It didn’t start as a conspiracy whispered in dark basements. It began in the quiet halls of academia and the rigid corridors of state legislatures. By the 1970s, an estimated 60,000 disabled people had been forcibly sterilized across more than 30 U.S. states. The machinery of this policy was oiled by the American eugenics movement, a pseudoscience that promised a “healthier” society by removing those deemed genetically unfit.
The first bolt in this legal machine was struck in Indiana in 1907. That state passed the world’s first eugenics sterilization law, setting a precedent that would ripple across the country. Other states followed suit, crafting their own statutes to identify and neutralize individuals they classified as “defective.” This wasn’t limited to a narrow definition of disability. It swept up the poor, the criminal, the mentally ill, and anyone marginalized enough to be labeled a burden on society.
The practice didn’t end neatly with the dawn of a new century. Some states continued the procedure well into the 1970s, long after the Nazi regime had exposed the horrific extremities of eugenics. Yet, the aftermath has been marked by silence. Most hospitals and medical institutions that performed these surgeries have never formally acknowledged their role. There is no widespread apology. No central registry. Just a lingering stain on the history of American medicine that continues to fester in the shadows of public health.
