RICHMOND The Virginia General Assembly has agreed to compensate individuals who were forcibly sterilized under the 20th-century practice of eugenics.

A budget passed by both chambers Thursday, and awaiting the governors signature, sets aside $400,000 or $25,000 for each victim or his or her estate.

The appropriation, championed this year by Del. Benjamin L. Cline (R-Rockbridge), makes Virginia the second state to take such action among more than 30 that forcibly sterilized residents. North Carolina was the first.

Im very pleased weve finally taken this necessary step towards acknowledging the wrongdoing that was done by the state, Cline said. When someone is denied the ability to have a family, thats a tragedy, but when its denied to them by their government, that is a scandal and a wrong that needs to be made right.

Gov. Terry McAuliffes spokesman, Brian Coy, declined to say whether the governor favors compensation. While running for office, McAuliffe (D) said he supported the formal apology offered by Virginia for eugenics, but he did not take a position on payouts.

The Virginia Eugenical Sterilization Act, signed into law on March 20, 1924, declared that heredity plays an important part in the transmission of insanity, idiocy, imbecility, epilepsy, and crime.

The law had the blessing of doctors and scientists at the University of Virginia and elsewhere. Under its provisions, people who were confined to state institutions because of mental illness, mental retardation or epilepsy could be sterilized as a benefit both to themselves and society.

More than 7,000 Virginians were sterilized between 1924 and 1979. Officials know of 11 victims who are still alive.

One of them is E. Lewis Reynolds, a Marine veteran from Lynchburg who was forcibly sterilized at the Central Virginia Training Center.

I thank you all very much, more than youll ever know, he said Friday during a news conference in Richmond.

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Va. General Assembly agrees to compensate eugenics victims