Category Archives: Neo-eugenics

Deafhood IELTS Reading Academic with Answers

Reading Passage 3You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40 which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

Real IELTS Exam Question, Reported On:

AAt this point, you might be wondering: what does deafhood mean? Is it a synonym for deafness? Is it a slightly more politically correct term to express the very same concept youve grown accustomed to-a person who lacks the power of hearing, or a person whose hearing is impaired? Whats wrong with terms like hard of hearing or deafness? Have they not represented the deaf community just fine for the past few centuries? Who came up with the term Deafhood anyway, and why?

BThe term Deafhood was first coined in 1993 by Dr Paddy Ladd, a deaf scholar in the Deaf Studies Department at the University of Bristol in England. First explored through his doctoral dissertation in 1998, and later elaborated on in his 2003 book, Understanding Deaf Culture In Search of Deafhood, the idea behind Deafhood is twofold: first, it seeks to collect everything that is already known about the life, culture, politics, etc. of Sign Language Peoples (SLPs); secondly, it attempts to remove the limitations imposed on SLPs through their colonization from hearing people. IELTSXpress

CIn order to understand what Deafhood represents, its first important to understand what is meant by colonisation. To do that, we need to examine two terms: Oralism and Audism. Oralism is a philosophy that first emerged in the late 19th century, and which suggests that reduced use of sign language would be more beneficial to SLPs, as it would allow them to integrate better to the hearing world. In that respect, sign language is dismissively regarded as a mere obstacle to listening skills and acquisition of speech-treated, in effect, in the same manner as the languages of other peoples who were oppressed and colonised, e.g. the Maori in New Zealand, or the Aborigines in Australia. Audism, however, is an even more sinister ideology: first coined in 1975 by Dr Tom Humphries of the University of California in San Diego, it describes the belief that deaf people are somehow inferior to hearing people, and that deafhood or, in this case, we should say deafness is a flaw, a terrible disability that needs to be eliminated. It is the effect of these two ideologies that Deafhood seeks to counter, by presenting SLPs in a positive light, not as patients who require treatment.

DBut even if we understand the oppression that SLPs have suffered at the hands of hearing people since the late 1800s, and even if we acknowledge that deafness is a medical term with negative connotations that need to be replaced, that doesnt mean its easy to explain what the term Deafhood represents exactly. This is because Deafhood is, as Dr Donald Grushkin puts it, a physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, cultural and linguistic journey that every deaf person is invited-but not obligated-to embark on. iets xpress

EDeafhood is essentially a search for understanding: what does being Deaf mean? How did deaf people in the past define themselves, and what did they believe to be their reasons for existing before Audism was conceived? Why are some people born deaf? Are they biologically defective, or are there more positive reasons for their existence? What do terms like Deaf Art or Deaf Culture actually mean? What is the Deaf Way or doing things? True Deafhood is achieved when a deaf person feels comfortable with who they are and connected to the rest of the deaf community through use of their natural language, but the journey there might differ.

FAside from all those questions, however, Deafhood also seeks to counter the eect of what is known as neo-eugenics. Neo-eugenics, as described by Patrick Boudreault at the 2005 California Association of the Deaf Conference, is a modern manifestation of what has traditionally been defined as eugenics, i.e. an attempt to eradicate any human characteristics which are perceived as negative. Deaf people have previously been a target of eugenicists through the aforementioned ideologies of Audism and Oralism, but recent developments in science and society-such as cochlear implants or genetic engineering-mean that Deafhood is once again under threat, and needs to be protected. The only way to do this is by celebrating the communitys history, language, and countless contributions to the world, and confronting those who want to see it gone. ielts xpress.com

GSo, how do we go forward? We should start by decolonising SLPs-by embracing Deafhood for what it is, removing all the negative connotations that surround it and accepting that deaf people are neither broken nor incomplete. This is a task not just for hearing people, but for deaf people as well, who have for decades internalised societys unfavourable views of them. We should also seek recognition of the deaf communitys accomplishments, as well as official recognition of sign languages around the world by their respective governments. Effectively, what we should do is ask ourselves: how would the Deaf community be like, had it never been colonised by the mainstream world? And whatever it is it would be like, we should all together-hearing and Deaf alike-strive to achieve it.

Questions 28-34The reading passage has seven paragraphs, A-G.Which paragraph contains the following information?Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 28-33 on your answer sheet.

28 Examples of other groups treated the same way as deaf people IELTSXpress29 Why the word deafness is no longer appropriate30 The definition of the word dear31 Why deaf people might sometimes think negatively of themselves32 How one can attain deafhood33 Where the word deafhood came from34 Why deafhood is currently imperilled

Questions 35-37Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.Write your answers in boxes 35-37 on your answer sheet.

35. According to Dr Paddy Ladd, Deafhood

A. is a more appropriate term than hard of hearing.B. doesnt colonise SLPs as much as deafness does.C. strives to get rid of the effects of colonisation.D. contributes positively to the life and culture of deaf people.

36. Oralism suggests that

A. SLPs have no use for sign language.B. SLPs dont belong in the hearing world.C. hearing people are superior to SLPs.D. SLPs are unable to acquire speech.

37. Aborigines in Australia are similar to deaf people because

A. eugenicists also tried to eradicate them.B. they were also considered inferior by their oppressors.C. their languages were also disrespected.D. their languages were also colonised.

Questions 38-40Answer the questions below with words taken from Reading Passage 3.Use NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.

38. What should deaf people use to communicate with each other, according to deafhood?39. Who has used oralism and audism to attack the deaf community?40. What does the deaf community strive to achieve for sign language worldwide?

28. C

29. D

30. A

31. G

32. E

33. B

34. F

35. C

36. A

37. C

38. natural language

39. eugenicists

40. official recognition

Also Check: Preserving Gardens IELTS Reading Passage with Answers

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Deafhood IELTS Reading Academic with Answers - IELTSXpress

Submitted by Terence M. Blackett

(Un)holy Race Wars: His Blood Be Upon Us And Our Children Russia Lights The Flame That Brings The Nations To Jerusalem For The Final Battle

They sow the wind, and (shall) reap the whirlwind (Hosea 8.7)

The tessellation of Europe is indeed a fascinating study endeavour. Paleobiologic and Paleogenetic science is unearthing revisionist paradigms of the 19th & 20th century narrative of who came first whether the Neanderthal, African or the Caucasoid man (all with their morphological DNA imprints) and truthfully, the simple answer can be found in these Divine Words In the beginning, GOD CREATED both male and female. Make of that what you will!

In their ongoing conquest of Europe during the Middle Ages Race Wars broke out. The ominous list of (un)holy race wars cloaked & daggered as Civil Wars in England were nothing more than reLIEgious wars on and off the continent. The Thirty Years War was a conflict fought largely within the (un)Holy Roman Empire from 1618 1648 and was considered one of the bloodiest and most destructive wars in European history given the worship of the Black Madonna (something few relish) by European (Catholics) and bloodline royalty verses the insurgent Asian Albinos (Germanics & Slavs) under the banner of their newly created PROTEST MOVEMENT or better yet, the Lutheran Protestant Reformation religious affiliations (i.e.) Anglican, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, Amish, Evangelical, Pentecostal, Quakers, Seventh-Day Adventism, et al.

As the Protest gained momentum, the Catholic Church was dealt a deadly wound and by 1798, Pope Pius VI was arrested by Berthier (Bonapartes General) on 10th February, 1798 and was hauled off to France where he would die in exile. However, the Slavs in the East (AKA the Rus or Russians), chose not to completely overhaul the Eastern Orthodox Church that they took from the Byzantines, so as a result, their (un)Holy Images still have Dark Skin. Similarly, as the Constantinople Turkish hordes over-ran the Asiatic and North African regions they took the Black Arabs newly created religion of Islam and made it their own. So with the near conquest of Europe complete, the Caucasoids went on to conquer the entire world, and each place they settled brought them the original biological problem of sunburn & skin cancer as they dont belong in hot climates as their genetic predisposition is best suited to Central Asia.

The majority of Western liberal commentators and academic talking heads refuse to construct a sound monolithic picture of how the world got to this mesmerizing current impasse, and many continue to ask the asinine question what is going on in Vladimir Putins mind given that he has thrown open to the world the ominous gates of a hellish vision of #WW3! Clare Daly in a beautiful parliamentary rant sums up the zero-sum-game being played out on all of us while those in power are completely impotent.

A cogent search and an analytical dissection of Russian history should help us to connect the dots but most do not want to dig deep enough for the religious coinage that posits the 3-sides of any discourse or narrative: for 2-sides allow for your truth and their truth and the 3rd side posits the real truth! This will be the hubris of this discourse.

In an eye-opening piece by UnHerd entitled Putins Spiritual Destiny The Religious President Wants To Rebuild Christendom by Giles Fraser, opens some revelatory catchments for most to explore the Messianic zeal of Russias 22-year leader. What was remarkable in that piece is the citation Soviet Communism tried to crush all this but failed. And in the post-Soviet period, thousands of churches have been built and re-built. Though the West thinks of Christianity as something enfeebled and declining, in the East it is thriving. Back in 2019, Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, boasted that they were building three churches a day. Last year, they opened a Cathedral to the Armed Forces an hour outside Moscow

Let us be clear, this war in Ukraine is not being reported on honestly by the 24-hour lame-stream news media pundits or on its president who is a puppet of a billionaire oligarch called Igor Kolomoisky (an ultra-nationalist- Israeli-Ukrainian-Cypriot). The Lame-Stream Media Humpty-Dumpties are completely given over to Bernaysian propaganda on all sides of the conflict, and the virulent commentary to garner one-sided views by the amoral news police whose job it is to stoke negative sentiments, ill-will and wanton bias, by using psychological operations akin to mass formation psychosis. For the Russian President this is more than just a land grab this is about the soul of Ukraine, as stated by the Religious News Service.

Let us be in no doubt that this is a religious war! The lame-stream media will not tell you that Russias war with the Ukraine runs deeper than the sociological tenets being espoused by so-called academics, commentators and empty talking heads. This is not about the serpentine fire of the billionaire class or the gesticulation polyTRICKS of authoritarian rule by totalitarian figure heads. This war is not even about the Great Reset (whatever the hell that means), given that Putin has thrown a major monkey-wrench into the globalist handiworks. COVID-19 proved our utter stupidity in the light of current revelations and this war simply proves that we can be led around with an awl in our noses like dumb cattle. This war is about Putin & Purim! Ukraine was in the Pale of Settlement during Tzarist rule long before #WorldWarI and the time for major realignment has finally come.

This war is about Russian orthodoxy verses Khazarian Crypto Jewry and the Zionists underbelly of an ancient mercantile beast system that has morphed over 1900+ years since the MURDER of Jesus Christ by the reLIEgious Sanhedrin in cahoots with the Roman rulers of His day (all of whom still exist today in a myriad of forms an exegesis for another day). They swore before heaven and earth that the Precious Blood of the Innocent Lamb of God was to be upon them and their children. Thankfully, God will resist the PROUD & FOOLS & MURDERERS for a season until their iniquitous cups are full, so they are forced to drink from their saucers. The Hidden Hand of Ultra-Zionism is gloved in ancient rituals, blood oaths and cryptic cabalistic secrecy. It is a Sabbatean death cult with its Neo-Eugenics Movement at its heart, alongside the neo-Nazis death-squads who are in positions of power and global influence, especially in the Ukraine.

Ukraine is Khazaria! With some half a million Jews still on its shores this war involves them and their ancient sophistries and their rule by subterfuge, subversion & sagacious sapience. The religio-historical antecedents are based on the ADOPTION of Jewish/Babylonian reLIEgion and idolatrous customs (cue the apologists, religious scholars who claim knowledge of the house of Judah having emerged from Babylonian/Persian captivity) given the 70 year prophecy of Jeremiah and in the post Middle Ages period (though little known) Khazaria was one of the largest political Jewish formations of its time. Its power, wealth, trade & influence made the Khazarian Jews very rich. When the royal family converted to Judaism in the 800s several noble families and commoners did exactly the same thing although certain schools of thought seek to debunk this historical fact. The Khazars adopted several tenets of ancient Jewish life notably, the study of the Torah & the Babylonian Talmudic Kabbalah, Judeo-Babylonian holidays & holy days along with Jewish script.

To fully understand the crisis in the Ukraine, calls for intellectual, socio-religious and historical honesty. The research is there but human mass formation psychosis provides every opportunity for plausible denial. In an upside-down world, the dissonance is palpable as most stand on their heads instead of on their feet making it difficult to determine which orifice is really speaking (no dramatic imagery intended).

The Russian president is fighting on so many fronts. Its more than just broken Western promises; bio labs in Ukraine based on President Bidens son Hunter involvement in Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners; Zionist-NATO nukes on Russias border in Deveselu Air Base in Romania. The city of Caracal is 150 km west of Bucharest Deveselu which is the home of the US Missile Defense Shield that has angered Russia, notwithstanding, a whole sleuth of other socio-political infractions that has resulted in the first major war in Europe in 77 years. So when the Russian Ambassador to the UN spoke of labs in Ukraine it was met with disdain and rancour and now it is being purported that there is no evidence of labs yet the overwhelming evidence and receipts prove that they are there and Russia will no longer tolerate them on their doorstep, in the event of another global PlanDEMIC as was seen in 2020.

The polarization we now see in our world is endemic of what Samuel Huntingdon cited in the theory of the clash of civilizations. Moreover, we see the world hurtling towards the fulfilment of Revelation 13:16-18 and the Mark of the Beast Crisis which will affect the entire planet. Western powers have levelled crippling sanctions upon the Russian people while knowing that the elites will continue to thrive irrespective of all that the media purports. This will end badly, as we witness in our lifetime a complete implosion of the worlds economic system, where the Black Horse will be followed by the Pale Horse of Rev 6 with apocalyptic ramification!

In conclusion, by 1970, Israel and the Soviet Union were virtually at war, although neither side would openly admit to it. This would have been the beginning of #WW3 however, Divine Intervention made the conflict Stand Down. Although the land of Israel has been a harbinger for endless wars and the blood of warring factions including the Blood of Christ that has run the height of a horses bridle Zechariah, the prophet in chapter 14 verse 2 paints a cataclysmic picture of the war to end all wars, where Jerusalem will be encompassed by the armies of the entire world and will see its ultimate destruction and desolation (once and for all). The Gentiles who have trodden down the land for millennia according to Daniel, the prophet, will finally come to their end, with the Neo-Assyrian yoke finally broken off the necks of the True Israel (144,000) 12,000 of each of the 12 Tribes as cited in (Rev 7:4-8; 14:1-5).

From this prophetic scenario will emerge the Kingdom Of God on the earth, in the sight of men, where Christs servants will be carved out as kings & priests to Him making up that number that John, the Apostle heard. Then will be fulfilled, the prophetic Lords Prayer of Christ Jesus: Let Thy kingdom come, let Thy will be done on the earth as it is done in heaven

Even so, come Lord Jesus!

