The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States

Abstract

While relating the story of involuntary sterilization in the United States, Dr Reilly exposes again the myth of an apolitical science of medicine. In a well-documented, profusely referenced chronology, the author demonstrates the unwelcome impact on many lives of the zealot, possessed of a grain of truth. The promise of the rediscovered science of mendelian genetics, the darwinian theories, and an examination of the family trees of certain English intelligentsia led Francis Galton to conclude that proper breeding could improve the human race. He coined the word "eugenics" in the late 19th century. Half-baked hypotheses extrapolated from these data led to regrettable actions, long before the requirements for scientific proof could be met. Dr Reilly offers several such examples, which had profound contemporaneous impact, although today we would find them quaint relics of yesteryear.

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