced-sterilization-receive-10-million-north-carolina-flna6C10753957.