If a person didn't think you were valuable they could have you sterilized.

[midnight]

From 1907 through the 1970s, more than 60,000 Americans were forcibly sterilized. Some, like Holt, were in institutions, while others were deemed "feeble-minded" or had "unfit human traits." Others were children of alcoholics whose parents couldn't care for them.
Thirty-three states had forced sterilization programs. California's was the largest, sterilizing 20,000 people.
The programs were supported by some of the nation's most respected doctors, lawyers, and social workers. Even the U.S. Supreme Court approved it, as Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in one 1927 court case, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
Under the eugenics laws in North Carolina, anyone could request that someone could be sterilized. Fuller-Cooper remembers reading about neighbors who recommended sterilization because they thought a young woman was sexually promiscuous. A board would then consider the request.


http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/26/us/north-carolina-sterilization-payments/index.html

[PDJane]

1. I remember this. It happened here, too.

I find it appalling from a 'civilized' nation.

[nebenaube]

2. Hitler enveyed our Eugenics...

We even had a Eugenics Society. Although after Hitler started his shit; they changed their name to the "Council on Foreign Relations.

[midnight]

4. Renaming seems to have kept it going and unknown....

[RebelOne]

3. The cousin of an ex-boyfriend was sterilized by her family

because she had cerebral palsy. She was a child at the time. This happened in the '60s.