Semper Fidelis

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Unholy Wars | Barbados Underground

FARGO A North Dakota federal judge appointed by former Republican President Donald Trump is getting attention in the confirmation hearing of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and not for reasons he'd prefer.

Judge Ralph Erickson of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals was mentioned in Brown's confirmation hearing in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii. Hirono cited a news report that included Erickson among Trump appointees to the judiciary who sentenced child pornography offenders to prison terms below the federal recommendations.

This was Hirono's way of hitting back at Republicans for accusing Jackson of being soft on crime because of her sentencing history with child porn offenders.

Erickson was nominated to his current position in 2017 by Trump and confirmed with a 95-1 vote in the Senate. Before joining the Eighth Circuit, Erickson was a judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota. President George W. Bush nominated Erickson for that position and he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2003.

Among the topics Jackson was grilled about by Republicans during her confirmation hearings this week was sentencing of some child porn offenders. Jackson sentenced several offenders to less than the federally recommened guideline.

Her history was brought to light by GOP Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who accused Jackson of having a "long record" of letting child pornography offenders "off the hook" as a U.S. District Court judge.

Democrats have pushed back at Republicans' depiction of Jackson, saying her record is being taken out of context and that Republican senators have voted multiple times for federal judges who sentenced child porn offenders to less than federally recommended guidelines.

Evelyn Hockstein / Reuters

An ABC News story cited Erickson, who sentenced defendants in at least 11 child porn cases to prison terms below the recommendation.

In questioning Jackson, Hirono referenced Erickson's record in child porn cases and asked Jackson, "Does that surprise you?"

"It does not, Senator," Jackson replied.

"I don't know if you know Judge Erickson," Hirono said. "But do you have any reason to believe he is soft on child pornography based on these sentences?"

Jackson replied: "I don't have any reason to believe that."

"Do you think my Republican colleagues are soft on child pornography just because they voted for Judge Erickson to become a federal appellate judge even after he issued these 11 sentences?" Hirono asked.

"Senator, I'm not in a position to evaluate whether your colleagues are soft on crime because of their votes. I have no reason to believe that," Jackson answered.

They voted for this person, but I think it would probably be quite unfair to characterize him as being soft on child pornography," Hirono replied, before moving onto another Trump-appointed judge who sentenced below recommended guidelines on child porn.

The point of Hirono's questioning, of course, was to highlight Republican hypocrisy in painting Jackson as soft on child porn while overlooking Republican-appointed judges for similar sentencing histories. Jackson would be Democratic President Joe Biden's first appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The New York Times reported that Erickson imposed shorter sentences than the prosecutor's recommendations in nine cases involving child sex abuse imagery between 2009 and 2017. Those sentences averaged being 19% lower than the recommended guidelines.

"In the case with the greatest discrepancy in which a 68-year-old man pleaded guilty to possessing and transporting such illicit materials prosecutors asked for 151 months and Judge Erickson imposed a 96-month sentence," the Times reported.

Erickson is known as a conservative who most recently made national headlines in January when he accused women of participating in "the neo-eugenics movement" when they terminate a pregnancy because of Down syndrome.

Erickson also urged the Supreme Court to authorize states to outlaw abortion.

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McFeely blog: U.S. senator asks whether N.D. Judge Ralph ...

READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40 which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

A

At this point, you might be wondering: what does deafhood mean? Is it a synonym for deafness? Is it a slightly more politically correct term to express the very same concept youve grown accustomed to-a person who lacks the power of hearing, or a person whose hearing is impaired? Whats wrong with terms like hard of hearing or deafness? Have they not represented the deaf community just fine for the past few centuries? Who came up with the term Deafhood anyway, and why?

B

The term Deafhood was first coined in 1993 by Dr Paddy Ladd, a deaf scholar in the Deaf Studies Department at the University of Bristol in England. First explored through his doctoral dissertation in 1998, and later elaborated on in his 2003 book, Understanding Deaf Culture In Search of Deafhood, the idea behind Deafhood is twofold: first, it seeks to collect everything that is already known about the life, culture, politics, etc. of Sign Language Peoples (SLPs); secondly, it attempts to remove the limitations imposed on SLPs through their colonization from hearing people.

C

In order to understand what Deafhood represents, its first important to understand what is meant by colonisation. To do that, we need to examine two terms: Oralism and Audism. Oralism is a philosophy that first emerged in the late 19th century, and which suggests that reduced use of sign language would be more beneficial to SLPs, as it would allow them to integrate better to the hearing world. In that respect, sign language is dismissively regarded as a mere obstacle to listening skills and acquisition of speech-treated, in effect, in the same manner as the languages of other peoples who were oppressed and colonised, e.g. the Maori in New Zealand, or the Aborigines in Australia. Audism, however, is an even more sinister ideology: first coined in 1975 by Dr Tom Humphries of the University of California in San Diego, it describes the belief that deaf people are somehow inferior to hearing people, and that deafhood or, in this case, we should say deafness is a flaw, a terrible disability that needs to be eliminated. It is the effect of these two ideologies that Deafhood seeks to counter, by presenting SLPs in a positive light, not as patients who require treatment.

D

But even if we understand the oppression that SLPs have suffered at the hands of hearing people since the late 1800s, and even if we acknowledge that deafness is a medical term with negative connotations that need to be replaced, that doesnt mean its easy to explain what the term Deafhood represents exactly. This is because Deafhood is, as Dr Donald Grushkin puts it, a physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, cultural and linguistic journey that every deaf person is invited-but not obligated-to embark on.

E

Deafhood is essentially a search for understanding: what does being Deaf mean? How did deaf people in the past define themselves, and what did they believe to be their reasons for existing before Audism was conceived? Why are some people born deaf? Are they biologically defective, or are there more positive reasons for their existence? What do terms like Deaf Art or Deaf Culture actually mean? What is the Deaf Way or doing things? True Deafhood is achieved when a deaf person feels comfortable with who they are and connected to the rest of the deaf community through use of their natural language, but the journey there might differ.

F

Aside from all those questions, however, Deafhood also seeks to counter the eect of what is known as neo-eugenics. Neo-eugenics, as described by Patrick Boudreault at the 2005 California Association of the Deaf Conference, is a modern manifestation of what has traditionally been defined as eugenics, i.e. an attempt to eradicate any human characteristics which are perceived as negative. Deaf people have previously been a target of eugenicists through the aforementioned ideologies of Audism and Oralism, but recent developments in science and society-such as cochlear implants or genetic engineering-mean that Deafhood is once again under threat, and needs to be protected. The only way to do this is by celebrating the communitys history, language, and countless contributions to the world, and confronting those who want to see it gone.

G

So, how do we go forward? We should start by decolonising SLPs-by embracing Deafhood for what it is, removing all the negative connotations that surround it and accepting that deaf people are neither broken nor incomplete. This is a task not just for hearing people, but for deaf people as well, who have for decades internalised societys unfavourable views of them. We should also seek recognition of the deaf communitys accomplishments, as well as official recognition of sign languages around the world by their respective governments. Effectively, what we should do is ask ourselves: how would the Deaf community be like, had it never been colonised by the mainstream world? And whatever it is it would be like, we should all together-hearing and Deaf alike-strive to achieve it.

The reading passage has seven paragraphs, A-G.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 28-33 on your answer sheet.

28 Examples of other groups treated the same way as deaf people

29 Why the word deafness is no longer appropriate

30 The definition of the word dear

31 Why deaf people might sometimes think negatively of themselves

32 How one can attain deafhood

33 Where the word deafhood came from

34 Why deafhood is currently imperilled

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Write your answers in boxes 35-37 on your answer sheet.

35 According to Dr Paddy Ladd, Deafhood

A is a more appropriate term than hard of hearing.

B doesnt colonise SLPs as much as deafness does.

C strives to get rid of the effects of colonisation.

D contributes positively to the life and culture of deaf people.

36 Oralism suggests that

A SLPs have no use for sign language.

B SLPs dont belong in the hearing world.

C hearing people are superior to SLPs.

D SLPs are unable to acquire speech.

37 Aborigines in Australia are similar to deaf people because

A eugenicists also tried to eradicate them.

B they were also considered inferior by their oppressors.

C their languages were also disrespected.

D their languages were also colonised.

Answer the questions below with words taken from Reading Passage 3.

Use NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.

38 What should deaf people use to communicate with each other, according to deafhood?

39 Who has used oralism and audism to attack the deaf community?

40 What does the deaf community strive to achieve for sign language worldwide?

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IELTS Reading Practice Test 74 with Answers | IELTS ...

Sterilization of Latinas has been practiced in the United States on women of different Latin American identities, including those from Puerto Rico[1] and Mexico.[2] There is a significant history of such sterilization practices being conducted involuntarily,[3] in a coerced or forced manner,[4] as well as in more subtle forms such as that of constrained choice.[5] Forced sterilization was permissible by multiple states throughout various periods in the 20th century. Issues of state sterilization have persisted as recently as September 2020.[6] Some sources credit the practice to theories of racial eugenics.[3]

The movement of eugenics developed into the Neo-Eugenics movement.[citation needed] This Neo-Eugenics movement supports and studies the encouragement of people with more desirable traits to reproduce in order to positively influence the population's gene pool and the discouragement of people with undesirable traits to reproduce. This led to the practice of preventing people with undesirable traits to reproduce. Undesirable traits correlated with reproductive fitness which included race and ethnicity.[7] In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the immigration rates in the United States spiked along with the reproduction rates in immigrant families. This provoked a deeper fear from eugenicists that native born Americans and Americans with strong reproductive fitness would be outnumbered by immigrants who possess a low reproductive fitness.[7] This fear became ingrained into many Americans across the nation and became fuel for the sterilization of Latinas movements in the twentieth century.

Some of the factors that may catapulted the movement behind the sterilization abuse in Latina women in the state of California, began with one of the earliest organizations in eugenic sterilizations in the U.S, the Human Betterment Foundation (HBF), the Sterilization Act of 1909, and the Immigration Act of 1924. The California Act of 1909 was one of the major legal and political influences that established authority for doctors and psychiatrists of state hospitals and mental institutions to perform sterilizations on the people unfit to function in society because of their intelligence levels, presumed future deviant behavior and sexual activity. With that established, organizations such as the Human Betterment Foundation came to be the organization that held these ideologies and promote eugenic sterilizations and the Immigration Act of 1924 further developed the idea that labor-migrants were needed, but women and children were not as there was a fear of Latino and Immigrant invasion.

The Human Betterment Foundation operated in California from 1929-1942. In those years, the foundation specialized in researching eugenic sterilizations effects, providing literary contributions of their findings to the public. The foundation distributed literature, such as this in order to promote the efficacy of sterilizations among socially- Sterilizations during this time were promoted and imposed in state institutions.

In the pamphlet, the organization describes that the problem is families living on government assistance or public charity use more of the public charity than those families sustaining themselves more by 50 percent.[8] The pamphlet stated that families whose children ended up in state homes were increasingly doubling, at a fast rate. The foundation too states that additional children to the state is a burden, but also that taxation rates were increasing because of more children being in need along with the notion that with more children from unfit parents would increase crime and delinquency rates.[9]

And another example of anti-Latino sentiment was with state authorities when dealing with minorities. Immigrants that were feeble minded and at borderline intelligence were of the undesirable type. Californias state authorities wrote in a survey conducted by the California State Board of Charities and Corrections that Latinos of low intelligence or mental sanity were of the undesirable types.[10] State institutions that were allowed to perform sterilizations on patients that seemed like the perfect candidate, was very common. Current research shows that Latinas were targets for sterilization at higher rates than white women. The disproportion among sterilization rates in the Latino community could not be quantified in its current time, but data from sterilization forms suggest that 88 percent of Californians with a Spanish last name were of Mexican origin and descent.[11][8] The surnames of people in forms recommending institutionalized patients between 1920 and 1945 shows that Latino were more likely to be sterilized than non-Latino men and Latina women experienced sterilization at higher rates than non-Latina women. This data shows that there was an unfair application of the California law that allowed institutions to take health measures for other people on their behalf.[12]

This law passed in California in 1909, authorized medical staff like doctors and medical superintendents to perform sterilization procedures on both men and women deemed as feeble-minded, whose mental diseases, IQ, and intelligence could be passed down to future generations. A survey in mental deviations in prisons, public schools, and orphanages in California institutions reported worriness of feeble-mindedness and relation of intelligence to previous delinquency record.[10] In their survey, they found that California had drawn a large proportion of immigrants of undesirable types and would therefore recommend them to sterilization processes. Later research shows that there the number of sterilizations were disproportionate to racial and ethnic minorities, such as people of low class and female gender.[13] Research also suggests that Latinas were targets for sterilizations at higher rates than white women because data from sterilization forms collected, the number of people with Spanish surnames suggests that 88 percent of these patients were of Mexican origin and descent.[14]

Anti-miscegenation laws, along with the Immigration Act of 1924, contributed to the anti-immigrant sentiment that existed during the development of United States history. At this point in time, the United States was concerned with foreigners coming into the country in higher numbers and therefore enforced its first border patrol and regulated the number of foreign immigrants from south and eastern Europe, as well as permitting people from the southern people specialized in agriculture and work from the southern border.[15] In the forgotten narrative of Latin American History, U.S, Mexican immigrants and citizens were labeled and seen as a problem in society because they were seen as hyper-fertile and supported theories that Mexicans were of a lower racial level. By the first half of the 20th century, almost 60,000 people had been sterilized under the different U.S Eugenics Programs implemented.[16]

The tragic history of sterilizations in the United States and Puerto Rico can be defined as an intersectional form of oppression that connects race, class, and sex to the social, political, and economic status of Puerto Ricans. The oppressive nature of these procedures lie within the fact that they were politically backed and used within the court of law against Puerto Ricans. Other women on the island experienced an increase in surveillance and control of their body within social realms. This illustrates how sterilizations were conducted on a continuum and had vast as well as long lasting consequences. In 1947, 7% of mothers aged 2049 received tubal ligation which almost doubled in 1954 as sterilizations increased on the island to 16%. By 1965, over 34% of Puerto Rican women within this age bracket received sterilizations, which is five times the rate two decades prior.[17] Sterilization was the most heavily promoted method of contraception in Puerto Rico and was legitimized by concerns of population, which can be associated with the same concerns of race and class that date back to the islands annexation.[17][18]

After the US gained ownership of Puerto Rico, it was viewed as a province in urgent need of a way to prevent greater poverty and population rates. This heavily influenced the US decision to begin sterilizing Puerto Rican women and implementing experimental birth control methods. Puerto Rican women in particular have served as test subjects for various contraceptive studies in the United States,[19] of which included involuntary sterilization. Many Puerto Rican women were sterilized from the 1930s to the 1970s in order to decrease poverty and population growth in Puerto Rico.[20]

Concerns about the population density in Puerto Rico can be traced back to 1898 when Puerto Rico became a US colony.[17] These concerns from scholars, scientist, and government officials inform the thought process behind the association between poverty, health, and economy with population throughout the 20th century.

