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On a nearly still and moonlit night last week, some 75 people formed a circle on Asilomar State Beach around a sand pit ringed by seaweed. Four dancers swayed around the pit to the sound...
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A National Women’s Law Center report released today shines a light on the dark reality of modern-day eugenics.
More than 30 states explicitly allow the forced sterilization of disabled people, and more than a dozen states allow it on disabled children, according to the report.
“Forced sterilization laws are not an aberration—they are part of a larger, horrifying system that prevents disabled people from making basic decisions about their lives, their families, and their futures,” Ma’ayan Anafi, NWLC senior counsel of health equity and justice and the report’s author, said in a news release.
“These laws are part of a long history of state-sanctioned sterilizations, and are rooted in false, paternalistic assumptions about disabled people. No judge, guardian, or politician should have the right to take away anyone’s fundamental right to decide whether to have children. It’s long overdue to fully transform this ruthless system.”
According to the report:
- 31 states plus Washington, D.C., have laws explicitly allowing the forced sterilization of disabled people, most recently passed in 2019 in Iowa and Nevada
- 17 states allow forced sterilizations on...