By Bob Lewis The Associated Press August 6, 2012

RICHMOND

Exactly 85 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state governments could force involuntary surgical sterilizations of people society deemed genetically inferior or deficient under laws based on a discredited pseudoscience called eugenics.

Delegate Patrick A. Hope, D-Arlington, plans to mark Monday's anniversary by calling for "a symbolic payment" from the General Assembly and Gov. Bob McDonnell for victims of eugenics who are still alive.

Eugenics is among the darkest stains on Virginia's 405-year history.

It was born in 1924 as Virginia's aristocracy sought to purify the white race. It mandated involuntary surgical sterilization for virtually any human malady believed to be hereditary, including mental illness, mental retardation, epilepsy, criminal behavior, alcoholism and immorality. Even people deemed to be "ne'er-do-wells" were sometimes targeted.

The same law banned interracial marriage.

"A symbolic payment? What's a symbolic payment? How would you do that? How would you find the victims?" asked Deborah Skiscim of suburban Midlothian. She said she had a cousin who was institutionalized under the eugenics law, and because of that she never met her cousin.

"There is no amount that could ever really give back to those people what was taken from them," Skiscim said in a Friday interview.

Hope plans to begin Virginia's eugenics reparations at a Monday news conference on Capitol Square.

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Va. lawmaker proposes payments for eugenics victims