When Americans began to occupy the island of Puerto Rico, they asserted more than their ideals and beliefs. American colonizers asserted absolute dominance over Puerto Rico due to the idea of Manifest Destiny, which greatly shifted the dynamics of the island. The U.S. capitalized on the fact that Puerto Rico utilized a large fraction of its resources to gain independence from Spain, which left the island's economy depleted. During this time, many Puerto Ricans lost land while their natural resources became exploited. In the mid-1920s, Puerto Ricos dependency on the production of sugar, devastated the island when the sugar market collapsed.[21] Additionally, the nation-wide economic depression in 1927 exacerbated the effects of this collapse as well as the overall stability of the island.[21] In 1928, Puerto Rico suffered the consequences of a hurricane in San Felipe.[21] The Okeechobee Hurricane resulted in over 300 deaths and property damages ranging from $50-$80 million, while the agricultural market also suffered.[21] In the 1930s, Puerto Rican citizens began to experience the adverse health effects of tuberculosis, malaria, diarrhea-enteritis, hookworm, and dietary-deficiencies that were responsible for over 40 percent of deaths.[21][22] This later on gave medical professionals grounds to support sterilization on the island.[22]

Furthermore, these factors resulted in immense and widespread poverty. Many Puerto Ricans faced perpetual hunger and growing unemployment rates. In 1930, the median family income was reported to be approx. $250 a year and economically productive families were attributing around 94% of their income toward acquiring food.[21] Additionally, 27% of the labor force was unemployed.[21]

The current state of Puerto Rico confirmed the ideals Americans projected in the midst of the islands annexation about the longevity and potential of Puerto Rico.[21] Puerto Ricans were once again viewed as ignorant and devious as they participated in reckless breeding in the midst of this economic downward spiral.[21] This caused many Americans and a fraction of Puerto Ricans to believe that overpopulation essentially was the cause of the wide variety of problems on the island.

Messages about Puerto Ricos increase in population began to spread rapidly by citizens, government officials, scientist, and industrial leaders/capitalist. In 1899, the population of Puerto Rico was less than a million and in 1917 was half of the population size that it would be four decades later.[21] In the 1930s, Puerto Rico had a population growth rate of approximately 1.5%, while fertility rates were lower than developed and industrialized nations.[22] According to Puerto Rico's planning report decades later, the island's population has grew from 687 people per square mile in 1960 to 793 in 1970. This growth continued as the population was 815 people per square mile in 1972, 863 people per square mile in 1973, and 871people per square mile in 1974. Concurrently, the death rate decreased to 6.5 per 1,000 persons as the birth rate the year before was 23.3. As the increase in population grew by 2 percent each year, Puerto Rico was predicted to have the population density of 4,339,000 by the year 2000, which is also 1300 inhabitants per square mile.[23] The current and predicted rates of population growth provoked a high level of concern, which made birth control the primary solution for health concerns, poverty, and this idea of overpopulation.

Operation Bootstrap was enacted in 1948 and was the result of Puerto Ricos desire to attract outside capitol by inviting U.S. private funds.[17] Therefore, a tax arrangement was made by the U.S. to improve the industrial production on the island in an effort to increase profits and funnel money to the mainland.[22] This economic development program enticed industries within the U.S. that were in search of cheap labor, tax exemptions, and free trade between Puerto Rico and the mainland.[17]

This rapid foreign investment provided promise for disadvantaged Puerto Rican women who were struggling to navigate through domestic working conditions and limited job opportunities.[22] Operation Bootstrap was marketed and believed to be an advantageous new service sector for women in search of white collar jobs.[22] Unfortunately, Puerto Rican women and the vast majority of the island experienced the exact opposite. Operation Bootstrap resulted in high unemployment, increased migration, exacerbated poverty, and most importantly, economic colonization.[17]

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women defines forced sterilizations as "a method of medical control of an individual's fertility without consent". Another source adds that sterilization abuse is "any procedure completed without the patient knowing they are being sterilized" as well as "when the patient is coerced or deceived in order to obtain the consent to the procedure".[24] Many Puerto Rican women were manipulated through incorrect information, language barriers, incentivization, testing, and withholding information as they knowingly or unknowingly consented to sterilization.[24] Although, in some cases sterilization was completely voluntary and consented. In fact, the Puerto Rican government conducted a study that stated that 83 percent of 3000 families supported sterilizations that were free. In 1968, 75 percent of the women that had sterilizations were upper and middle-class women that could afford the $100-$125 procedure.[25] Although, the term "family" does not specifically state the perspective of the woman. Lastly, it is important to recognize that sterilization was a choice that was made in the setting of a few or no alternatives.[17] As mentioned earlier, sterilization was the most promoted and harmful form of contraception in Puerto Rico.[18]

Due to a lack of educational materials distributed in Puerto Rico, many women had misconceptions about tubal ligations. For example, one common misconception about sterilization is that the procedure is not permanent. A 1968 study reported that over one-third of Puerto Rican women were not aware that tubal ligation was permanent or irreversible.[26] Some doctors did not even request consent while other doctors threatened to not deliver the baby right before delivery unless the mother consented to sterilization after birth.[27] If mothers were receiving government assistance, many women were threatened to have their welfare terminated.[18]

Additionally, the U.S. government and institutions worked collaboratively to incentivize sterilizations. Many doctors and hospital administrators began to encourage sterilizations due to the fact that the Joint Committee for Hospital Accreditation refused to accredit hospitals in Puerto Rico unless a ten percent limit of sterilization (in proportion to all hospital deliveries) was agreed upon.[22] In the 1930s, Puerto Rican women began to occupy jobs within factories. The women working in these factories felt an immense amount of pressure to undergo a sterilization to prove to employers that their pregnancy would not deter them from completing their job.[17] This same year, approximately three sugar plantations housed birth control clinics and discriminated against women that were not sterilized as they refused employment to women who would not get the procedure.[17] Puerto Rican women on sugar plantations were discriminated against while others were incentivized to alter their reproductive capacity to become the ideal responsible and dependable female worker.

Coercive strategies experienced in the delivery room and at work, were also entrenched in the process of clinical trials for birth control pills in 1955.[28] These trials took place in poor areas in Puerto Rico like San Juan. Outside of San Juan, the Common Wealth Health Department controlled more than 19 free clinics. These clinics were reported to be operating at full capacity as approximately 1,000 sterilizations were completed a month.[25] Within these clinics, low socioeconomic women were unknowingly being used as test subjects.[28] Class inequality was apparent during these trials due to educated middle class women fearing the side effects and refusing to try the new medication while poor-less educated women unknowingly became test subjects out of desperation to avoid pregnancy and ultimately sterilization.[28] On many occurrences, these pills such as Enovid, contained an unusually high quantity of hormones compared to 21st century birth control pills.[28] Doctors disregarded women that reported nausea, blood clotting, and depression.[28] Three women allegedly died during the underground testing of this pill, but their deaths were never put to trial or investigated. In the mainland, testing for this pill, Enovid, continued and was approved in 1957 regardless of dangerous and adverse side effects.[28] Additionally, poor Puerto Rican women in Ryder Memorial Hospital were tested on for 6 different variations of birth control along with the IUD in the 1960s.[22] These same women were also subject to extremely long and extensive interviews so that the Population Council's International Population Program could document their marital and fertility histories.[22] This same secrecy and oppression was experienced by Puerto Rican women as they were unknowingly being tested for the Depo Privera shot and contraceptive foam.[17] Once the implications of sterilizations became more widely known, many women opted to take other forms of contraception during the dangerous phases of development to avoid the permanent procedure.[28]

In 1937, Law 116 legalized sterilization in Puerto Rico.[27] This law implemented Eugenics Boards within 32 states that oversaw compulsory sterilizations.[27] More specifically, the Puerto Rican Eugenics Boards reviewed and confirmed petitions from the government and private entities to inflict sterilizations amongst the perceived insane, feeble minded, diseased, and dependent.[24] The purpose of the Puerto Rican Eugenics Board was to regulate the reproductive capacities of "socially inferior" and perceived undesirable Puerto Ricans.[24] This led the Puerto Rican Eugenics Board to approve 97 sterilizations before it was dissolved.[27] Additionally, a large purpose of Law 116 was to further the science of eugenics and incite economic growth.[24][27]

Law 116 was the result of an increase of curiosity and political support for the science of eugenics.[27] It was legitimized by the belief that Puerto Rico was a failing economy that consisted of unfit people that should be addressed by decreasing the population density through the means of forced sterilizations.[27] Therefore, population control programs became institutionalized as well as federally subsidized.[27] Funds from both the U.S. government and private investors enabled the last eugenics sterilization law passed under United States territorial jurisdiction.[23] It also legalized state-mandated and forced sterilizations, which further exploited Puerto Ricans.[27]

Immigration of Mexican citizens into the United States caused much controversy in how well they had adjusted to the American life and culture. Because of this, starting in the early 20th century, they were deemed as a significant problem to the community as they were believed to be mentally weak due to their prolonged adjustment to the American culture. The increase of city populations also led to the belief that mental health degraded, as more mental breakdowns seemed prevalent. This discrimination against Mexican and Mexican-Americans led to eugenics laws in which women were targeted and utilized in sterilization procedures.[29]

Starting in the year 1909, women of Mexican descent were used as targets for the eugenics movement to reinforce population control and purity. Women of all ages were victims of the many sterilization acts performed in hospitals, correction facilities, and asylums, but younger women were especially targeted. Pacific colony, a home designated for the mentally defective in LA, California, took in many young women and classified them as mentally defective and sexually delinquent starting in 1944.[30] According to laws in California justifying sterilization acts, staff at this clinic deemed it was in the best interests of society to go forth with the procedure on some of the women who were sent here.

In Los Angeles, between 19691973, Mexican and Chicana (Mexican-American) women were also disproportionately targeted by involuntary sterilizations. A number of these women would go on to join a class action lawsuit, Madrigal v. Quilligan, discussed below.

These Mexican and Mexican-American women were given the stereotype as hyper-fertile and were believed to lack the knowledge of birth control methods due to the high numbers of teen pregnancies occurring within their community. At the Hospital of LACMC,{clarify|What is the name of this hospital?|date=August 2021}} coercive sterilization was justified as it was an attempt to control the birthrate of these women. In 1998 the US government performed a census and multiyear analysis of Latino births and found the women of Mexican origin displayed the highest rate of childbirth compared to other Latina women. From these statistics, the Save our State campaign arose and worked to enforce more eugenic sterilization of these women.[31]

In 1973 an investigation by progressive anti-sterilization advocacy groups discovered the stories of Mary Alices and Minnie Lee Relfs sterilization. This story was released by the Southern Poverty Law Center and led to the discovery of 16 thousand women and 8,000 men being sterilized using federal funds in 1972. In addition to this finding, they found more than three hundred of these patients were under the legal age of 21. Following this discovery and exposure, in 1977 Mexican-American began coming forth to file lawsuits in relation to coercive sterilization they faced while in labor.[1]

In 1979 a bill to repeal the eugenics laws passed that legalized sterilization was proposed to the legislature in California. Many women were coerced into have the tubal ligation procedure done right after postpartum which was paid for using federal money that was dispersed into the War On Poverty first initiated by Lyndon B. Johnson.[32]

Many of these sterilizations were done involuntarily and without consent. Oftentimes, these women signed off on paperwork without being able to read the English language. This sterilization was seen as an unfortunate result of barriers experienced by Spanish speaking women.[7] Other times, they were told it was necessary in order to maintain their welfare benefits. It became common to sterilize women after giving birth whether by tubal ligation or hysterectomy. Hysterectomy referring to the complete removal of a woman's uterus. Even when the women did consent, it was often under false pretenses that the procedure could be reversed if they decided to have children again in the future.

Involuntary sterilization programs were in some instances supported and funded by the states. In California, the rationale for forced sterilization was primarily for eugenics purposes, although this later shifted to a fear of overpopulation and welfare dependency.[33]

California passed the third law in the United States that allowed state institutions to sterilize unfit and feeble-minded individuals. As eugenics gained credibility as a field in science, sterilization rates increased, especially after the 1927 Buck v. Bell U.S. Supreme Court decision, which upheld the constitutionality of sterilization laws in Virginia. See below. According to available data, California performed one third of all reported sterilization procedures in the United States between 1910 and 1960.

Although the Californian state was the third state to legalize sterilization as mentioned previously, it has made the greatest impact by performing over half of the sterilization procedures throughout the eugenics era from 1907 to 1979. Their laws granted prison authorities and asylum medical superintendents the right to sterilize a patient if it would be proven to better their conditions. It surpassed the other 32 states who had passed eugenics laws due to its large Latino incarnation rates and advocacy found within the eugenics movements.[32] Between 1920 and 1945, over 17,000 individuals were recommended for sterilization in California. During this time, Latinas were at a 59% greater risk of being sterilized than non-Latinas.[3] Eugenic philosophy claimed scientific legitimacy to uphold racial stereotypes of latino/as, deeming them as unfit and even "hyper-fertile, inadequate mothers, criminally inclined, and more prone to feeblemindedness." At a time of segregation and growing anti-Mexican immigration sentiment, eugenic programs have been linked to efforts to reduce immigration."Novak_2018" The unjust laws in California from 1909 to 1979 allowed for nonconsensual sterilization of over 20,000 individuals.[34]

In Los Angeles, hundreds of Mexican women were sterilized after giving birth at Los Angeles County Hospital. In the documentary, No Mas Bebes, some of the women who were sterilized at this hospital shared their experiences. All of the women had something in common, they did not want to be sterilized. "In California, at least into the 1950s, compulsory sterilization was consistently described as a public health strategy that could breed out undesirable defects from the populace and fortify the state as a whole".[35] Women who were unhappy with this situation marched and protested to speak up for their reproductive rights.

In 1973, Acosta was living in Los Angeles. She was a poor Mexican woman. She gave birth to a child with brain damage so unfortunately he did not survive. The doctor sterilized her stating that her husband had given permission for a tubal ligation. The husband denied giving such consent.[36] In an interview done by Claudia Dreifus Guadalupe stated My nerves and my head are in great pain. Ever since the operation, I am very inattentive. Not forgetful, inattentive. People sometimes have to tell me things twice. I am not there.[37] Guadalupe later gave more details about her experience at the hospital, her physician worked in an aggressive manner to induce her labor. She said that he pushed down her abdomen with great force and even hitting her in the stomach due to her swinging arms.[38] Acosta passed away in 2003. Her life was full of misfortune. She had a baby in Mexico but it was taken away from her because he was born out of wedlock. The baby that she delivered at Los Angeles Hospital was her fourth baby. Her husband left her and her two kids due to her tubal ligation.

Jovita Rivera was one of the ten plaintiffs in the federal class action suit of Madrigal v. Quilligan. On October 12, 1973, Rivera went to the USC-LA hospital to give birth to her second child. She was under medication and in labor pains when medical staff (mis)informed her about the risk and chances of getting pregnant right after birth. She consented and a tubal ligation was done.

Jovita, only 27 at the time, states that during her stay at the hospital, while in advanced labor and under pain medication due to complications, her doctor told her she would be a burden to the government.

