AP News, April 13th, 2007
Indiana sought to atone for its role in pioneering the state-authorized sterilization of "imbeciles," paupers and others it deemed undesirable, expressing regret for passing the first such law 100 years ago.
Health Commissioner Dr. Judith Monroe said Thursday at a symposium at the Indiana State Library that Indiana needed to acknowledge and learn from its role in developing eugenics.
"It is one that we do regret but we should not forget," she said.
In 1907, then-Gov. J. Frank Hanly signed a state law widely regarded as the first in the world to permit sterilization in a misguided effort to improve the quality of the human race.
The practice was not ended until 1974, by which time Indiana had sterilized about 2,500 people; nationally, 65,000 people in 30 states were given state-authorized vasectomies, tubal ligations and other operations.
Monroe joined one of the last people in Indiana to be sterilized, Jamie Renae Coleman of Auburn, unveiling a historic marker that will stand across from the Statehouse. It stands as a reminder to lawmakers and others that decisions made with the best of intentions sometimes can have dire ramifications.
Coleman was 15 years old in 1971 when a county judge gave her mother approval to have a doctor perform a tubal ligation on her under the guise of having her appendix removed.
In court papers, her mother said Coleman was "somewhat retarded." But Coleman said the real reason her mother wanted her sterilized was that an older, unmarried sister had just become pregnant and their mother worried about being stuck with raising grandchildren.
Coleman was 17, married and eager to have children when she learned the truth about her surgery.
"Oh gosh, I didn't want to live. I hated my mother. I hated everybody that did this to me," she said.
Coleman sued her mother, the doctor and the judge in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court and resulted in a landmark 1978 decision granting judges immunity in official actions.
Other state legislatures had approved sterilizations, but unlike Hanly, governors in those states refused to sign the measures into law.
John Dickerson, executive director of ARC of Indiana, which advocates on behalf of developmentally disabled people and their families, said eugenics was a simplistic answer to a complex problem.
He said such solutions remain a threat to vulnerable populations unless society remains vigilant.
"Always, the minority's rights can be infringed," Dickerson said.
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On the Net:
Indiana Eugenics: http://www.bioethics.iupui.edu/Eugenics/
