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Subscribe to RSSRock Center's Dr. Nancy Snyderman investigates how thousands of North Carolinians were sterilized under the state's now defunct eugenics program. Survivors such as Elaine Riddick are demanding answers and compensation from the government.
People sterilized against their will under a discredited North Carolina state program should each be paid $50,000, a task force voted Tuesday, marking the first time a state has moved to compensate victims of a once-common public health practice called eugenics.
The Legislature must still approve any payments.
The panel recommended that the money go to verified, living victims, including those who are alive now but may die before the lawmakers approve any compensation. The panel had discussed amounts between $20,000 and $50,000 per person.
Before the vote, chairwoman Laura Gerald said the task force was seeking a balance between the victims' needs and political reality, noting that "compensation has been on the table now for nearly 10 years, but the state has lacked the political will to do anything other than offer an apology."
North Carolina is one of about a half dozen states to apologize for past eugenics programs, but it is alone in trying to put together a plan to compensate victims.
State officials sterilized more than 7,600 people in North Carolina from 1929 to 1974 under eugenics programs, which at the time were aimed at creating what was seen as a better society by weeding out people such as criminals and mentally disabled people considered undesirable.
North Carolina was not the only state to engage in the practice. But it was different because it ramped up sterilizations after World War II despite associations between eugenics and Nazi Germany. About 70 percent of all North Carolina's sterilizations were performed after the war, peaking in the 1950s, according to state records. The state officially ended the program in 1977.
A task force report last year said 1,500 to 2,000 of those victims were still alive, and the state has verified 72 victims.
On Tuesday, some said they were simply looking forward to the issue being resolved.
"I just want it to be over," said 57-year-old Elaine Riddick, who was sterilized when she was 14 after she gave birth to a son who was the product of rape. "You can't change anything. You just let go and let God."
Riddick, a constant presence at the task force meetings, said she was surprised that the task force recommended $50,000 instead of $20,000.
During an interview for NBC's Rock Center in November, Riddick gave an emotional account of the events leading to her sterilization. She was 13 when she got pregnant after being raped by a neighbor in Winfall, N.C., in 1967. The state ordered that immediately after giving birth she should be sterilized. Doctors cut and tied off her fallopian tubes.
“I have to carry these scars with me. I have to live with this for the rest of my life,” she said.
Riddick said she was never told what was happening. “Got to the hospital and they put me in a room and that’s all I remember, that’s all I remember,” she said. “When I woke up, I woke up with bandages on my stomach.”
Riddick’s records reveal that a five-person state eugenics board in Raleigh had approved a recommendation that she be sterilized. The records label Riddick as “feebleminded” and “promiscuous.” They said her schoolwork was poor and that she “does not get along well with others.”
“I was raped by a perpetrator [who was never charged] and then I was raped by the state of North Carolina. They took something from me both times,” she said. “The state of North Carolina, they took something so dearly from me, something that was God given.”
It wouldn’t be until Riddick was 19, married and wanting more children, that she’d learn she was incapable of having any more babies. A doctor in New York, where she was living at the time, told her that she’d been sterilized.
“Butchered. The doctor used that word… I didn’t understand what she meant when she said I had been butchered,” Riddick said.
Riddick once sued North Carolina for a million dollars. Her case made it all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, but the court declined to hear the case. “I would like for the state of North Carolina to right what they wronged with me,” she said.
Despite the state social workers who declared Riddick was “mentally retarded” and “promiscuous”, she went to college and raised the son born moments before she was sterilized. Her son is devoted to his mother and a successful entrepreneur.
Riddick is proud of her achievements.
“I don’t know where I would be if I listened to the state of North Carolina,” she said.
Leave a Comment:
Wow... Fifty thousand for medical rape... What the heck is wrong with the state of North Carolina?!
at least n.c. is doing more than apologizing and for something that was morally accepted by our ancestors (less than a century ago!) doesn't make it right...but according to previous reports...parents agreed to the procedures in the case of minors. did she sue her parents?
Ironic and pitiful that the Supreme court wouldn't hear her case. This is the most disgusting sh*t I have ever heard. That woman should get millions.