Women like Rivera were offered the choice of sterilization under poor circumstances, under medication, and with no language assistance for translation. Some of the other plaintiffs for this case faced hostility from staff when told they could receive more pain medication if they signed papers consenting to sterilization.

In Riveras own words she stated:

... the doctor told me that I had too many children, that I was poor, and a burden to the government and I should sign a paper not to have more children [. . .] The doctors told me that my tubes could be untied at a later time and I could still have children. [39]

While Rivera was under distress, she believed the process was reversible and consented. When Rivera and the other plaintiffs testified in court to prove that they had been coerced into getting a procedure, the judge did not rule in their favor.

The film No Ms Bebes tells the stories of women who joined a lawsuit to fight for their reproductive rights. Several women tell their stories of how they were sterilized without their proper consent. Hundreds of women got their tubes tied during the late 1960s to the early 1970s at this hospital. The women were immigrants from Mexico and most understood little to no English. Many of the women did not know they had been sterilized until several months or even years later.[40] The list of sterilized women at this hospital was extensive but only ten of them decided to continue with the lawsuit. Being sterilized did not end at the hospital, it had ongoing non ending consequences for the rest of their lives. Some of the families disintegrated because of this; some of the women in the film stated that their husbands viewed women who were sterilized as women who cheated on their husbands or would betray them by not being loyal to them. It was really a dramatic situation that had a negative outcome because the doctors who did the sterilization were not punished.

The forced sterilizations in California began in 1909 when a eugenics law was passed. It allowed doctors to sterilize people who were thought to be "unfit" to have children at state hospitals. Before this law was nullified in 1979, more than 20,000 people, including teenagers were victims of this sterilization. Doctors recommended people who they thought should be sterilized for certain reasons; this included not only people with a medical condition but also perfectly healthy ones as well. Minors as young as thirteen years old were sterilized. This law was meant to keep the "undesirable population" from growing. Women of Latina Origin were 59% more likely to be sterilized than women who were not of latino descent.

Low-income minority women were more dependent on sterilization than other groups.[41] In a study conducted in El Paso, Tx groups of women were asked why they would choose sterilization; many of the top reasons included: not wanting any more children, their current age and health, plans of working or attending school or inability to afford another child.[41]

Indiana passed the first sterilization law in the US during 1907. It was proposed as a part of the Progressive era wave in which public health advocacy began coming to light.[32]

As recent as September 2020, whistleblower complaints were filed concerning "the rate at which hysterectomies are performed on immigrant women under ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] custody at ICDC". The whistleblower complaint also includes reports from many detained women who described "not understanding why they had received a hysterectomy" and even details "miscommunications" that led to patients receiving hysterectomies they may not have needed.[6]

Carrie Buck was raped by a nephew of her adopted parents in Virginia at the age of 17. In an attempt to cover up the assault, her family committed her to the Lynchburg State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded. Soon later, the colony realized that Buck was pregnant with her assaulter's child. At the colony, Dr. Albert Sidney Priddy examined Buck and deemed her to be unfit due to her feeblemindedness. Priddy recommended her for sterilization. This was brought to the courts in order to sanctify the sterilization order. Buck's biological mother was labeled as feebleminded, so Buck was used as "proof" that feeblemindedness was hereditary and sterilization was necessary for the common good. The Supreme Court voted 8-1 stating that being feebleminded led to promiscuity and sterilization was justified. Buck was then sterilized under the Virginia 1924 compulsory sterilization statue.[42]

The Supreme Court case of Buck v. Bell confirmed the constitutionality of sterilization of the feebleminded and "unfit." This case solidified that involuntary sterilization was not cruel or unusual punishment and it did not violate due process, but rather it helped the good of the country as a whole. Individual rights of reproduction were now able to be taken for the public good. Cases of involuntary sterilization rose significantly after this case in 1927.[42]

In the 1970s a group of Chicana women brought up a federal class action lawsuit against a hospital in Los Angeles County regarding their sterilizations.[43] Women in the class were allegedly given false information regarding sterilization.[43] The titular plaintiff, Dolores Madrigal, a Latina woman, was allegedly told several times by a medical professional that sterilization could be reversed.[43] Other women involved in the case signed consent forms for their sterilizations because they were allegedly sedated or manipulated by doctors and medical staff.[43] A common reason for forcing the sterilizations of these women was apparently the burden that their future children would be to taxpayers.[43] Many of the women did not discover that they had been sterilized until they visited a doctor.[43]

The judge deciding Madrigal held that it was a part of a doctors practice to provide sterilizations to these women based upon their cultural backgrounds.[43] The judge, Judge Curtis, stated in his ruling that miscommunication between the doctors and the women, rather than malice, resulted in the sterilizations.[43] In the words of his final comment, the judge stated, One can sympathize with them for their inability to communicate clearly, but one can hardly blame the doctors for relying on these indicia of consent which appeared to be unequivocal on their face and which are in constant use in the medical center.[43]

In 1979, the practice was abolished in California.[32] It is estimated that approximately 20,000 women were sterilized in total.[44] There have been talks in the California State Assembly to formally compensate the women who were involuntary sterilized.[citation needed]

Read more here:

Sterilization of Latinas - Wikipedia

Psychological state

Sexual repression is a state in which a person is prevented from expressing their own sexuality. Sexual repression is often linked with feelings of guilt or shame being associated with sexual impulses. Defining characteristics and practices associated with sexual repression vary between societies and different historical periods. The behaviours and attitudes constituting sexual repression differ across cultures, religious communities and moral systems. Sexual repression can largely be categorised as physical, mental or an amalgam of both.

Sexual repression is enforced through legislation in certain countries, many of which are located in the Middle East and North Africa region, and South Asia. Common practices associated with sexual repression include child marriage, female genital mutilation and male circumcision. Individuals believed to have engaged in behaviours contradicting social, religious or cultural expectations of sexual repression, such as same-sex sexual activity, may be punished through honor killings, persecution or the death penalty.

Sexual repression can also be developed unconsciously from one's childhood or from undesirable sexual experiences.

Sigmund Freud was the first to use the term 'sexual repression' widely, and argued that it was one of the roots of many problems in Western society.[1] Freud believed that people's naturally strong instincts toward sexuality were repressed by people in order to meet the constraints imposed on them by civilized life. Among many others, Freud believed renowned artist Leonardo da Vinci to have been a repressed homosexual, who he believed "sublimated" his sexual desires so as to achieve artistic brilliance.[2] However, Freud's ideas about sexual repression have been subject to heavy criticism. According to sex therapist Bernard Apfelbaum, Freud did not base his belief in universal innate, natural sexuality on the strength of sexual desire he saw in people, but rather on its weakness.[3]

In some periods of Indian history, anaphrodisiacs were utilised in order to lower libido.[4]

In contemporary society, medication may be prescribed to registered sex offenders in order to lower the libido and ensure that further offences are less likely.

Sexual repression is a recurring prohibition in many religious contexts.

Most forms of Christianity discourage homosexual behavior.[5]

Many forms of Islam have strict sexual codes which include banning homosexuality, demanding virginity before marriage accompanied by a ban on fornication, and can require modest dress-codes for men and women.[6]

Chemical castration has also been practiced upon male choristers prior to puberty to ensure that their vocal range remained unchanged. This practice of creating "Castrati" was common until the 18th century, and after a decline in popularity were only used in the Vatican up until the beginning of the twentieth century.[7]

Marriage has historically been seen as means of controlling sexuality.[8] Some forms of marriage, such as child marriage, are often practiced as a means of regulating the sexuality of girls, by ensuring they do not have multiple partners, thus preserving their virginity for the future husbands.[9] According to the BBC World Service:[10]

In some cases, parents willingly marry off their young girls in order to increase the family income or protect the girl from the risk of unwanted sexual advances or even promiscuity.

Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting or female circumcision, "comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons".[11]The practice is concentrated in 27 countries in Africa as well as Iraqi Kurdistan, Yemen and Indonesia; and more than 125 million girls and women today are estimated to have been subjected to FGM.[11]

FGM does not have any health benefits, and has serious negative effects on health; including complications during childbirth.[11]

FGM is used as a way of controlling female sexuality; the World Health Organization (WHO) states:[11]

FGM is often motivated by beliefs about what is considered proper sexual behaviour, linking procedures to premarital virginity and marital fidelity. FGM is in many communities believed to reduce a woman's libido and therefore believed to help her resist "illicit" sexual acts.

FGM is condemned by international human rights instruments. The Istanbul Convention prohibits FGM (Article 38).[12] FGM is also considered a form a violence against women by the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women which was adopted by the United Nations in 1993; according to which: Article Two: Violence against women shall be understood to encompass, but not be limited to, the following: (a) Physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring in the family, including [...] female genital mutilation [...].[13]

Male circumcision is a religious tradition in Judaism and Islam. According to medieval Jewish theologian Moses Maimonides, male circumcision brings "about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ in question, so that this activity be diminished and the organ be in as quiet a state as possible."[15]

In the late-nineteenth century, circumcision of the penis was prescribed by John Harvey Kellogg as a "cure" for masturbation.[16] William Acton, a leading authority on sexuality in mid-Victorian Britain, advocated male circumcision in order to prevent "undue excitement of the sexual desires which it is our object to repress."[17]

A "biocultural analysis" of male circumcision supports the hypothesis "that a practical consequence of circumcision, complementary to any religious-symbolic function, is to make a circumcised male less sexually excitable and distractible, and, hence, more amenable to his group's authority figures."[18]

An honor killing is the homicide of a member of a family or social group by other members, due to the perpetrators' belief that the victim has brought shame or dishonor upon the family or community, usually for reasons such as refusing to enter an arranged marriage, being in a relationship that is disapproved by their relatives, having sex outside marriage, becoming the victim of rape, dressing in ways which are deemed inappropriate, or engaging in homosexual relations.[19][20][21][22][23] With regards to honor killings of women, according to a UN Expert Group Meeting that addressed harmful practices against women:[24]

They [honor killings] stem from the deeply-rooted social belief that male family members (in some cases, mothers and other women are involved in planning or carrying out honor crimes) should control the sexuality of or protect the reputation of women in the family, and that they may contain their movements or kill them for blemishing family honor, even when rumors or false gossip are the reason for public suspicion.

Homosexual sexual expression is a sensitive topic in many societies. As of 2014, same-sex sexual acts are punishable by prison in 70 countries, and in five other countries and in parts of two others, homosexuality is punishable with the death penalty.[25] Apart from criminal prosecution, LGBT individuals may also face social stigmatization and serious violence (see violence against LGBT people).

Researchers such as Peggy Reeves Sanday have proposed a relationship between sexual repression and rape.[26] Evidence has been found to contradict this hypothesis, with a study by Jaffee and Straus finding "no relationship between sexually liberal attitudes and rape."[27]

Sexual repression is a key talking point in feminism,[28] although feminist views on sexuality vary widely.

Michel Foucault, in his History of Sexuality, neither refutes nor confirms what he calls the "repressive hypothesis." Instead, he says sexuality has become an important topic to understand and manipulate for the purpose of nation building. Through categorization of sexuality, the idea of repression was born. While he agrees sexuality has become much more controlled, he equates it to necessity. Furthermore, it is through psychiatric and medical discourse on sexuality that it has become repressed.

Reproduction-based sex was urged by Mao Zedong, but later politicians instituted a one-child policy. In a country where atheism is popular, the restriction cannot be ascribed to religion but to nationalist motives.[29]

According to R.P. Bhatia, a New Delhi psychoanalyst and psychotherapist, middle-class India's "very strong repressive attitude" has made it impossible for many married couples to function well sexually, or even to function at all.[30]

In the last few decades the United States has been gradually removing much of the legislation tied to sexual repression of various groups. The influence of religious and conservative groups however continues to influence American society and how sex is viewed, working to influence governmental affairs, pharmaceutical companies, and education.

The first half of the 1960s saw contraceptions such as the birth control pill and Intrauterine Device (IUD) become widely available, which contributed to sexual freedom for many people without having to rely on less reliable and uncomfortable physical contraceptives such as condoms or diaphragms.[31][32] However, religious and conservative lobbying groups as well as the influence of neo-eugenics created push back on some other forms of birth control such as emergency contraception and tubal ligation. Emergency contraception was being developed and produced by Hoechst under the name RU-486. Conservative lobbyist groups with ties to various religious powers such as the Vatican, originally were promoting limiting healthcare coverage of items such as birth control, and once RU-486was made public knowledge these groups actively worked to threaten Hoechst by claiming they would cause the company financial hardship if they did not cease all activity pertaining to RU-486.[33]

In terms of more permanent forms of birth control such as tubal ligation and hysterectomies, there has been a long history of eugenicists pushing for forced sterilization of non Anglo-Saxon or lower class women. This stemmed from a belief that this would contribute to the betterment of American society. However, neo-eugenics, which is the more modern iteration of the eugenics movement, additionally works to limit access of procedures of sterilization from those they deem fit to reproduce. The demographic targeted for this are mostly white middle-class women.[34]

During the late 1990s and the Bush Administration (20002008) abstinence-only sexual education groups were given considerable government funding to develop programming for schools.[35] These groups were mostly represented by Christians who believed it to be their responsibility to address what they deemed as society's regressions towards a sex-based culture. Abstinence advocates generally focus on prohibiting sexual contact before heterosexual marriage. This has been linked to instigating a culture of sexual repressiveness affecting adolescent sexual behaviors, regardless of their sexuality.[36] Research concerning the effectiveness of different forms of sex education for adolescents shows the highest success from comprehensive sex education. Characteristics of comprehensive sex education include informing students on the forms of birth control and how to use them, and sexual anatomy.[37] The Obama Administration (2008-2016) worked towards promotion of comprehensive sex education programming and pulled much of the government funding supporting abstinence-only program development.[37]

Sexual repression can be expressed but not limited to the following:[38]

- lack of sexual attraction

- disinterest in sexual activities

- shame and distress with sexual activities

- guilt or other negative feelings after having sex

- believing your body is unattractive or unworthy of sex

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Sexual repression - Wikipedia

GUILFORD A crowd of several hundred people gathered at the Guilford Community Center on Thursday evening to listen to a talk warning against the dangers of Critical Race Theory and urging parents to push back against the teaching of systemic racism in the local schools.

The talk was organized by Truth in Education, a self-described grassroots movement founded by a group of Guilford parents and community members. In a pamphlet that accompanied the talk, the group listed its goals. They include: end critical race theory indoctrination, embrace capitalism, explain explicitly that systemic racism is a lie and does not exist in America and energize patriotic education.

Guilford students must understand that America is exceptional, not because we are better than anybody else, but because of our God-given freedoms which are enumerated and codified in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, the pamphlet reads. Guilford students must study these documents, revere them and resolve to protect them from all enemies, both foreign and domestic.

Critical Race Theory, which has its roots in legal studies, is based in part on the idea that race is a social construct, and that racism is embedded systematically within society, law and its institutions.

The teaching of this theory in K-12 schools has been a heated topic across the country, with at least 27 states considering or passing legislation that restricts teaching around race, bias or related matters.

