Elaine Riddick Jessie was a 14-year-old American girl who, in 1968, was forcibly sterilized by the Eugenics Board of North Carolina, which argued that she was "feebleminded" and "promiscuous." Prior to the sterilization (at age 13), Jessie had been coerced into having sexual intercourse with a man in his 20s (See: statutory rape). Her son, Tony Riddick, states, "The work of the Eugenics Board was not far from the thinking of Hitler." Jessie was living with her grandmother, Maggie "Miss Peaches" Woodard, when a social worker discovered her pregnancy. The illiterate Woodard signed an X on a consent form, not knowing what it was, only that if she didn't sign, Elaine would be sent to an orphanage. The Perquimans County Department of Public Welfare had earlier custody of Jessie and her 7 siblings (from their alcoholic parents), sending 5 to an orphanage, and Elaine and one of her sisters to live with Woodard. In March of 2003 Mrs. Jessie and other victims of the Eugenics Board spoke out against the atrocities committed to the Eugenics Study Committee. [1]