Its North Carolina! Do i need to go further with that? ok... to them its still 1930. Or so they thought back in the day. I dont know about today, i left there in 89".
I should really pull my head out of my ass. I'd no idea this kind of bull@!$%# once took place in this country. It's beyond words, the tyranny of it all - a government authority thinking it can create a better society through eugenics. How in the hell did this ever catch on 90 years ago?
Will North Carolina now be reimbursed for the millions of taxpayer dollars that have supported women who popped out kids with absolutely no means -- other than welfare -- of supporting them? The welfare queens whose 'income' depended on how many kids they could dump on the taxpayers?
To "A-Messenger-2926105
Lets not forget that they"the Nazis" would be funding their most important partner in crime.
Republicans of course.
At least by your slanted rational. They are also anti American government. Their anti-government rhetoric has almost paralleled the anti goverment rhetoric of the repubs, that started as soon as we had a black presidential candidate.
- A Messenger
Please provide your evidence that Planned Parent Hood is a Eugenics program.
BTW, because I am sure you cannot look it up here is the Merriams definition of Eugenics
Please explain to me how Planned Parenthood is trying to better the human race via selective breading. Or is it more likely that you are just spreading hype on a subject that you are clearly uninformed about. You clearly are in no position to make the ridiculous, dare I say PALINESQUE statements about a program that does nothing but good for millions of families across the United States.
Go away troll, make up some stuff somewhere else .....
Obama / Biden 2012
Get your head out of the sand, Dr. Who.
Margaret Sanger is the founder of Planned Parenthood. She was a eugenics nutjob who did not want certain individuals to procreate. ESPECIALLY African Americans:
"We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population ... if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America, by Linda Gordon
So, it's no wonder almost 80% of Planned Parenthood offices are in minority neighborhoods.
xAgentOrangex
no you get your head out of the sand. If PPH was as you say there would be millions i dare say 10's of millions of people complaining and there would be much more evidence to the fact. You are living in an episode of the X Files if you honestly think there is a Government Eugenics program going on. Where are the Superman and SuperWoman?
Paranoid conspiracy theories are just that, THEORIES! Don't state them as fact .....
A Messenger certainly isn't a troll... neither side would put up with that crap, let-alone pay for it.
I doubt anyone is going to declare Planned Parenthood is a eugenics program but it is a matter of logic.
Remember jr high school algebra:
If A = B and B=C then A=C
If Planned Parenthood provides low cost birth control to poor people and it means less poor people have children or at least have smaller families.
If poor people are considered to be less competitive in society and thus less desirable and you define eugenics as the attempt to produce fewer socially undesirable people thus improving the future generations.
Then Planned Parenthood is a type of eugenics program.
It is mostly voluntary although I do know people who after the fact have said they were bullied into abortions by overly zealous staffers. (I don't know if that is accurate all I am doing is quoting what I was told - it could be a way to reduce their own guilt at aborting their babies by blaming others but either way the end result is people regretted their choice after the fact.)
The important question is not if Planned Parenthood is a eugenics program but rather if it is an socially appropriate eugenics program. Personally I have mixed feelings. There is a middle ground. I am not comfortable with abortion. I am not comfortable with contraceptives for teenagers without parental notification. (Sorry but there are too many STDs for me to feel comfortable with children having random sexual encounters. After all if you cannot vote, drink or in many states drive at 16 what makes people think you are mature enough to make decisions about sex with all of its complications.) On the flip side I am not comfortable with women dying young because they are unable to find safe effective birth control and wear their bodies out having children they cannot afford to feed or care for properly.
@PJ-697731
If Hitler = Christian and Hitler = Nazi then Christians = Nazis
Pretty cool how this logic works
Interesting choice of arguments as Hitler was not a Christian. Check out Google for a few of his quotes.
Basically he did speak well of Christianity in public when it was useful until he had the power he wanted or was in private he was more honest. Among other comments he spoke of Christianity being a disease. Oddly enough he was not an atheist either. He instead wanted people to pursue their own "authentic spiritualism" which from my perspective means he wanted them to have flexible moral values to be more easily manipulated.