The topic has fallen under serious scrutiny in Guilford as Superintendent Paul Freeman and the Board of Education have openly committed to initiatives that address equity and social justice both in the curriculum and in the wider school community.

Our students deserve to learn to think critically, by grappling with nuance and complexity, reconsidering inherent assumptions, and considering deeply the merits of the evidence before them, Freeman said in a letter from September 2020.

In June of last year, Guilfords Board of Education voted to discontinue the use of the Native American as the schools mascot. The district has also started a curriculum audit and is preparing to hire an equity liaison, and to participate, along with 20 other school districts, in the student teacher residency program, which will bring a teacher of color into the district.

Guilford Public Schools must strive to be a community in which all students feel safe, supported, and recognized, and must support critical thinking about all aspects of our history and current experience, the Board of Education wrote in a letter to the community in April. None of our students is responsible for this history, but each will be responsible for their own participation in our local, national, and global communities as they emerge into adulthood.

Outside on the green in front of the Community Center on Thursday, about 30 parents showed up early to protest the talk, holding handmade signs that expressed support for the districts Board of Education.

We want our kids to learn critical thinking skills, said Tina Fiasconaro, a former 2nd grade teacher in New Haven. She said she wanted to see equal education for all students.

I support the Board of Education, added Maria Lachance, who has two children in Guilford schools. I think they are doing a good job. Our school systems have had a lot to work through [this year]. They dont need this.

Lachance said she thought there was a lot of misinformation around Critical Race Theory and what was being taught. She said they did need to confront issues of race.

We shouldnt hide from it, she said. These are hard topics, but they are reality.

Dawn Carafeno, a parent of 4th and 6th graders in Guilford schools, agreed that it was important to teach kids about race.

I think its a necessity. This is just how our society is going to grow and will continue to grow, she said. I want my kids to go to a district that values [race], celebrates it, teaches it and teaches it honestly.

Inside the auditorium, parents who came to attend the talk expressed everything from curiosity to concern to anger.

One parent of two children, ages eight and 10, said she came to the talk because she wanted to understand what might be brought into our schools. She said she was concerned about the focus being put on race.

Another parent said she did not want her elementary-age children to be subjected to ridiculous indoctrination and be in an environment that was making them feel as though basically because of the color of their skin, they are being judged.

In addition to Truth in Education, an organization called No Left Turn Connecticut sponsored the talk. According to its website the groups goals are, among other things, to educate the public about the radical indoctrination in k-12 and its existential threats and mobilize parents, families, educators, professionals and concerned citizens to push back against the radical indoctrination and injection of political agendas in K-12 education.

The talk began with a Guilford student who spoke about being bullied and mocked by his classmates for having conservative views. He said his teachers didnt support him and that they were biased against conservative thinking.

Tony Dinse, a 2013 graduate of Guilford High School, then spoke about his experiences with racism. Dinse was adopted into a family in Guilford when he was in elementary school. Dinse, who is bi-racial, said he felt offended in college when white professors spoke to him about the minority experience.

As a black man, Im very proud to say, I dont feel like Im oppressed. I am very proud of that. And as I tried to offer that opinion I was shut down. I was dismissed, he said.

The main speaker of the evening was Mike Breen, a former police lieutenant in East Hartford. For 50 minutes, he laid out claims that Critical Race Theory was propaganda, that Critical Race Theory had its roots in Marxism, and that it was racist. Breen called it neo-eugenics.

These people reject rational science, he said. They disagree with the scientific method.

Breen said that Critical Race Theory was against the nuclear family and called Ibram X. Kendi, author of the book How to be an Anti-Racist and director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, a faux scholar and said his book was stunningly stupid.

Breens talk was followed by Dan Richards, CEO of Global Rescue, a crisis management and travel risk company, and a parent of two elementary school students. He said he started speaking out against Critical Race Theory after his childrens school district in New Hampshire began teaching about race and racism.

After hiring lobbyists and three sets of attorneys, he succeeded in having language inserted into the states budget bill that would effectively ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory.

The room burst periodically into applause throughout each of the speeches, sometimes rising to their feet in a standing ovation.

So we want our black children to think theyre oppressed. We want our white children to think they are oppressors, said one woman as she was walking out.

State Rep. Kimberly Fiorello, R-Greenwich, who attended the talk, said she was hearing from parents in her own district who have had a similar experience.

I was thrilled to come, she said, adding that she would like to invite the speakers to give a talk in her area.

Another parent, Tim Chamberlain, said he thought the speakers did a good job in their presentation.

Critical Race Theory is a problem in Guilford, he said. Silencing the opposition to it is dangerous.

Another attendee, a young woman who does not have children in the schools, disagreed with the points that were made.

I heard so many lies from the speakers, she said. I read those books, and he was lying.

In his talk, Richards encouraged parents to recruit others to their causes, write letters to elected officials, work on getting new school board members elected and support the termination of radical teachers.

Those of you who are going to embark [on this course of action] youre going to get called terrible names, he said, But take heart. You are in the right.

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Talks on Teaching, Race and Racism Attract Several Hundred in Guilford - CT Examiner

In contemporary American poverty policy, the welfare mother is exposed to harsh treatment that is designed to maintain her participation in the low-wage labor force and, arguably, to discipline wage labor as a whole by restricting the alternatives to wage earning. I would contend that she is also being subjected to an extraordinarily invasive form of sexual regulation, ranging from teen pregnancy avoidance programs and abstinence education counseling to the family cap and child support enforcement. Welfare sexual regulationwith its broad scope (impacting about ten million adults and vast numbers of high school students in sex education classes across the country at any given moment), its impressive allocations, and its array of unusually well-coordinated federal and state bureaucratic structuresis becoming a substantial moment in social policy; indeed, we might usefully inquire what this moment teaches us about the relation between the indigent female citizen and the State in our neoliberal context. I argue that poverty policy is working in tandem with capital to construct the welfare mother not simply as a flexible proletarian but as a childless flexible worker as wellone who arrives at the employers doorstep bearing as few domestic burdens as possible, such that she is all the more available for extreme forms of exploitation. Because these pressures to remain or to become childless are being systematically trained upon poor womenand women of color are overrepresented within this categorythey introduce the question of eugenics. In this article, I attempt to enrich my analysis of the welfare mother as a target of sexual regulation by interrogating Agambens argument about the States production of bare life from a feminist perspective.

For Agamben, sexual regulation in welfare policy constitutes only one moment within the States timeless campaign to produce bare life. Agamben claims that Aristotles distinction between life as mere subsistence, which could be lived to its fullest even if one found oneself outside the polis, and the pursuit of the good life, which is only possible in a formally constituted polis, serves as the structure of any possible governance. Indeed, with his attempt to transcend historical specificity, Agambens theory could be called a metaphysics of governance. For Agamben, Aristotles distinction refers to a fundamental tension between two institutional postures that the State adopts toward the people. In Aristotles account, the male citizen could perfect himself only within the polis. If he left the cityor if his government descended into anarchistic chaos and effectively dissolved itselfhe would revert back to a life in which his highest good would be nothing more than subsistence, or bare life. It appears, then, that one enters the condition of bare life only in the absence of government, and that the social contract secures us from the descent into the state of nature. That appearance achieves its ideological perfection in modern liberal democratic legitimation discourse, for the latter promises to safeguard the life, liberty, and happiness of the people by prohibiting arbitrary state intervention. Agamben would argue, however, that the liberal democratic form of governance inevitably betrays itself. Even as it promises to embrace laissez-faire, it busily measures its population, tracks reproductive rates, controls immigration, manages the markets in food, housing, transportation, and energy, and takes steps to ensure the ready supply of able-bodied military recruits. Ironically enough, caregiving is thereby politicized, and for all the ideological disavowal, biopolitics is established yet again as the essence of governmental interest by the modern nation-state. The latter assume[s] directly the care of the nations biological life as one of its proper tasks.

But this is hardly the politicization of caregiving that is envisioned by feminism. Agamben is particularly interested in the way in which the modern nation-State prioritizes its population management interests when it singles out demon figures and treats them as objects that can be legally exterminated. The Jewish inmates in Nazi Germany's concentration camps were designated, by public opinion and law, as nothing more than the bearers of mere existence. These were, in effect, disposable nonpersons who had such a tenuous moral claim on the community that the state could, with impunity, strip them of the very basic rights that make human life worth living, consume their energies, and then treat what remained as waste products. They seem to be exceptional cases, for the fascist State reserved for itself comprehensive and unlimited sovereignty over their lives. And yet they were, at the same time, the exception that proved the rule, for the definition of their juridical status was simply the reverse side of the Reichs deliberate cultivation of its living human wealth. Agamben would also caution us against any complacency and unwarranted self-congratulation where allegations about liberal democracys resilience against authoritarianism are concerned. Some of the medical experiments carried out by the Nazis, for example, were invented by doctors who lived in the liberal democratic societies, and modern medicine continues to sign up death row inmates as trial subjects. In addition, we are now well aware that the Bush administration sought to establish a legal basis for torturing its detainees. As it produces bare life, the State claims that it is advancing its fundamental objective of caring for the nation. However, every last trace of the egalitarian and solidaristic dimension of the feminist concept of care is thereby eviscerated, such that we are left with nothing more than brutal exclusion.

Is Agambens metaphysics of governance adequate to the task of interpreting welfare law? Is the welfare mother analogous to these dehumanized nonpersons who are cast into this horrific condition in which human rights are totally suspended? In Agambens account, the camp inmates are so totally denuded of their personhood that they are deprived of the right to live. The sovereign authority may allow them to exist as nonpersons; that is, it may permit them to pursue a bare life, and it may choose to revoke that permission at any time and for any reasonor for no reason at all. It is because they have this absolutely minimal capacity to live a bare life that the concentration camp inmates can function as a surface of inscription for the state as it demonstratesand brings into being at the same timeits population management authority. With the suspension of their right to life, these nonpersons live each moment entirely at the unlimited discretion of the state, in which even the moral ban against cruelty to animalslet alone international human rights treaties, the Bill of Rights, and criminal statuteshas no bearing whatsoever. Because they are nonpersons, the state can kill the concentration camp inmates without committing homicide.

On the one hand, the welfare mother does not completely fulfill Agambens criteria in narrow juridical terms; the state cannot act affirmatively to put the welfare mother to death without breaking the law. Agamben is referring to the Nazis treatment of the concentration camp inmates when he writes: Precisely because they were lacking almost all the rights and expectations that we customarily attribute to human existence, and yet were still biologically alive, they came to be situated in a limit zone between life and death, inside and outside, in which they were no longer anything but bare life. For all the brutality of American welfare law, we are not rounding up welfare mothers and exterminating them en masse; in an absolutely minimal sense, they remain legal persons. They retain a sliver of the right to due process. In theory at least, they have the right to apply for a passport and to emigrate.

Agambens text, however, also lends itself to a more expansive reading. It can also be interpreted as an invitation to cultivate a more acute sensitivity to the ways in which even the most humanitarian forms of governance can have, as their hidden core principle, the brutal violation of fundamental human rights. As he defends the decision to wage war on Iraq, former President George W. Bush proclaims the exemplary achievements of American democracy. But in this same country, the State has stripped the welfare mother of almost all the basic rights that make a human life worth living, such as the right to refuse demeaning work. (This fact became all the more obvious, even to the corporate media, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.) The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRA) has eliminated her statutory entitlement to poverty assistance; she must look to her state constitution to give her claim to emergency aid any binding force. American constitutional law not only refuses to recognize the very concept of social rights but deliberately refuses to construct the poor as a suspect class where equal-protection doctrine is concerned. The State is empowered by the law to intervene in the intimate and sexual dimensions of a poor single mothers life in ways that would be considered legally and ethically unacceptable if these same interventions were aimed at professional women. The state has what the courts regard as a legitimate interest in forcing the welfare mother to cooperate with child support enforcementeven if she is fleeing from a violent biological father; it can order her to disclose her sexual history and to open her home, the personal conduct of her teenage children, and her very DNA structure to intensive governmental scrutiny. Federal law allows the states to deprive needy families of benefits when the eligibility time limits are exceeded and to set benefit levels at below-subsistence levels. Workfare rules require custodial mothers with young children to perform duties out of the home on a rigid schedule even though they may not have access to adequate and affordable childcare. In the guise of a poverty program ostensibly aimed at families with dependent children, the state can put so much pressure on a poor single mother that it places her in an absolutely desperate condition, one in which it becomes all the more likely that she will voluntarily give up her children for adoption. Indeed, three states evidently do not want to leave the custodial relinquishment effect of poverty policy to chance. They actually require welfare applicants to endure pro-adoption counseling and educational materials designed to encourage themsolely on the basis of their application for means-tested aid alone, with not even the slightest allegation of child abuse or neglectto relinquish their custodial rights.

There is hardly any difference between the slurs that are commonly circulated in American society and government about the welfare motherthat is, the demonizing representations that construct her as a species of vermin or pestilenceand the absolutely obnoxious and horrific claim that her life is not worth living and does not deserve to be lived. But mainstream American political rhetoric is also invested in portraying the states relationship with the poor in a humanitarian light: the state is reluctantly withdrawing redistributive supports only because they perversely fostered welfare dependency, and it is introducing therapeutic interventions designed to promote the work ethic and patriarchal and heterosexist family values. What we are really witnessing, however, is a massive reduction in social rights and the augmentation of a harsh punishment regime that advances racial-capitalist and patriarchal interests by keeping the poor disorganized, desperate, and eager to work for low wages. Child support enforcement continues to fail as an antipoverty measuregiven the fact that the biological fathers of the children of welfare mothers are typically too poor to meet their legal obligationsbut the encapsulation of millions of adults within custodial mother/obliged biological father dyads greatly enhances the states ability to render the poor mass into a policeable totality. This tactic also interrupts the formation of solidaristic relations among the poor at an intimate level, and perpetuates neoliberal and traditional family values by displacing entitlement with private patriarchal dependency.

Agamben, like Foucault, encourages us to pay close attention not just to the eternal return of exclusion but to the structure of exclusion as well. For his part, Foucault is perhaps the better theorist of the two where the institutionally specific analysis of disciplinary technology is concerned. But they both read the text of State authority against the grain, as it were. In its ideological self-presentation, the State establishes its governmental interests by referring to its showcase policies, namely the ones that are widely accepted as mainstream measures for enhancing the normal citizens well-being. In the American case, we are seductively invited to position ourselves as citizens of a country that has built up the best form of government in human history, one that is deeply committed to securing the conditions necessary for the pursuit of the good life. Agamben and Foucault resist the lure of modern State legitimation discourse. Refusing to follow the ostensive gesture of the State itselfagain, the state prefers to point out its mainstream policies that serve the general populationAgamben and Foucault seek to interpret power relations by investigating the extreme cases involving individuals who are rendered into nonpersons through the application of purportedly extraordinary law (Agamben) or problematized fields of insufficiently disciplined subjectivity (Foucault).

