North Carolina Eugenics Board Victims Fight For Justice (VIDEO)

[Generic Other]

WINFALL, N.C. -- Elaine Riddick's small frame heaves, her rapid, shallow breaths whistling in her throat as she forces the words out between her sobs.

"So what am I worth?" she asks the five people seated at the long table before her. "The kids that I did not have, COULD not have. What are THEY worth?"

"Priceless," Tony Riddick whispers as he gently rubs his mother's back.

Elaine Riddick has been asking these same questions, in one forum or another, for the past 40 years. This most recent appearance in late June was before the Governor's Task Force to Determine the Method of Compensation for Victims of North Carolina's Eugenics Board.
As far as Riddick is concerned, she tells the panel, she was raped twice. Once by the man who fathered her son, and again by the Eugenics Board of the State of North Carolina, which deemed her, at age 14, unfit to procreate.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/15/eugenics-victims-north-carolina_n_927065.html?ncid=webmail14

What a sad story!

[Lance_Boyle]

1. Shameful bit of history, but

current taxpayers of NC do not need to be held responsible to provide a payout to victims of past abuses by the State.

[Generic Other]

2. The state's citizens are liable

for past abuses. The state needs to settle up and learn a lesson.

[avebury]

3. Agreed

[Lance_Boyle]

4. In this country we are NOT liable for the sins of our fathers.

Only a small handful of current taxpayers in NC lived here during the Eugenics fiasco. Why should the rest of us have to pay? Our state budget is bad enough already. We don't have extra money laying around to hand out as parting gifts to those wronged in the past.

[Generic Other]

5. The state is still liable for its actions

Morally and legally. When a woman's drunken husband drives the family car into a bowling alley, she is equally liable for damages.

Some things just aren't fair. Like states cutting women against their will and without their consent.

[Lance_Boyle]

6. or slavery

but you don't see any serious discussion of reparations for that, and with good reason - nobody who is alive now and would have to pay for it is guilty of it. Pretty much the same with NC's eugenics program.

[Generic Other]

7. This woman is still alive to demand reparation for actions taken against her by the state

Those who made the decisions that harmed her are still alive. It was only 40 years ago. Many people in your state were alive then and others have long memories.

You can choose to dishonor your state further by refusing to deal with what was perpetrated on this person if you like, but it does not give you any moral high ground to stand on.

I am really surprised that anyone would believe the state owes nothing to a woman treated like this. I suppose you also think the Catholic church has no responsibility to make reparations to victims of pedophile priests either. But let's give the Koch Brothers and other criminal swine tax breaks. Let's get rid of unions and workers rights in your state. Let's get rid of desegregation in your state. Let's elect teabaggers and batshit crazy Republicans who always vote against the interests of the people. Libertarians who refuse to take any personal responsibility as citizens to work toward the common good. Those ideas, y'all stand up and cheer for!

Are there no depths to which you will not willingly sink?

[Generic Other]

8. Kicking this story because this woman deserves to be heard AND compensated

They sterilized this poor woman without her consent or knowledge. How cruel.