North Carolina sets aside millions in compensation for victims of forced sterilization, then decides not to give it to them
The "you can't rewrite history so there is no reason to recompense people" is an interesting defense that pretty much flies in the face of our entire justice system. Paying someone to make them whole--figuratively--as a concept goes back thousands of years.
Unless of course the victim is black.
North Carolina Sterilization Compensation Plan Blocked | TPMMuckraker
A plan to compensate victims of forced sterilization in North Carolina stalled in the state Senate on Wednesday.
The North Carolina House had set aside $10 million in the state budget, so as to give victims of its eugenics program $50,000 each, but Senate Republicans rejected the proposal, The Raleigh News & Observer reports.
“You just can’t rewrite history. It was a sorry time in this country,” state Sen. Don East (R) told the Associated Press. “I’m so sorry it happened, but throwing money don’t change it, don’t make it go away. It still happened.”
An estimated 7,600 North Carolinians, both men and women, were sterilized under the authorization of the North Carolina Eugenics Board between 1929 and 1974, according to the N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation. Many of those people were minorities, poor, undereducated, institutionalized, sick or disabled. Between 1,500 and 2,000 victims of state sterilization are estimated to still be alive today. The News & Observer reports that 146 living victims have been verified so far.
“If you could lay the issue to rest, it might be one thing. But I’m not so sure it would lay the issue at rest because if you start compensating people who have been ‘victimized’ by past history, I don’t know where that would end,” Sen. Austin Allran (R) told the AP.