But Agamben would argue that Foucault himself vacillates on this crucial point and at times endorses the view that unilateral forms of exclusionary governancethose that are embodied in State practices such as banishment, the quarantining of the sick within fenced-off spaces like the leper colony, or the execution of criminals, for examplewere more or less eclipsed by modern disciplinary technologies. In my view, Foucaults juridico-discursive and biopower regimes should be understood as ideal types that can bring to light the operations of power that are constitutive of modern liberal democratic societies. The fact that Foucault did not address fascism in his development of these two governance types is indicative of his scrupulous attention to the institutional specificities of distinct political regimes. Further, it is a virtue of Foucaults work that the political status of the individuals targeted by biopower remains somewhat ambiguous; to a certain extent, they retain some types of liberal democratic rights even as they are excluded. Power in Foucaults model is a sophisticated force that works best when it finds ways to bend freedom against itself, such that the subject misrecognizes his or her disciplined condition as a form of liberation. Agamben would vigorously resist these suggestions. He would charge Foucault with failing to push the investigation of the exception to its proper limit. Agambens eccentric reading of Foucault is consistent with his ambitious objective, namely to establish a theory that lays bare the timeless structure of any possible form of Western governance.

From a political theory perspective, it is nevertheless important to note that Agamben proposes a salutary challenge to the status quo. He is effectively insisting that we must reverse the analytical gaze of the social sciences: we must investigate the nature of sovereignty from the perspective of the exception, rather than the mainstream, policy of the State. It is the politicization of bare life as such that constitutes the decisive event of modernity, not the establishment of a liberal democracy dedicated to securing the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The opposition that is taken for granted between absolutism and democracy has always been a fragile one, and these two modes of governance are currently entering into a real zone of indistinction. Absolutism only appears to lie at the other end of the regime-type continuum at a maximal distance from democracy. Once we pierce the ideological obfuscations that are thrown up by the State, we can grasp the fact that the absolutist assertion of sovereign power over bare life is secretly tied to the most humanitarian moments of liberal democratic State authority.

Standing confidentlysome would say arrogantlyon our Enlightenment inheritance, we westerners are enthralled by our own legitimation discourse, namely humanitarianism. We find it almost inconceivable, for example, that it is becoming increasingly difficult to draw the line between imperialist military campaigns and humanitarian aid projects. Similarly, we, the American wealthy, like to tell ourselves that we have always been very generousif not overly generoustoward the poor. It is, in fact, power that lies at the heart of poverty program design: its structures owe everything to the struggles between racial-capitalist and patriarchal forces that are deeply invested in the production of a docile low-wage workforce and in the promotion of the traditional heterosexual family, on the one side, and progressive forces like the poor peoples protests and the civil rights movement, on the other.

Agambens ambitious deployment of transhistorical overview is quite suggestive; like Hortense Spillerss concept of the American grammar book (i.e., Spillerss diagnosis of the underlying structure of gender and race hierarchies that remains constant in American culture from the colonial period to the present), his theory interrupts our complacent assumption that liberal democratic formations are somehow magically endowed with such a distinct orientation to the law, and such resilient and self-sustaining capacities, that we need not consider the possibility that they can harbor antidemocratic momentssuch as slavery, imperialism, and eugenicsat their very core, or that they can descend quite quickly into various forms of absolutism. Agamben and Spillers help us to resist the lure of progressivism: the myth that the West is always moving forwards in its bid to achieve a just form of social cooperation. They show us how to grasp the continuities between the various moments of constitutive exclusion in the history of American identity, whether they involve the strategic production of the indigenous savage or that of the slave woman and the welfare mother.

However, Agamben, unlike Spillers, moves at such a distance from historical specificities that he loses sight of institutionalized gendered dynamics. His objective is not only to thematize Western discourse on a metaphysical level, in the Derridean sense, but to establish a critical sociopolitical theory that can bring to light the fundamental character of Western governance that has purportedly endured, like a timeless essence, from Aristotles ancient Greece to post-9/11 American government. Like Spillers, Agamben underlines the fact that biopolitics constructs the national population in a racially essentialist manner. But he cannot detect the specificity of racial formations; he cannot help us to understand the ways in which the anti-Semitism of the Nazis resembles, but also deviates from, institutional racism in contemporary American society. Further, he completely fails to grasp the centrality of gender to the biopolitical project of producing bare life. For Agamben, the sovereign preserves for itself the natural right to do anything to anyone. As the line between legitimate authority and the right of the sovereign in a state of exception to protect the people by producing bare life is increasingly blurred, we become unable to identify any one clear figure of the sacred man. In effect, we are all virtually homines sacri. Bare life is no longer confined to a particular place or a definite category. It now dwells in the biological body of every living being.

The historical record, however, makes it crystal clear that it is the structurally disempowered who are most vulnerable to the exercise of arbitrary state power in the state of emergency. Women are placed in especially constrained positions by the modern State when it devotes itself to population management. In the context of positive eugenics, the fittest women of the racial nation are asked to serve as the wombs of the people through natalist propaganda and policies. Negative eugenics in turn promotes the exclusion of the unfit through selective immigration controls, sterilization, and the discouragement of child-rearing. Poor women typically bear the brunt of these policies. In some eugenic contexts, the unfit woman is offered partial redemption, but only insofar as she is rendered into a sterile worker, a prostitute, or a military servant.

The practical implications of Agambens failure to address the historically specific and stratified character of the States targeting (i.e., the fact that in the midst of an emergency, the State escalates its already established class, race, ethnic, and gender profiling instead of striking out in an unpredictable manner) are sobering. If we convinced ourselves that vulnerability is equally distributed, we would implicitly reinforce our already excessive tendency toward bourgeois self-regard. We would also foreclose all radical attempts to hold the agents who actively participate in the establishment of eugenics policy, and those who benefit handsomely from its operation, collectively responsible. Out of our bourgeois narcissism, we would refuse to face the Other and to receive the Others inscrutable and yet insistent demand. Instead of facing the Other, we would merely fixate on the image of the Others suffering. We would derive compensation for our perceived vulnerability through our consumption of this image; it would become our fetish. We would congratulate ourselves for having the fortitude to commodify suffering, and we would act as if we could exhaust our moral obligation by doing so. Thus, we would forget that we had forgotten the Other and that we were keeping our backs turned against the Others face. Fetishism, however, is not solidarity.

If any person can be rendered into bare life, then we should assume that Agambens absolute sovereign will strike in a random fashion, anywhere and everywhere at once. If absolutism is omnipresent, then virtually every form of political organizing is doomed to fail. Once again, Agambens argument risks the incitement of bourgeois self-regard and quietistic resignation. Agambens sensitization is one-sidedit raises our awareness of the fact that it is the interests of powerful elites, not charity, that structure poverty programs, but it allows us to avoid the inconvenient truth: the State remains a terrain of struggle, and it is our moral duty to contribute to the advance of social justice. Todays welfare mothers are not strategically positioned in exactly the same way as the Nazis concentration camp inmates; nor are they subjected to totalistic domination like the slave woman or Carrie Buck. They can, and they do, engage in political organizing; they have a fewalbeit far too fewallies in civil society, Congress, state legislatures, and local governments; and they are exercising their right to self-determination against very steep odds.

To return to Agamben, what precisely is the relationship between human reproduction and governance? Introducing Aristotles distinction between the life of the citizen and bare life, Agamben deploys a distinctly liberal democratic topographic metaphor: In the classical world . . . simple natural life is excluded from the polis in the strict sense, and remains confinedas merely reproductive lifeto the sphere of the oikos, home. The concept of confining a particular social practice to a distinct spatial region, like a sphere, seems to be at odds with the ancients organicism. To be sure, Agamben refers in particular to Aristotles rejection of the argument that governing the polis amounted to nothing more than the continuation of the sort of governing required in the household on a grander scale. But Agambens introductory passage on Aristotle continues to muddy the water even further. At one moment he is referring to distinct spheres of governancethe political versus the reproductivein which different types of leadership take different fields of human activity as their proper object. At the next, he discusses Aristotles hierarchy of moral ends: man is born with regard to life, but exist[s] essentially with regard to the good life.

In fact, the organicism that was proper to the ancients had a very specific character. The Greek citizens household was not a distinct sphere of human intersubjectivity in the modern sense; household relations had a great deal of bearing upon the good of the community and the ability of the polis to facilitate the pursuit of the good life. Ideally, the male citizen conducts himself ethically when he acts as the head of the household, for he enters into relations with other citizens from the most felicitous position when he does so, and the good of the polis depends upon the ethical performance of social roles in every nook and cranny of the citizens world. It is also best for the citizen to manage his economic affairs properlythat is, to achieve a subsistence standard of living and to generate the small surplus necessary for honoring virtuous friends with appropriate gifts. Ultimately, however, these domestic matters ought to be determined by a set of ethical principles that are unique; the guiding principles for household management cannot be derived from the ones that are proper to political deliberation. This is not because the household was located in a separate domestic sphere, however. In the ideal polis, the citizen rules and is ruled by other citizens in turn. In the household, the patriarch is directing subjects who allegedly do not meet the male citizens standard of rationality, namely women, children, and slaves. Even if the good man is the same as the good citizen in the ideal polis, the art of governing ones peers remains distinct from that pertaining to the management of ones dependents. Let us assume, then, that the polis remains properly constituted, and that the household in question is headed by a male citizen. In that case, we certainly cannot construct the household as if it existed in a distinct sphereit is not wholly apart from the polis, and it is not a special place within the polis that cannot be considered a proper object of public deliberation. The citizen has to adopt a different leadership posture when he applies himself to the task of heading the household, but that is not because the polis has no interest in regulating reproduction. He does so only because he must deal with his inferiors when he acts as the head of the household and manages his domestic affairs.

Agambens use of Aristotle to set up his broader argument could distract us from the fact that Aristotle actually wanted the legislator to take a deep interest in the management of human reproduction. In The Politics, for example, the discussion of constitutional types is juxtaposed with a substantial section in which a plan for the ideal city-state is sketched out, complete with advice on demographics, territorial considerations, the best division of labor, public planning, military preparation, and education. At its foundation, the polis must seek to enhance the moral development of the citizen, but educational institutions work best when they receive the best pupils. Reflecting the biological and medical thinking of his day, Aristotle lays out a model family law. Indeed, the topic is treated as if the text does not sense any particular need for extraordinary explanation; for Aristotles students, this expansive view of the poliswhich includes population management within the scope of legitimate governmental interestswas entirely unremarkable. The legislator in the ideal city-state naturally concerns himself with the task of establishing the legal conditions that foster the best types of human reproduction. The poliss interest in ensuring the reproduction of the best offspring is so extensive that it may quite properly establish rigid and narrow age requirements for marriage (around eighteen for women and thirty-seven for men). The legislator is invited to consider a law that would require pregnant mothers to perform daily pilgrimages in order to enhance their physical fitness. As for the treatment of the unfit child, The Politics states plainly that there should certainly be a law to prevent the rearing of deformed children. The legislator is also counseled to establish the upper limit of children in the ideal family and to ensure that miscarriages are induced when a family has reached that limit. Of course, the liberal democratic idea of a right to privacy has no place in Aristotle's scheme. Men and women form intimate partnerships, not as an expression of their individual and autonomous wills, but to render service to the state by bringing children into the world.

Fascist organicism similarly seeks to extend the grip of the sovereign into every corner of the Reich such that the will of the Fhrer defines virtually every field of social activity, from the courts to the market, the church, and the family. Agamben quite rightly draws our attention to the integration of eugenics into fascist social policy. The National Socialists sought to secure the life of the people by preserving the Aryan racial stock from miscegenation and degeneration. They adopted laws permitting the sterilization of those deemed to be carrying hereditary disorders of the body or the mind. They prohibited marriage for anyone who was institutionalized or who suffered from contagious disease, mental illness, or hereditary disease. Only those with Aryan blood were considered full citizens with the right to a passport, and Jews were not allowed to marry full citizens. Agamben could have also pointed to the fact that these prohibitions were combined with positive eugenics strategies. The Aryan woman was charged with the duty of marrying an Aryan man, bearing children, and faithfully rearing the Reichs future generation. Aryan women who bore more than four children received the Cross of Honor of the German mother. In Hermann Grings Nine Commandments for the Workers Struggle, German Aryan women were called to take hold of the frying pan, dust pan and broom and marry a man.

Taking inspiration from Agamben, and yet rejecting his metaphysical approach to governance, I would argue that contemporary social policy is an expression of neo-eugenics. Neo-eugenics is a special kind of biopolitics that resembles fascist organicism but is unique in several key respects. Eugenics is certainly alive and well in the United States today. Not only are publications like The Bell Curve that espouse a theory of biologically determined and racially differentiated intelligence received as mainstream texts, but we are also witnessing the training of a myriad of forces upon the poor that effectively discourage them from forming kinship groups and bearing and rearing children on their own terms. The harsh character of poverty assistance policy, the gap between the living wage and the minimum wage, gender- and race-based discrimination, and the stratified nature of the labor market operate in tandem. Together, they guarantee that millions of American adults will never earn enough to support a family even when they do manage to find full-time and year-round jobs. The racial bias of the criminal justice system places a disproportionate number of black and Latino men and women in prison at precisely the moment in their life cycles in which nonincarcerated adults typically start building their families. American infant mortality rates are the worst for any developed country, while HIV infection and AIDS continue to hit poor women of color particularly hard. Even if a poor black woman beats the odds and manages to bear and rear a healthy child and to provide him or her with an adequate diet, decent housing, a safe neighborhood, adequate childcare, and early education, she is still exposed to the inequitable child welfare system that threatens to cancel out her parental rights in an arbitrary manner.

But for all its continuities with ancient and fascist visions of legitimate governmental interest, contemporary eugenics remains unique. To be sure, there are the jeremiads from conservative-policy pundits and think tanks condemning middle-class women for utilizing childcare services and selfishly combining parenting with the pursuit of a professional career. It is also certainly true that the middle-class mother has been largely abandoned by the neoliberal state and that when she secures an adequate education for her children, she is, in all likelihood, reaching into her own bank account to do so. Even with these caveats in mind, however, the middle-class professional woman is not being subjected to compulsory maternalism; she is not being effectively pressed to do her patriotic duty by bearing and rearing the next generation. The rise of the liberal feminist movement has transformed the political landscape, social policy, and popular attitudes. As such, the free-market liberty of the professional woman will, in all likelihood, resist the attacks of the most conservative reformers for decades to come.

