Tenets of Eugenics
Theme: Our World and eugenics
Sterilization is generally knowns as a tenet of Eugenics. Many people deny that the high rate of autistic children being currently sterilized, would be eugenics. One of the narratives for rapid medicalization of children IS MENTAL HEALTH. Historically mental health might have been a reason to have caution before sterilizing an individual and in particular a minor.
So I ask: Is a system being created where you cannot have ‘concerns’ for a patient’, is now acceptable in medicine, where the medicalization results in sterilization, and the patient is a minor, importantly systematically separated from parents and informed consent. Voices that shout out to be heard are whistle blowers and detransitionners and claimants in law suits.
This paper I found reviews some of the historical contexts for legal frameworks governing the practice of sterilizing of minors or those developmentally disabled.
“In the patient's best interest? Revisiting sexual autonomy and sterilization of the developmentally disabled
Hoangmai H Pham1 and Barron H Lerner2
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A century ago, the eugenics movement led to widespread forced sterilization of vulnerable populations. Subsequent moral outrage produced laws that strongly discouraged or prohibited sterilization of the developmentally disabled.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
American eugenicists argued that forced sterilization was in society's best interest. Inspired by the social Darwinism propounded by Francis Galton, many concluded that social ills could result from characteristics transmitted genetically among “unfit” populations. They believed that “defective” people reproduced at higher rates, that criminals and the developmentally disabled tended to have children with similar disorders, and that reproduction among these populations weakened the gene pool.1
In 1907, reflecting the eugenicists' influence, states began enacting laws allowing involuntary sterilization of the developmentally disabled.1 Courts initially declared early sterilization statutes unconstitutional, but support for such legislation grew after World War I. A 1927 Supreme Court ruling upheld these laws. In Buck v Bell, a case of an institutionalized woman who had given birth to an illegitimate child, the court ruled that forced sterilization was constitutional under certain circumstances. Justice Holmes' opinion read:
It is better...if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or...let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those...manifestly unfit from continuing their kind...Three generations of imbeciles is enough.1
Buck v Bell unleashed a wave of forced sterilizations. Whereas physicians had performed 10,877 sterilizations of institutionalized persons through 1928, they performed 27,210 between 1929 and 1941. Public authorities institutionalized some women solely for sterilization and then released them. Between 1907 and 1963, more than 60,000 Americans, mostly women, were sterilized without their consent.1
Forced sterilization fell out of favor after 1940 as Nazi atrocities led to a rejection of eugenic tenets and later due to growing support for civil rights and feminism. In the 1960s, some states repealed sterilization laws. Finally, a scandal involving the sterilization of a developmentally disabled girl without her consent in a federally funded clinic resulted in 1978 guidelines that forbade the use of federal funds for sterilizing anyone younger than 21 years, incompetent, or institutionalized.2
Given the current legal landscape, it remains extremely difficult to obtain sterilization for an incompetent woman. In Illinois, parents of incompetent children can request sterilization unless challenged by a third party. In other states, courts will not approve sterilization for incompetent persons without enabling legislation. Some states mandate court review and approval for each case.4 In New York City, the charter forbids sterilization of people younger than 21 years or incompetent.5 In 2 instances, New York State allowed sterilization of minors: 1 suffering from painful menses, and the other deemed “unlikely ever to understand...contraception, [who] could be psychologically traumatized if she became pregnant,... gave birth or had pregnancy terminated, and [could] participate in...sexual activities or have...[them]...imposed on her.” But parents of adult incompetent women cannot consent by proxy for sterilization.4
[“if you don’t transition you will probably kill yourself”; aka transition or Die, is a dreadful bullying by the activists and the only ones permitted at presenting a child a future. That kind of intimidation as part of the process, where parents are removed and dissenters are imprisoned is a system of sterilization that is abhorrent. It is abhorrent, because it is set up to fail and over ‘sterilize’ (instead of the just-right-sterlization?) Until you hear all their voices, you will never know what ‘kindness now does’.]
“ETHICAL FRAMEWORK
Legal prohibitions do not relieve clinicians of responsibility for considering relevant medical and ethical issues and from advocating for patients.
Bioethicists generally approve of surrogates making decisions for incompetent patients.6 Courts have recognized that incompetent, developmentally disabled persons must have others make medical decisions for them.3 “
WHO ARE THE SURROGATES, BUT THOSE PAID IN AND BY THE SYSTEM. ATTACH TO THAT THE CONSIDERATION THAT EUGENICS HAD TO DO WITH A SORT OF POPULATION CONTROL AND ATTACH TO THAT THE LONG STATED NEED TO REDUCE POPULATION BY THE SAME ELITE WHO ADVOCATE INCLUSION/ NET ZERO/ AND STERILIATION. IS THERE A DUAL PURPOSE?
Who views these larger themes together, with the avarice of a system, that would hunt children and separate them from informed consent and their parents. The hunters are hungry and its the children who are being fed the price of medicalization.
Who is speaking up for children where dissent in transgender centers discourage having ‘concerns’ that dispute the medicalization of the children.
Are minors actually having decision made for them that systemizes and fast tracks sterilization? We can’t discuss?
Increasingly Detransitionners and Whistle blowers and law suits are coming to light, that establish ugly side effects the children regret, or sterilization that the children regret. This is now an acceptable side effect of INCLUSION. Inclusion that hurts should be reframed.
Its not that there aren’t trans individuals in need of love compassion and acceptance in our society, its that when we cast too wide and net the unintended consequences (or are they intended if you may not remedy them or question them or you end up in jail for so doing?) I grew up believing in God, and that love thy neighbour was an important tenet. That will include loving someone I have an ideological difference with. What that love looks like may include strong political disagreement and the courage to raise. That love may include praying for their healing, for their strength and for their comfort with who they are.
I’ve always believed that God has a path for us. Some of the strongest advocates use the pain of their past to inform and provide context on the present. The courage to speak up in times of IMPOSED silence is more important when those in need of the voice are most vulnerable. Death is not the only choice absent medicalization. Any system that separates the vulnerable from protections ought to be fought with words and breaking the fragility of silence. Courage is what leads. and Fear is why fragile silence is allowed to flourish.
The previous legal context in the Eugenics movement meant that we should have more ways to ensure the system doesn’t fast track consequences that turn ugly when regret sets in.
And if we don’t want to be responsible, cautious and protective of these consequences, why not? Time rather than ‘affirmation’ and ‘medicalization’ and surgical removal of reproductive organs used to be the measure of certainty.
This doesn’t deny the ‘trans’ individual, rather it protects the child who may have mental health issues (that is prima facie being acknowledged) that need to be explored to ensure in fact one size fits all in fact does fit all.
The incidents when it does not fit, creates a lifetime of pain for individuals we ought to be protecting.
It is the perfect TORT, and we are ignoring it. Such systems should err on the side of non-medical-intervention; of having protections in place, and keeping the parent an ally.
Remember the light of day, and how these decisions are viewed depends of course on the lens applied. Should we apply one that protects? and learns from the ugly Eugenics movements of the past?