I think in algebra as in the rest of life one must start with ACCURATE facts for the rule to work.
They should have sterilized the evangelicals.
Sam-572410
To "A-Messenger-2926105
"Lets not forget that they"the Nazis" would be funding their most important partner in crime.
Republicans of course.
At least by your slanted rational. They are also anti American government. Their anti-government rhetoric has almost paralleled the anti goverment rhetoric of the repubs, that started as soon as we had a black presidential candidate"
What a crock. Nearly all of the south were democrats at the time. Martin Luther King was a republican. Are you now calling him a Nazi?
man they should have sterilized some of our parents,mine included.
But then,with this bs they would benifit from that so ha jokes on them I guess.
Dr. Who
If PPH was as you say there would be millions i dare say 10's of millions of people complaining and there would be much more evidence to the fact.
Look at where the vast majority of PPH offices are located. Poor and Minority neighborhoods. Who did the Eugenics proponents want less of? Poor and minority.
You can keep your head in the sand and make funny references to X Files - but you should at least listen to the distinguished Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
"Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth
and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of."
Hey, genius - next time you talk to Ruth Ginsburg - aka. SuperWoman - ask her who "we" is and who "we" didn't want to have too many of.
Why wasn't she informed of the judgement? That would at least have given her an opportunity to counter. Have the laws changed since then?
need more info!
Eugenics is a nasty word.
50K? They should get more than that. That should be the initial offer and they should be able to sue for more than that. This is disgusting what they did.
Are you kidding me!? This is a clear case of "Class Cleansing!" Like I've argued in the past when the talk is about the centuries of chattel slavery in America, reparations hardly cover it! How in the world can anyone have the audacity to assign a monetary value to human life!?
50k is an insult in this case! Why not a much higher award? And in addition, making sure that every blighted community and urban quarter, is upgraded with a structure and resources, to give the students and community a fighting chance to succeed in a callous world? That indeed would be a just compensation for such heinous acts!!
ya vol mein heir; ve must purify for de sake of der fatherland, everyone below a IQ of 120, everyone not 6ft tall for men or 5'9' for women, every one not of pure Nordic blood, see how easy it is to end unemployment, illegal immigration, and racism.
maybe you should start a facebook page and oversee the donations
Agreed...disgusting and sick as it gets...wow.
Oh, the humanity!
Think of the children!
Jesus save us!
Wow. The folks on that task force must be the most despicable, shameless, loathsome creatures. This is truly sickening.
wait a minute...this is the ONLY state that has done more than..."sorry" and even then...not ALL of the states that practiced this procedure have apologized. you are verbally attacking people who said..."nope..this was wrong and we should give some compensation".
Most states stopped their eugenics programs after that failure in Europe in the 1940's called the holocaust. North Carolina continued up to 1974. It doesn't make what the other states did morally right, but at least they figured out what a horrible idea it was after the holocaust. North Carolina looked at the holocaust and said "yep! That's a mighty successful eugenics program you got going on there!"
This has NOTHING to do with Slavery. There were just as many Whites, Indian, and other races that suffered. Of course this ALWAYS HAS TO BE ABOUT THE BLACKS.
N.C. was NOT the only state and just because this one woman was black makes no difference.
This story should only be about the program and NOT the race. But of course the blacks will make it into their own "it was because we were black" and no other race counts but us.
Anything to blame slavery for their faults TODAY.
Are you for real "The Blacks" .......
Racism kept alive by those who cry racism.
#!/pages/Racism-kept-alive-by-those-who-cry-racism/242620405749168?sk=wall
Steven is correct, the blacks always look for issues to cry about and extort money over.
you whine about how downtrodden you poor white dominant males are...
and blame victims...
nice..
Slavery is an African invention and still exists on that continent today. Race is a European invention and still enslaves the minds of those affected by European contact. Karma is a divine invention … it affects everyone. Suck it up, folks.
"The Blacks"? You have a problem with "The Blacks"?
Normally I would not respond to foolishness and ignorance... But Steven hit a nerve. To say "Blacks always" is in itself sterotypical and shows your negative point of view in terms of Black people. I'm Black and do not expect or want you or anyone else to give me anything.