We are witnessing, then, the establishment of a neo-eugenics trend in public policy rather than a return to the organicist worldviews that are specific to the ancients and the fascists. Against Agambens de-historicization, I would insist on the importance of this departure. The concept of neo-eugenics usefully reminds feminist and queer activists that any analysis of the contemporary backlash against gender equality, sexual liberation, and secular humanism that does not pay close attention to class, race, and transnational capital accumulation would be woefully inadequate. We may see the re-criminalization of abortion, for example, thanks to the rise of antifeminist extremists at every level in the American political scene, from the local hospital board to the Supreme Court. It is nevertheless unlikely that we will see the wealthiest professional women being pressed to give up their careers and coerced into putting their wombs at the service of the race. Under pressure from patriarchal and capitalist forces, the State will probably do as little as possible to make the combination of wage earning and mothering any easierwe will not, in all likelihood, see the establishment of a universal childcare program, for examplebut it is unlikely that elite professional women will be assaulted by the same degree of patriarchal propaganda, racially motivated population control anxieties, economic coercion, and religious proselytization that poor women must endure on a daily basis as a matter of course. To be sure, conservative forces have not entirely abandoned the fray. They champion the women with college degrees who have eschewed the paid-work world in favor of full-time domestic labor, and they continue to make every effort to whip up a social panic about the pediatric perils of childcare. But on the whole, the career gains of elite professional women will remain somewhat unassailable, such that any calls for a full-scale return to earlier forms of positive eugenics and the insistence that the fittest women take up their proper maternal duties will remain muted. It is the welfare mother, not the professional career woman, who will bear the brunt of neo-eugenics.

Originally posted here:

Neo-eugenics: A Feminist Critique of Agamben - ARCADE

Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, who is 63-years-old, told Fox host Tucker Carlson on air Monday, March 23 that: No one reached out to me and said, As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren? And if thats the exchange, Im all in.

The next day, Fox News host and reporter, Brit Hume, defended Patricks remarks saying it is entirely reasonable that older U.S. residents should be fine with dying over complications of coronavirus infection if it assures a better U.S. economy.

The utter collapse of the countrys economy which many think will happen if this goes on much longer is an intolerable result of mandatory social isolation, continued the 76-year-old Hume.

Not only does the premature mass reopening of the business sector pose a potential death sentence to many of our seniors, but it also presents major health risks for younger people, especially those with other medical conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart and other organ problems.

Reports indicate that even young people without other medical complaints are turning up in a hospital intensive care units hooked up to ventilators as a result of contracting the coronavirus.

Adultism refers to oppression against young people by adults, and ageism against elders by youth and by adults.

Adultism, as defined by John Bell (2003) includes behaviors and attitudes based on the assumption that adults are better than young people and entitled to act upon young people without their agreement. This mistreatment is reinforced by social institutions, laws, customs, and attitudes.

Within an adultist society, adults construct the rules, with little or no input from youth, which they force young people to follow.

While elders in most countries were once considered as wise and treasured members of their communities, in many contemporary societies, older people are often marginalized, stripped of their rights and responsibilities, their dignity, their voice, and the power over their lives.

Todd Nelson (2005) summarizes the change in attitudes regarding elders resulting from two dramatic historical developments.

First, the advent of the printing press was responsible for a major change in the status of elders (quoted in Branco & Williamson, 1982). The culture, tradition, and history of a society or tribe now could be repeated innumerable times, in exact detail through books, and the status and power elders once had as the village historians was greatly reduced and, in many cases, eliminated.

The second major development in society that led to a shift in attitudes toward the elderly was the industrial revolution (Stearns & Tassel, 1986). The industrial revolution demanded great mobility in familiesto go where the jobs were. In light of this new pressure to be mobile, the extended family structure (with grandparents in the household) was less adaptive. Older people were not as mobile as younger people.

An early writer on the topic of oppression toward older people is Robert Butler (1975) who defines ageism as:

A process of systematic stereotyping of and discrimination against people because they are old. Old people are categorized as senile, rigid in thought and manner, old fashioned in morality and skills. Ageism allows the younger generations to see older people as different than themselves; thus they subtly cease to identify with the elders as human beings.

Margaret Morganroth Gullette (2017) describes ageism as the infliction of suffering by the mere fact of birthdate.

In terms of age, some of the most creative and successful thinkers have been at all stages of life, from very young to extraordinarily old.

I recently commented on a Facebook posting, and in response, someone called me a damned Boomer. Well, I say, damned right Im a Boomer, and a proud one at that.

We damned Boomers served proudly in our military alongside other generations.

We worked tirelessly in the service of civil and human rights, in ensuring the rights of women to control their own bodies, in protecting and defending lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, in protecting the separation of government and religion, in protecting our environment, and in attempting to bring down the rate of gun violence.

We designed and built your buildings. We cleaned your offices and homes. We cared for you in doctors offices and hospital rooms, and we defended you in the courtroom.

We collected your garbage and prepared your taxes, laid your roadways, paved your sidewalks, and constructed your bridges.

We wrote your books, taught you how to read and write, add and subtract. We helped you learn the names of the states and their capitals, inspired your enthusiasm and your critical thinking and trained you in the fields you were to enter.

We manufactured your automobiles, invented your social media, planted and picked your vegetables, and shipped your products to market. We reported the news and gave you solace in good times and bad.

We cleaned your asses and collected your soiled diapers, and we gave you a shoulder to cry on as we wiped away your tears.

And many of us continue to carry out these essential tasks today.

For some members of the following generations, we have always had and maintained your respect. Others, unfortunately, consider us as mere dinosaurs and inconveniences as we maintain positions they covet for their career advancement.

How convenient it is to justify opening the economy by placing our seniors at higher risk for death. How insidious it is to place economic considerations far above the physical welfare of actual living human beings.

But this is quickly becoming the norm in these terrifying Trumpian times in which the President of the United States rose to power by dehumanizing undocumented immigrants who attempted to escape rape, kidnapping, poverty, and death in their home countries.

The times in which the President of the United States rose to power by attacking the integrity, humanity, and honesty of women who called him on his rampant misogyny.

The times in which the President of the United States rose to power demonizing all members of U.S. Muslim communities and others throughout the world, and by defining all Jews as ethnically connected to their/our supposed Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The times in which the President of the United States rose to power by mocking a reporter with a disability, and the residents of supposed shithole countries, all of which are majority populations of color.

The times in which the President of the United States rose to power by labeling the mainstream media as the lamestream media, and attacking them as the enemy of the people.

In his call to reopen the economy and to fill the churches this Easter Sunday, Trump has added all seniors to his tyrannical mix of disposables. It seems the only people he considers worthy of life include primarily relatively young (up to early middle age) white Christian heterosexual cisgender U.S. native-born able-bodied and preferably politically conservative male Republicans.

All others be damned with you.

Are we to return to the era when Eugenics was considered a bone fide scientific field of inquiry and practice?

The British psychologist, Francis Galton (1822-1911), a first cousin of Charles Darwin, was a founder of the Eugenics Movement. In fact, Galton coined the term eugenics in 1883 from the Greek word meaning well-born.

Eugenicists attempted to improve the qualities of a so-called race by controlling human breeding. It was based on the theory that genetic predisposition determined human behavior. Galton also profited greatly from the slave trade. He stated:

I do not join in the belief that the African is our equal in brain or in heart; I do not think that the average negro cares for his liberty as much as an Englishman, or as a self-born Russian; and I believe that if we can in any fairway, possess ourselves of his services, we have an equal right to utilize them to our advantages (Galton, 1857).

Galton, in his books: Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into Its Laws and Consequences (1869), and Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development (1883), centered on the notion that the purpose of eugenics was to promote judicious mating in order to give the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable.

He assessed the relative intellectual capabilities of the so-called races, including Africans, Australians, Chinese, Jews, and others. He stated that degenerates exhibited deterioration to a level below the acceptable standards that were implicit in the Great Chain of Being hierarchy of worth.

Several forced sterilization laws stemmed from the Eugenics movement. Charles Benedict Davenport (1866-1944), Instructor of Zoology at Harvard University, in 1910, Director of the Cold Springs Laboratory, Long Island, New York, founded the Eugenics Record Office.

In his books, Heredity in Relation to Eugenics (1913) and Race Crossing in Jamaica (1929), strongly argued against miscegenation: sexual relations between whites and blacks, which he argued resulted in cultural and biological degradation. He favored mandatory sterilization of the unfit. In 1918, he was elected chair of the Galton Society for the Study of the Origin and Evolution of Man.

Have we now added our elders to the list of degenerates that bring down the race, and attendant economy?

Well, this Boomer will shout again as loudly and forcefully and I did in my youth when protesting the U.S. unwarranted and illegal incursion into Vietnam, this time in opposition to reopening the workplace before we have scientific indications that the time is right to do so.

References

Bell, J. (2003). Understanding adultism: A key to developing positive youth-adult relationships. Olympia, WA: The Freechild Project.

Branco, K. J., & Williamson, J. B. (1982). Stereotyping and the life cycle: Views of aging and the aged. In A. G. Miller (Ed.), In the eye of the beholder: Contemporary issues in stereotyping (pp. 364410). New York: Praeger.

Butler, R. N. (1975). Why survive? Being old in America. New York: Harper and Row.

Davenport, C. B. (1929). Race crossing in Jamaica. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution.

Davenport, C. B. (1913). Heredity in relation to Eugenics. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution.

Galton, F. (1883). Inquiries into human faculty and its development. London: Macmillan.

Galton, F. (1869). Hereditary genius: An inquiry into its laws and consequences. London: Macmillan.

Galton, F. (1971). in Hunt, J. M. (ed.). Human intelligence. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.

Galton, F. (1857). Negroes and the slave trade. Letter to The Times [of London] Eugenics, December 26.

Gullette, M. M. (2017). Ending ageism or how not to shoot old people. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Stearns, P. N. & Tassel, D. V. (1986). Introduction: Themes and prospects in old age history. In Old age in a bureaucratic society, in D. V. tassel and P. N. Stearns, ix-xx. New York: Greenwood Press.

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Coronavirus and the Neo-Eugenics Era - The Good Men Project

Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Wednesday, June 16, 2010

As part of his obsessive drive to smear anti-big government activists as insanely paranoid and dangerous radicals, Chris Matthews and his guest, establishment neo-lib David Corn, previewed tonights Rise of the New Right hit piece by claiming that the elites agenda to enact dictatorial population control measures was a conspiracy theory.

As we have documented on numerous occasions, while Matthews points fingers at his political adversaries for preparing to engage in violence, the only real violence were witnessing out on the streets is being committed by Obama supporters, MSNBC thugs and other leftists who refuse to tolerate free speech that counters their propaganda.

However, MSNBCs goal is not just to demonize the Tea Party and anti-big government activists as dangerous radicals as an avenue through which to sick the police state on them and crush their free speech, theyre also desperate to prevent Americans from lending any credence to what people like Alex Jones have to say by acting as gatekeepers to prevent such information from becoming mainstream.

A perfect example of an issue that Matthews and his ilk want to sideline is the manifestly provable fact that elitists have for decades publicly stated their desire to reduce global population by around 80 per cent and as much as 99 per cent.

During MSNBCs Hardball show on Tuesday, Corn characterized the notion that there is a planetary elite that literally has a secret plan to kill 80 to 99 percent of the population, as a conspiracy theory.

Watch the clip.

Corns role in covering-up the depopulation agenda is unsurprising given his habitual tactic of trying to discredit anyone who exposes government criminality and corruption. One critic labeled Corn as someone who serves, As a Neo-Con-lite version of someone who dismisses those who have investigated the crimes of the U.S. government, in reference to how he tried to undermine the work of the late Gary Webb, an award-winning investigative journalist who exposed the CIAs involvement in the drug trade.

Despite Corns claims to the contrary, the global elite have been forthright, public, and unashamedly enthusiastic about their open intention to cull at least 80 per cent of humanity in the name of saving the planet.

There are still large numbers of people amongst the general public, in academia, and especially those who work for the corporate media, who are still in denial about the on-the-record stated agenda for global population reduction, as well as the consequences of this program that we already see unfolding.

We have compiled a compendium of evidence to prove that the elite have been obsessed with eugenics and its modern day incarnation, population control, for well over 100 years and that goal of global population reduction is still in full force to this day.

The Worlds Elite Are Discussing Population Reduction

During a recent TED conference, an organization which is sponsored by one of the largest toxic waste polluters on the planet, Gates told the audience that vaccines need to be used to reduce world population figures in order to solve global warming and lower CO2 emissions to almost zero.

Stating that the global population was heading towards 9 billion, Gates said, If we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services (abortion), we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 per cent.

Quite how an improvement in health care and vaccines that supposedly save lives would lead to a lowering in global population is an oxymoron, unless Gates is referring to vaccines that sterilize people, which is precisely the same method advocated in White House science advisor John P. Holdrens 1977 textbook Ecoscience, which calls for a dictatorial planetary regime to enforce draconian measures of population reduction via all manner of oppressive techniques, including sterilization.

Gates eugenicist zeal is shared by his fellow Bilderberg elitists, many of whom have advocated draconian policies of population control in their own public speeches and writings. Indeed, the Rockefeller family funded eugenics research in Germany through the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institutes in Berlin and Munich. The Rockefeller Foundation praised Hitlers sterilization program in Nazi Germany. David Rockefeller attended the first Bilderberg meeting in 1954 and is now the head of Bilderbergs steering committee.

A joint World Health Organization-Rockefeller inoculation program against tetanus in Nicaragua, Mexico and the Philippines in the early 1990s was in fact a covert trial on using vaccines to medically abort womens babies.

Comite Pro Vida de Mexico, a Roman Catholic lay organization, became suspicious of the motives behind the WHO program and decided to test numerous vials of the vaccine and found them to contain human Chorionic Gonadotrophin, or hCG, writes historian F. William Engdahl in his article, Bill Gates And Neo-Eugenics: Vaccines To Reduce Population. That was a curious component for a vaccine designed to protect people against lock-jaw arising from infection with rusty nail wounds or other contact with certain bacteria found in soil. The tetanus disease was indeed, also rather rare. It was also curious because hCG was a natural hormone needed to maintain a pregnancy. However, when combined with a tetanus toxoid carrier, it stimulated formation of antibodies against hCG, rendering a woman incapable of maintaining a pregnancy, a form of concealed abortion. Similar reports of vaccines laced with hCG hormones came from the Philippines and Nicaragua.

Gates recently announced that he would be funding a sterilization program that would use sharp blasts of ultrasound directed against a mans scrotum to render him infertile for six months. The foundation has funded a new sweat-triggered vaccine delivery program based on nanoparticles penetrating human skin. The technology is described as a way to develop nanoparticles that penetrate the skin through hair follicles and burst upon contact with human sweat to release vaccines, writes health researcher Mike Adams.

As was reported last year by the London Times, a secret billionaire club meeting in early May 2009 which took place in New York and was attended by David Rockefeller, Ted Turner, Bill Gates and others was focused around how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the worlds population.

We questioned establishment media spin which portrayed the attendees as kind-hearted and concerned philanthropists by pointing out that Ted Turner has publicly advocated shocking population reduction programs that would cull the human population by a staggering 95%. He has also called for a Communist-style one child policy to be mandated by governments in the west. In China, the one child policy is enforced by means of taxes on each subsequent child, allied to an intimidation program which includes secret police and family planning authorities kidnapping pregnant women from their homes and performing forced abortions.

Of course, Turner completely fails to follow his own rules on how everyone else should live their lives, having five children and owning no less than 2 million acres of land.

In the third world, Turner has contributed literally billions to population reduction, namely through United Nations programs, leading the way for the likes of Bill & Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet (Gates father has long been a leading board member of Planned Parenthood and a top eugenicist).

