Eugenics in California facet of eugenics in the United States
limiting the number of children for whom a woman on welfare can get state support,
coercing women of color who need a caesarean section, and women dependent on illicit drugs, to surrender reproductive capacities and
requiring contraception use as a term of probation. In previous years, California had focused on applying eugenics indirectly to humans as a form of "societal benefit". Now, the eugenicists of the state only focus their resources to save the state money.California is thought of by some as a Eugenics trailblazer in the time before the Nazis, used it as an excuse to commit mass murder. Historians have estimated from 1909 to 1963, some 20,000 people were sterilized in California asylums and hospitals. In 1933 alone, at least 1,278 coercive sterilizations were conducted, out of which 700 were women. In 1933, the state's top two sterilization facilities were Sonoma State Home (388 operations) and Patton State Hospital (363 operations). Other state hospitals with sterilization centers included Agnews State Hospital, Mendocino State Hospital, Napa State Hospital, Metropolitan State Hospital, Stockton State Hospital, and Pacific Colony. In the 1930s and 1940s, three more hospitals for the mentally unstable were constructed (Camarillo State Hospital, DeWitt State Hospital, and Modesto State Hospital), resulting in a total of nine hospitals for the mentally insane in California to nine by the end of the sterilization period.
aspect of element of feature of part of component of