(Health Secrets) The 11 remaining victims of a covert sterilization
program that took place in Virginia between the years of 1924 and 1979
have received compensation by the commonwealth, according to new
reports. The Virginia General Assembly set aside $400,000 in its budget
to compensate each living victim of the program $25,000 as a symbolic
reparation for this dark time in the state’s history.
A protocol of the Virginia Eugenical Sterilization Act, the
sterilizations were performed on victims at a number of hospitals
throughout the state in an attempt to prevent certain “undesirables”
from reproducing. Many other states eventually modeled their own
sterilization legislation on this Act, as did Nazi Germany with its more
well known eugenics programs.
Lewis Reynolds, now 87, is one of the few surviving victims who
recently received compensation. The Lynchburg resident was sterilized by
the state when he was 13, but he didn’t realize at the time what had
happened. But recalling when his first wife left him because he was
unable to produce children, he says he now recognizes the damage that
was done.
“I think they done me wrong,” he told The Associated Press (AP). “I
couldn’t have a family like everybody else does. They took my rights
away.”
READ MORE:https://alignlife.com/articles/think-eugenics-could-never-come-to-america-it-already-has
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