What about your faults? Clearly you have a hatred concerning people you do not even know to make that statement. What have Black folks done to make hate them so???
Certain people hate any story that they feel does not make "them" the priority...You suck major @$$
Very sad on so many levels. What gets me is that the American government can turn around and point fingers at other countries for their past transgressions and things that are happening now, but fail to admit to it's own. Alot of Americans don't want to hear that their country is just as bad and refuse to believe it or stick their heads in the sand.
This is disgusting. 50k per victim doesn't even begin to cover it. Despicable.
The practice of sterilization dod not end until the legalization of abortion. Coincidence? Choose your poison.
Aimee, you are calling the ONLY state that practiced this that has owned up and offered any compensation at all 'despicable'. What do you call the ones that a) haven't offered anything but an apology, or b) haven't even offered that? Seems like $50K beats the heck out of 'nothing'.
we should offer welfare recipients the same deal with payout dependent on gender (a steralized male is worth more to society than a steralized female)
which welfare recipients might you be talking about??
I hate to say this because it was a different time and circumstance but working with foster kids everyday I see plenty of mothers and fathers of all races that should not be allowed to have more children. Trust me if the state has one or two in custody they will be back with more. It taxes everyone.
They should get a stipend, tax free, for LIFE. This was a repugnant chapter in our history...no amount of money can make these people whole. Hopefully the victims will get some semblance of justice before it's too late.
$50 million would be a more appropriate payment-- and even then, can we put a price tag on reproductive rights?
so you are saying...if you live in n.c. you will pay for these payments to the individuals that were given this procedure? you are willing to foot the tax bill to pay $50million...1500 to 2000 times?
Shandril probably doesn't pay taxes anyway.
janellect: parents of children who were given this "treatment" were consulted and they were supposed to have approval from said parents. i do think this was a disgusting practice on many women and men, girls and boys too. i noticed that there are no comments about the men/boys this was performed on. as far as payment goes (for anguish and suffering mental and physical) i think i'll be attacked for this, but $50,000 for something your mom and dad okayed...is enough.
I'd like to see the actual consent form, and hear the spiel given by the government people before I'd blame the parents. There is a thing called informed consent.
i wasn't blaming the parents...i was just commenting on how the "procedure" was supposedly and allegedly practiced.
what was acceptable, on many moral issues, then is completely unacceptable now. including how my grandparents (92yrs old) felt at the time and how they feel differently about issues today. the parents of the minors (which were in the minority of the "patients") may have felt it was justifiable and acceptable then...and of course maybe not. i don't know. msn doesn't actually report all of the salient facts.
Is there an actual paper with a signature of the parents approving the procedure? How do we know that this consent wasn't forged by these "doctors" in the first place?
Hot, how do we know anything. Arguments that begin with "How do we know" or "We don't know" are generally poor arguments. For example, how do we know the parents didn't pay the doctor to perform the sterilization. You can't prove a negative and arguing from it is ridiculous.....
chris;
How do we know that they are "poor arguments?" Because you say it is so?
Most of us would disagree with your ravings.
i do think that this pratice is WAY shoddy-it came from the fact that alot of women were having kids,at the taxpayers cost ,no less,like cats...one after another,almost breeding for profit.welfare is out of control...alot of unmarried mothers,where i grew up,had a better life,with all the welfare kick-backs,than working people,but doing this to woman is just sick.
There was no welfare before the 60s.
Paul, while welfare as it's known today did not exist until President Johnson't "Great Society" of the mid-sixties, public assistance from the government goes back the nineteen-thirties. The fifties and sixties weren't the golden era for many Americans, especially if you were poor and lived in Appalachia (some families where I grew up still didn't have running water when my parents moved there to teach in the nineteen-sixties), down South, and in many urban areas. Public food assistance was a God-send to those who not only needed it, but were willing to take it as many were too proud to take what they saw as being a hand-out.
For $50K each, NC can sterilize me, my partner, and our cat!