The notion that these elitists merely want to slow population growth in order to improve health is a complete misnomer. Slowing the growth of the worlds population while also improving its health are two irreconcilable concepts to the elite. Stabilizing world population is a natural byproduct of higher living standards, as has been proven by the stabilization of the white population in the west. Elitists like David Rockefeller have no interest in slowing the growth of world population by natural methods, their agenda is firmly rooted in the pseudo-science of eugenics, which is all about culling the surplus population via draconian methods.

David Rockefellers legacy is not derived from a well-meaning philanthropic urge to improve health in third world countries, it is born out of a Malthusian drive to eliminate the poor and those deemed racially inferior, using the justification of social Darwinism.

As is documented in Alex Jones seminal film Endgame, Rockefellers father, John D. Rockefeller, exported eugenics to Germany from its origins in Britain by bankrolling the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute which later would form a central pillar in the Third Reichs ideology of the Nazi super race. After the fall of the Nazis, top German eugenicists were protected by the allies as the victorious parties fought over who would enjoy their expertise in the post-war world.

As Dr. Len Horowitz writes, In the 1950s, the Rockefellers reorganized the U.S. eugenics movement in their own family offices, with spinoff population-control and abortion groups. The Eugenics Society changed its name to the Society for the Study of Social Biology, its current name.

The Rockefeller Foundation had long financed the eugenics movement in England, apparently repaying Britain for the fact that British capital and an Englishman-partner had started old John D. Rockefeller out in his Oil Trust. In the 1960s, the Eugenics Society of England adopted what they called Crypto-eugenics, stating in their official reports that they would do eugenics through means and instruments not labeled as eugenics.

With support from the Rockefellers, the Eugenics Society (England) set up a sub-committee called the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which for 12 years had no other address than the Eugenics Society. This, then, is the private, international apparatus which has set the world up for a global holocaust, under the UN flag.

In the latter half of the 20th century, eugenics merely changed its face to become known as population control. This was crystallized in National Security Study Memorandum 200, a 1974 geopolitical strategy document prepared by Rockefellers intimate friend and fellow Bilderberg member Henry Kissinger, which targeted thirteen countries for massive population reduction by means of creating food scarcity, sterilization and war.

Henry Kissinger: In the now declassified 1974 document, National Security Memorandum 200, Kissinger outlines the plan to use food scarcity as a weapon in order to achieve population reduction in lesser-developed countries.

The document, declassified in 1989, identified 13 countries that were of special interest to U.S. geopolitical objectives and outlined why population growth, and particularly that of young people who were seen as a revolutionary threat to U.S. corporations, was a potential roadblock to achieving these objectives. The countries named were India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia and Colombia.

The study outlined how civil disturbances affecting the smooth flow of needed materials would be less likely to occur under conditions of slow or zero population growth.

Development of a worldwide political and popular commitment to population stabilization is fundamental to any effective strategy. This requires the support and commitment of key LDC leaders. This will only take place if they clearly see the negative impact of unrestricted population growth and believe it is possible to deal with this question through governmental action, states the document.

The document called for integrating family planning (otherwise known as abortion) with routine health services for the purposes of curbing the numbers of LDC people, (lesser-developed countries).

The report shockingly outlines how withholding food could be used as a means of punishment for lesser-developed countries who do not act to reduce their population, essentially using food as a weapon for a political agenda by creating mass starvation in under-developed countries.

The allocation of scarce PL480 (food) resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food production, states the document.

Later in the document, the idea of enforcing mandatory programs by using food as an instrument of national power is presented.

The document states that the program will be administered through the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), thereby avoiding the danger that some LDC leaders will see developed-country pressures for family planning as a form of economic or racial imperialism; this could well create a serious backlash.

As Jean Guilfoyle writes, NSSM 200 was a statement composed after the fact. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the U.S. had worked diligently behind the scenes to advance the population-control agenda at the United Nations, contributing the initial funding of $1 million.

A Department of State telegram, dated July 1969, reported the support of John D. Rockefeller III, among others, for the appointment of Rafael Salas of the Philippines as senior officer to co-ordinate and administer the UN population program. The administrator of the UN Development Program reported confidentially that he preferred someone such as Salas who had the advantage of color, religion (Catholic) and conviction.

A comprehensive outline of what is contained in the National Security Memorandum document can be read at http://www.theinterim.com/july98/20nssm.html

Evidence of the actual consequences of this program can be found with the link between vaccines and sterilization, as well as other diseases such as cancer, in both the west and the third world.

In the following video clips, women of the Akha tribe who live predominately in Thailand, describe how they miscarried shortly after taking vaccines when they were eight months pregnant. The videos below highlight the efforts of supporters of the Akha tribe to get answers from the University of Oregon and the United Nations, who provided funding for the vaccination and sterilization programs.

Further evidence of the link between vaccinations, birth control, cancer and other diseases can be researched here.

In the 21st century, the eugenics movement has changed its stripes once again, manifesting itself through the global carbon tax agenda and the notion that having too many children or enjoying a reasonably high standard of living is destroying the planet through global warming, creating the pretext for further regulation and control over every facet of our lives.

As we have tirelessly documented, the elites drive for population control is not based around a benign philanthropic urge to improve living standards, it is firmly routed in eugenics, racial hygiene and fascist thinking.

According to the The London Times report, the secret billionaire cabal, with its interest in population reduction, has been dubbed The Good Club by insiders. This couldnt be further from the truth. Anyone who takes the time to properly research the origins of the population control movement will come to understand that the Rockefeller-Turner-Gates agenda for drastic population reduction, which is now clearly manifesting itself through real environmental crises like chemtrails, genetically modified food, tainted vaccines and other skyrocketing diseases such as cancer, has its origins in the age-old malevolent elitist agenda to cull the human chattel as one would do to rodents or any other species deemed a nuisance by the central planning authorities.

Sterilization And Eugenics Returns In Popular Culture

We are now seeing the return of last centurys eugenicist movement through the popular promotion of sterilization as a method of birth control.

A popular womens magazine in the UK recently featured an article entitled, Young, Single and Sterilized, in which women in their 20s discussed why they had undergone an operation to prevent them from ever having children. The article is little more than PR for a womens charity called Marie Stopes International, an organization that carries out abortions and sterilizations and was founded by a Nazi eugenicist who advocated compulsory sterilization of non-whites and those of bad character.

In the article, sterilization is lauded as an excellent method of birth control by Dr. Patricia Lohr of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.

The article includes an advertisement that encourages women to seek more information about sterilization by contacting Marie Stopes International. We read that, Over the past year, a quarter of the women who booked a sterilization consultation with womens charity Marie Stopes were aged 30 or under.

Marie Stopes was a feminist who opened the first birth control clinic in Britain in 1921 as well as being Nazi sympathizer and a eugenicist who advocated that non-whites and the poor be sterilized.

Stopes, a racist and an anti-Semite, campaigned for selective breeding to achieve racial purity, a passion she shared with Adolf Hitler in adoring letters and poems that she sent the leader of the Third Reich.

Stopes also attended the Nazi congress on population science in Berlin in 1935, while calling for the compulsory sterilization of the diseased, drunkards, or simply those of bad character. Stopes acted on her appalling theories by concentrating her abortion clinics in poor areas so as to reduce the birth rate of the lower classes.

Stopes left most of her estate to the Eugenics Society, an organization that shared her passion for racial purity and still exists today under the new name The Galton Institute. The society has included members such as Charles Galton Darwin (grandson of the evolutionist), Julian Huxley and Margaret Sanger.

Marie Stopes, the Nazi and pioneering eugenicist who sent love letters to Hitler, honored recently by the Royal Mail.

Ominously, The Galton Institute website promotes its support and funding initiative for the practical delivery of family planning facilities, especially in developing countries. In other words, the same organization that once advocated sterilizing black people to achieve racial purity in the same vein as the Nazis is now bankrolling abortions of black babies in the third world.

While the issue of abortion is an entirely different argument, most would agree that no matter how extreme it sounds, a woman has the right to sterilize herself if she so chooses, just as a man has the right to a vasectomy.

But when a magazine aimed primarily at young women all but encourages girls as young as 20 to have their fallopian tubes tied in order to prevent the irritation of children entering their lives and then advertises an organization founded by a Nazi eugenicist that can perform the operation, something has to be amiss.

Even more shocking than this is the fact that the majority of people in the UK routinely express their support for societys undesirables to be forcibly sterilized by the state, harking back to a time when such a thing was commonplace right up to the 1970s in some areas of America and Europe.

As we highlighted at the time, respondents to a Daily Mail article about Royal Mail honoring Marie Stopes by using her image on a commemorative stamp were not disgusted at Royal Mail for paying homage to a racist Nazi eugenicist, but were merely keen to express their full agreement that those deemed not to be of pure genetic stock or of the approved character should be forcibly sterilized and prevented from having children.

A lot of people should be sterilized, IMO. Its still true today, wrote one.

Just imagine what a stable, well-ordered society wed have if compulsory sterilisation had been adopted years ago for the socially undesirable, states another respondent, calling for a satellite-carried sterilisation ray to be installed in space to zap the undesirables.

Shockingly, another compares sterilization and genocide of those deemed inferior to the breeding and culling of farmyard animals, and says that such a move is necessary to fight overpopulation and global warming. Here is the comment in full from Karen in Wales;

We breed farm animals to produce the best possible stock and kill them when they have fulfilled their purpose. We inter-breed pedigree animals to produce extremes that leave them open to ill-health and early death. It is only religion that says humans are not animals. The reality is that we are simply intelligent, mammalian primates.

The world population of humans has increased from 2 billion to 6.5 billion in the last 50 years. This planet can support 2 billion humans comfortably. 6.5 billion humans use too many resources and leads to global warming, climate change and a very uncertain future for all of us humans and all other life sharing this planet with us.

Marie Stopes believed in population control and in breeding the best possible humans. So did Hitler. Neither of the aims are bad in themselves. It is how they are achieved that is the problem. The fact that we still remember Marie Stopes is an achievement in itself.

The nature of these comments is so fundamentally sick and twisted that one is tempted to dismiss them as a joke but these people are deadly serious. Presumably they would also agree with Chinas one child policy, which is routinely enforced by intimidation as young pregnant women are grabbed off the streets by state goons and taken to hospitals where forced abortions are carried out.

Now with popular womens magazines advising women in their 20s where they can go to be sterilized and ensure a lifetime of partying and carefree sex, its no surprise that experts predict that by 2010 one in four western women will be child free for life.

The yearning to have children is the most beautiful, natural and innate emotion either a man or a woman can possibly experience. That is not to say that its always wrong for some people not to have children extreme circumstances can justify such a decision. But to have yourself sterilized because you find children to be an irritant and want to live a life free of responsibility or consequences is an awful message to send to young women, especially in the sex-saturated entertainment culture that we are now forced to endure.

Furthermore, the outright promotion of Marie Stopes International as the place to go to get sterilized if youre under 30 is stomach-churning considering the fact that the origins of this organization can be found in Nazi ideology, racist and backward early 20th century eugenics and a long-standing agenda to cull the population of undesirables, an abhorrent belief still held by elites across the planet today.

Genocidal Population Reduction Programs Embraced By Academia

One such individual who embraces the notion that humans are a virus that should be wiped out en masse for the good of mother earth is Dr. Eric R. Pianka, an American biologist based at the University of Texas in Austin.

Dr Erik Pianka, the American biologist who advocated the mass genocide of 90% of the human race and was applauded by his peers.

During a speech to the Texas Academy of Science in March 2006, Pianka advocated the need to exterminate 90% of the worlds population through the airborne ebola virus. The reaction from scores of top scientists and professors in attendance was not one of shock or revulsion they stood and applauded Piankas call for mass genocide.

Piankas speech was ordered to be kept off the record before it began as cameras were turned away and hundreds of students, scientists and professors sat in attendance.

Saying the public was not ready to hear the information presented, Pianka began by exclaiming, Were no better than bacteria!, as he jumped into a doomsday malthusian rant about overpopulation destroying the earth.

Standing in front of a slide of human skulls, Pianka gleefully advocated airborne ebola as his preferred method of exterminating the necessary 90% of humans, choosing it over AIDS because of its faster kill period. Ebola victims suffer the most tortuous deaths imaginable as the virus kills by liquefying the internal organs. The body literally dissolves as the victim writhes in pain bleeding from every orifice.

Pianka then cited the Peak Oil fraud as another reason to initiate global genocide. And the fossil fuels are running out, he said, so I think we may have to cut back to two billion, which would be about one-third as many people.

Later, the scientist welcomed the potential devastation of the avian flu virus and spoke glowingly of Chinas enforced one child policy, before zestfully commenting, We need to sterilize everybody on the Earth.

At the end of Piankas speech the audience erupted not to a chorus of boos and hisses but to a raucous reception of applause and cheers as audience members clambered to get close to the scientist to ask him follow up questions. Pianka was later presented with a distinguished scientist award by the Academy. Pianka is no crackpot. He has given lectures to prestigious universities worldwide.

Indeed, the notion that the earths population needs to be drastically reduced is a belief shared almost unanimously by academics across the western hemisphere.

In 2002, The Melbourne Age reported on newly uncovered documents detailing Nobel Peace Prize winning microbiologist Sir Macfarlane Burnets plan to help the Australian government develop biological weapons for use against Indonesia and other overpopulated countries of South-East Asia.

From the article;

Sir Macfarlane recommended in a secret report in 1947 that biological and chemical weapons should be developed to target food crops and spread infectious diseases. His key advisory role on biological warfare was uncovered by Canberra historian Philip Dorling in the National Archives in 1998.

Specifically to the Australian situation, the most effective counter-offensive to threatened invasion by overpopulated Asiatic countries would be directed towards the destruction by biological or chemical means of tropical food crops and the dissemination of infectious disease capable of spreading in tropical but not under Australian conditions, Sir Macfarlane said.

The Victorian-born immunologist, who headed the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, won the Nobel prize for medicine in 1960. He died in 1985 but his theories on immunity and clonal selection provided the basis for modern biotechnology and genetic engineering.

Controversy surrounding the comments of another darling of scientific academia, geneticist James Watson, who told a Sunday Times newspaper interviewer that black people are inherently less intelligent than whites, should come as no surprise to those who are aware of Watsons role in pushing the dark pseudo-science of eugenics.

Watson told the interviewer that he was inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa because all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours whereas all the testing says not really.

Watson was the Head of the Human Genome Project until 1992 and is best known for his contribution to the discovery of DNA, an achievement that won him the Nobel Peace prize in 1962.

But what most people are unaware of is the fact that Watson has played an integral role in advancing the legitimacy of the eugenics/population reduction movement for decades.

Watson is a strong proponent of genetic screening, a test to determine whether a couple is at increased risk of having a baby with a hereditary genetic disorder.

Since such screening obviously increases the rate of abortions of babies considered imperfect, many have slammed its introduction as nothing more than a camouflage for eugenics or voluntary eugenics as British philosophy professor Philip Kitcher labeled it.

See more here:

MSNBC In Cover-Up Of Manifestly Provable Population ...