Payment Set for Those Sterilized in Program
Source: The New York Times
ATLANTA The task force assigned the difficult task of deciding how much to compensate the victims of a North Carolina sterilization program, which was intended to reduce welfare costs and cleanse the gene pool of undesirable characteristics, settled on a number on Tuesday.
Each living person sterilized as part of the states formal eugenics program, which lasted from 1929 to 1974, should receive $50,000, the task force said.
Certainly, many of the nearly three dozen other states that once had eugenics programs sterilized more people. In California, about 20,000 people were sterilized by the state. But the program in North Carolina, which may have included as many as 7,600 people, lasted the longest and was one of the most aggressive.
Now, North Carolina is the first to set a dollar amount for the victims.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/us/north-carolina-sterilization-victims-get-restitution-decision.html