All of you who want to give them so much money, I ask you, where is the money supposed to come from?? With schools and public services being cut or closed, is it apropriate to award so much? While it is a tragedy what happened, is it tax payers' responsability, who weren't even alive then. Be realistic.
I agree. What happened in the past was despicable, but it's over and done with. If the state has $50K, it would be put to better use hiring another teacher for a year.
Of course. It doesn't impact you personally, so why should it be an issue? After all we were perfectly justified in locking up tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and confiscating their property during the Second World War, why should we worry about a few innocent victims of an abhorent state policy that continued into the 1970's?
By the same logic why should a state pay anything to a prison inmate who was locked up for 20 years but then found to be innocent? Why not just bill the for the costs of room and board instead?
Maybe the state of North Carolina should instead just bill these people the amount of what they would have paid for contraception over the years?
StarScream:
Of course it's the tax payers responsibility, they are the ones who allowed this to continue over such a long period of time. They made no effort to stop the program until 1977, & most people from that time period are still very much alive. It's not like this happened a hundred years ago, no, this was a mere 35 years ago. Most of the people whoperpetrated this insanity are still very much alive. Just because it was a law that allowed this to happen doesn't mean it should be excused or forgotten.
Personally I think the people involved, should be prosecuted. The $50,000 suggested is nowhere enough to justly compensate these men & women.
Worst of all was the US Supreme Courts refusal to even hear this abomination of the human rights of our own citizens.
personally...from someone who was alive at that time..and from your screenname, you too...i didn't know about this practice and i did not vote it in...i do not approve of what happened anymore that what happened to the japanese on our own soil. but i don't have $50million for one..much less 1500-2000! do you?
yes it was wrong...yes they should be compensated...the people who approved this prosecuted? no. they were not dr. mengeles. i'm glad society has changed towards the better...but i'm not going to prosecute those who are still alive anymore than in states that have changed from death penalties to non-death penalties are prosecuted for executing anyone.
fedupmama
Dr. Mengeles, no. But they do give veracity to his work. The American Nazi Party is alive & well, I see it in many of the comments on this vine.
They deserve compensation!! END OF STORY!
yes because they knew and allowed it to happen.
um...lisamarie1972...are you willing to put out the money to compensate the ones that had this procedure done? this whole line is not about them deserving/not deserving compensation...both vet and i agree..they deserve comp....i just don't think it should be an exhorbant amount nor should those on the state legislature who was elected by the majority of legal voters nor the doctors on the panels that recommended this practice, nor the doctors who performed these "legal" procedures (at the time) be prosecuted. i also don't think that the other states that practiced this "procedure" should not offer comp. i, as a taxpayer, feel they should be compensated. i don't think millions would be the answer though.
I'm a tax payer today and I would NOT be willing to pay these people one cent. Born in 75 so it has nothing to do with me, my politics or my choices. So they couldn't have children- adopt a few- get over it, under it or around it but don't expect the tax payers to pay you for it.
What many commentors do not seem to realize is the story of the many other people who were sterilized. In this case, it was a gross failure and a crime. But many, many of the people sterilized were bonafide mentally handicapped, often incapable of caring for themselves, let alone a child or children. This woman should be compensated, but people, for example, with an IQ of 50 who were sterilized were done a favor, as was the rest of society who would have had to care not only for the parent, but for the child they were incapable of caring for, and a child was spared from being brought into an abysmally disadvantaged situation. However much I support sterilizing the truly "feeble minded", the decision should be made by the person's close caregivers, not a government program.
How certain are you that "feeblemindeness" is hereditary, and at what point on the intellectual scale is someone feebleminded? And IO of 90? 80? Should we include autism and mental illness?
As a former mantal health professional I would be uncomfortable making that decision. And if the decision is to be made by the "close caregivers" who is to say that they don't have an axe to grind somewhere?
I'm not sure what NC did was wrong. We have such a high percent of our society that are criminals and disabled that are non productive, receiving government funding. I realize this will anger others, but what are we to do? I do think criminals should be offered sterilization to shorten their sentences, which we can't afford anyways. People that have multiple children with ADHD, Autism and other disabilities, their Drs should be required to offer sterilization-maybe it should be paid for by the government. I have been self supporting my whole life. I raised my child myself. I have never received 1 dime from the government for anything. I'm tapped out. I can't do this anymore. Why should the self supporting have to continue supporting the government dependent that keep reproducing? What are we to do?
