In 1923, the newly created Eugenics Board met in an innocuous classroom in Alberta, Canada. For the next fifty years, nearly all of the young men and women who appeared before the Board was declared mentally incompetent, and then sterilized. By 1973, when a new government finally shut the Board down, about 5,000 people had been sterilized. In 1998, many of them filed lawsuits against the Alberta government. On Soundprint, four victims tell their story after years of silence. This program was produced by Lynda Shorten of the CBC.
Alberta Sterilization was produced by Lynda Shorten for the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Special thanks to Allen Stein. This program airs as
part of the international documentary exchange
series Crossing Boundaries.
Links:
Sterilization and Eugenics in Alberta
The history of sterilization laws and the consequent victim compensation in Alberta.
Eugenics Archive
The origins, research and sterilization laws of the American movement to allegedly breed better human beings.
Books:
Terminating the Socially Inadequate
Marvin D. Miller
Eugenics and the Welfare State: Sterilization Policy in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland
Gunnar Broberg (Editor) Nils Roll-Hansen (Editor)
Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the U.S.
Philip R. Reilly
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