Indiana’s health commissioner apologizes for state’s role in developing eugenics

Associated Press
Friday, April 13, 2007

INDIANAPOLIS - An Indiana official publicly apologized for the state’s role 100 years ago in pioneering state-authorized sterilization of ”imbeciles,” paupers and others it deemed undesirable.

Health Commissioner Dr. Judith Monroe expressed regret on behalf of the state Thursday for its passing of the first such eugenics law. She also unveiled a historic marker that will stand across from the Statehouse.

”It is one (law) that we do regret but we should not forget,” she said.

In 1907, then-Gov. J. Frank Hanly signed a state law widely regarded as the first in the world to permit sterilization in a misguided effort to improve the quality of the human race.

The practice was not ended until 1974. By then, Indiana had sterilized about 2,500 people; nationally, 65,000 people in 30 states were given state-authorized vasectomies, tubal ligations and other operations.

Monroe was joined by one of the last people in Indiana to be sterilized, Jamie Renae Coleman, in unveiling the historic marker. It is a reminder to lawmakers and others that decisions made with the best of intentions sometimes can have dire ramifications.

Coleman was 15 years old in 1971 when a county judge gave her mother approval to have a doctor perform a tubal ligation on her under the guise of having her appendix removed.

In court papers, her mother said Coleman was ”somewhat retarded.” But Coleman said the real reason her mother wanted her sterilized was that an older, unmarried sister had just become pregnant and their mother worried about being stuck with raising grandchildren.

Coleman was 17, married and eager to have children when she learned the truth about her surgery.

”Oh gosh, I didn’t want to live. I hated my mother. I hated everybody that did this to me,” she said.

Coleman sued her mother, the doctor and the judge in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court and resulted in a landmark 1978 decision granting judges immunity in official actions.

Other state legislatures had approved sterilizations, but unlike Hanly, governors in those states refused to sign the measures into law.

John Dickerson, executive director of ARC of Indiana, which advocates on behalf of developmentally disabled people and their families, said eugenics was a simplistic answer to a complex problem.

He said such solutions remain a threat to vulnerable populations unless society remains vigilant.

”Always, the minority’s rights can be infringed,” Dickerson said.

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