Again, what evidence is there that these conditions are hereditary?
But if you want cost-effective, why not just euthanize them? Or anyone else who isn't "self-supporting." The elderly, the disabled, the unemployed. Who needs 'em?
When you have 2 kids with ADHD or Autism, what in goodness sakes do you think the 3rd will be like? With the 1st disabled child, put your efforts there and quit reproducing. You are aware their are medical studies that include isolating genes that cause some disabilities? If you carry those genes, why are you reproducing? A common sense goes a long way. The elderly- good gravy they are the ones that put the tax dollars in that supports the disabled now. Your elders are who have made it possible for you to enjoy the life that you do. Have you seen the commercials lately to sue if you took Prozac and now have a deformed child? If one can not deal with llife and need Proac why in goodness name are you getting pregnant? Do you seriously think a child is going to make your life easier? We have to quit rewarding those that make decisions like this. If you have a history of physical and or mental disabled children and you have another fine, but not 1 penny of tax dollars or insurance premiums should go for your choice. If it is so important to your life, you pay for it. I should have a choice of where my tax dollars go.
Again, show me the proof that these conditions are hereditary. You won't because you can't.
I know that it's possibly anecdotal, but a very close friend of my husband has opted to not have children because of the high incidence of autism which spans generations in both his immediate and extended families. Sometimes there is a genetic link with autism, so he, unlike his sister who has two sons with autism, has opted to not roll that particular pair of dice. I also have a friend and high school classmate who has a strong family history of what is now know as bipolar disorder through her maternal line. She loves children, but does not want to take the chance of putting her child through the life with which she struggles. It's not my opinion that the government should be in the business of sterilizing its citizens, but those with certain hereditary conditions should think long and hard before they saddle a not only a child, but an adult (because, unfortunately, people tend to have far less sympathy for the difficulties presented by an adult with autism, for example, than a child with the same issue) with a known genetic anomaly.
rjw007--Wow, you are scary. And just who, in this brave new world you wish for, gets to decide who is perfect enough to have a baby? Do you have perfect genes? No history on either side of the family of anybody who got sick and eventually died, I hope?
And by the way, the "elders" are the ones who are now poised to bankrupt the country with their use of medical services--at a rate that far exceeds what they contributed with their tax dollars. I'd hate to see what you'd recommend to deal with that situation.
50K is still cheaper than welfare.
Wow this is really and truly sad!
And taxpayers, who could probably use the money (and worked for it) are on the hook for the bill, many who were not even alive when these atrocities happened.
Why not hunt down the people who instituted this and make them pay?
Because the PEOPLE who instituted that decision are the STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA.
This is another one of those INSTITUTIONAL ISSUES that always seem to crop up down south ......
I was involuntarily circumcised as a helpless infant. Who will compensate me for the injustice of this mutilation? The citizens of North Carolina who had nothing to do with it?
Hey, I was circumcised too against my will...I know they must have held me down because there is no way they were getting close enough to cut me otherwise...I demand all of the rest of you compensate me...
Sorry but circumcision is not even an appropriate analogy.
A better analogy would be "I had my wood cutoff when I was a helpless infant"
Would you be upset if your 'wood' was cutoff and all somebody offered you was 50k
30 or 40 years after the fact???
Hooray for the task force! What an accomplishment! They have actually determined exactly how much money not being able to have children is worth. Maybe they should be running the country.
If it happened to me............ My only request would be for a license to hunt down and kill the perverse scientists/doctors or any other staff involved. $50,000 is an INSULT!
Beats nothing.
$50K? The people who did this and those who cover their tracks should be hung.
It beats the heck out of the 'nothing' that the other states that did this are offering.
How do they decide how much is awarded to victims of forced sterilization? ---- Sterilization is Sterilization, there is no "sometimes" sterilized
$50,000 is not the value of a family... They are worth far more