For the Public Good: Forced Sterilization and the Fight for Compensation

First, I want to say thank you to Belle Boggs for bringing this story to light. As a North Carolina resident, I only learned the disgraceful truth of North Carolina's eugenics program back in 2010 and I was shocked. It has been a well kept secret for many years. So, when I happened upon Ms. Belle's essay, I absolutely had no choice but to read it.Belle Boggs tells the story of a small handful of North Carolina's victims with much compassion and empathy and documents their struggle to find some justice for the irreversible wrong done to more than 7600 North Carolinians between 1929 and 1974.More than thirty states in our great nation had similar eugenics programs in place, California actually sterilized 20,000 people for the "Public Good"...and this topic is still talked about in hushed tones.Personally, I do not believe that any amount of compensation for the living victims will correct this wrong. I think that the only way North Carolina can atone for this black, dark stain on our recent history is to make this story known in our high schools. Ms. Belles essay should be required reading for high school students in our fair state. Education is the only guarantee that this will not happen again.This essay is beautifully written. Well done Ms. Boggs !

What a sin to be subjected to total lack of control of your body. So sad, but informative and a story that needed to be told and remembered so it does not happen again.

I have always been interested in public health and the treatment of the poor and uneducated. in both the prison and health care system.This book blew my socks off; why would anyone do this to another human being. Nobody stood up for these children and young adults; sometimes I am ashamed of the way citizens are treated in this country.

Couldn't believe all that went on that I had no idea about. crazy. I would recommend this, better to know than not.

Hope I wasn't charged for it.

In my wildest dreams I could never imagine this happening in our country

I have heard little about the horrific eugenic programs in the united states, so I decided to listen to this audiobook. It's disturbing how many sterilizations happened in one state alone. Belle shares a few stories of these poor individuals, whose lives go to show how misguided those who thought it was "public good" were. There is no way to foretell with perfect accuracy who will be bright or dull, productive or a drain on society and the fact that science was being used to do such a thing should give us pause and cause us to question science when it is motivated by political and ideological concerns (global warming comes mind presently).Concerning a value for human life, I am wondering if Belle is consistent. At one point in the book I got the impression (hopefully a wrong impression) that Belle was against legislation that reduced abortions in North Carolina. If this is so, I find it severally ironic, for this is the one form of Eugenics that is still promoted and practiced, instead of sterilizing unwanted children to prevent them from having unwanted children, it was found much more convenient to just to kill them right off. Margaret Sanger, the founder of planned parenthood, was a strong racist, promoter of negative eugenics, and wanted to see the black population exterminated. Is it any surprise that a majority of the abortion clinics in America are in African-American neighborhoods? It just amazes me that people who can recognize that sterilization of innocent people is wrong, can't remove their ideological blindfold to see that millions upon millions of unwanted babies are being slaughtered "For the Public Good". Of course since these children have been murdered, we can't necessarily even consider ways of compensating the victims of the silent genocide.Concerning the part of the book about compensating those who underwent forced sterilizations. I don't know if taxpayers should foot the bill for something that former generations did. Belle tried to make the case for this, but it didn't seem to me persuasive. What should be done then? I dunno, these people under went a terrible injustice, I do think their story needs to be told. And honestly, we should continue to fight eugenics in all it's forms, especially in it's new disguised and accepted form of abortion.

A short, easy read which, IMO, spends too much time on the author's expression of empathy for victims of sterilization as a consequence of her own tribulations attempting, apparently unsuccessfully, to conceive a child herself. And, while this book provides some info re: the implementation of forced sterilization in some 33 states, the majority of its focus is on North Carolina - detailing the travails of 2 or 3 individuals who fell victim to the onerous sterilization procedure in that one state. Interestingly, it was the state of California where the largest number of forced sterilizations occurred, reportedly equalling ~ 4 times the numbers in NC. I mistakenly assumed that the book's title implied that an overarching view of the subject matter would be taken but the space devoted to the facts of the CA program, for example, is quite limited. Given that the digital edition cost only $3., I suppose one could have done worse. That said, I should think that one could likely do a bit better.