Marriage+&+Sterilization

 Marriage and Sterilization Sterilization Statistics  **Draft 1: **  Eugenicists set out to create a perfect society through limiting peoples rights, for example having the right to choose who you marry or whether or not you have kids. Eugenicists believed that if someone carried degenerate hereditary traits, feeblemindedness, insanity, criminalisitic behavior, epilepsy, blindness, deafness, or deformity you should not conceive children or marry. In order for their beliefs to work forced sterilization was put in place. Many people were unknowingly being sterilized by being told they were undergoing other opperations, such as getting your appendix taken out. Sterilizations happened with both men and women and they happened anywhere from hospitals and prisons to insane asylums. In total, 65,000 sterilizations took place in the US throughout a 61 year period. **Actual Paper:**  Eugenics and marriage were two very closely related issues during the early 20th century. Eugenics is the pseudoscience founded in the 19th century that looks to better the human race through controlled breeding methods and sterilization. Eugenicists made their way throughout Europe and into the United States, widely implementing their ideas in the minds of international populations. These ideas became so widespread, they made their way into the United States Federal Government, and laws were even made that had eugenic influences. Eugenicists set out to create a perfect society through limiting people’s rights, for example having the right to choose whom you marry or whether or not you have kids. Eugenicists believed that if someone carried “negative” traits like degeneracy, feeblemindedness, insanity, criminalisitic behavior, epilepsy, blindness, deafness, or deformity you should not conceive children or marry. In order for their beliefs to work forced sterilization was put in place. Many people were unknowingly being sterilized by being told they were undergoing other operations, such as getting their appendix taken out. Sterilizations happened with both men and women and they happened anywhere from hospitals and prisons to insane asylums. In total, 65,000 sterilizations took place in the US throughout a 61-year period. There are many different instances where this type of situation happened. A very famous case of this sort is the Loving vs. Virginia case. In this case, an interracial couple is arrested for marrying somebody who isn’t of the same culture as them. This case reached the Supreme Court and the final decision was that they were exiled from Virginia for 25 years. This case led to a law called the Virginia Code. This law states that any marriages involving defected people would lead to 3 years of imprisonment. Another real life situation that reflects Eugenics sterilization laws is the life of Raymond W. Hudlow. Hudlow was sterilized at the age of 16 to avoid being beaten by his father. The state of Virginia then forcefully sterilized him and //Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement//, records an interview of him recalling the sterilization. Hudlow recalls, “They just came and got me before I woke up one morning. They wheeled me and throwed me up on the operating table. They put straps around my waist and chest, spread my legs and put my feet in stirrups.” This is the type of inhumane treatment they did to 7,500 different people during early 20th century Virginia. These laws came to an abrupt end shortly after World War II. The Nazi’s used Eugenic ideas in their persecution of the Jews, and many people finally realized this as wrong. The Nazi implementation of Eugenics brought about its true evils because the Nazi’s were widely considered a public enemy in the mid 20th century. After this, the sterilization laws were replaced in 1972 United States after rapidly losing support. 