Evening star., 1934-01-12
MICHIGAN PROBES
STER|L|z|NG CHARGE
Whether Rights Of Detectives
Operated on Were Violated
to Be Determined.
By the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
DETROIT, January 12.-Charges
that a number of patients at the
Wayne County Home for Mental De-
fectives had been sterilized over their
objections resulted yesterday in an
order for an investigation and brought
out the fact that hundreds of steriliza-
tior operations have been performed
in Michigan institutions under State
law enacted four years ago.
Auditor Edward H. williams laid the
charges before the Board of County
Auditors. In reply Dr.. Robert H.
Haskell, superintendent of the county
home, said that 81 operations have
been performed on inmates in the
county school and all were carried out
on petition OF the patients families.
DR.. Haskell said that 842 steriliza-
tion operations had been performed at
the Michigan Home and Training
School, at Lapeer, up to last May 81.
The law enacted in 1929, also is in
Voked frequently in the State asylums,
he said.
Rights "Wantonly Violated"
Williams said his information was
that 1.-The rights of the individual and
their parents were wantonly violated,
and compared the practice to the much
publiciZed enforcement Of the sterlll5a-
tion law in Germany.
He said he had been informed that
4 social worker for the training school
had induced some of the parents OF
inmates to give consent for Steriliza-
ton operations by representing that
they were signing petitions for release
OF their children.
DR.. Haskell said the social worker
i1aned assured him there was no basis
for that charge and added. i think
there is some error there
Of the charges in general ne SAID
&hev were made under considerable
tr1isapprehenson."
mo child has been sterilized at the
training school except where appiica-
tion has been made to the court by
the family of the child, not by the
training school," he said. Everything
has been done according to law" The
family, he said, was in court Wnen eacn
order was entered.
Section Not Invoked.
He explained further that no at
tempt has been made to invoke an
other section of the law which author
ICES the head of an institution to insti..
ate proceedings for sterilization OF
inmates through the governing Doaro
and the State Welfare Commission.
In some instances, he said, repre-
sentatiyes of the county home have
called to the attention Of inmates
families the necessity for such an
operation, but that was done, he said,
only in particularly urgent" cases,
usually where "hyper-sexuality" w.
q factor.
He explained that the law does not
make the consent of the patient q
prerequisite to such an operation In
all cases, but said that since the
patients were taken to the State Hos
pital at Ann Arbor for the operation,
none of them could have protested
very vigorously"
Of the county home patients steril-
lied. DR.. Haskell said that IA were
boys and At girls. The ratio, he said,
was about the same in other State in
stitutions. At the State home, he gave
the figures as 1877 boys and 645 girls.
The disparity, he said, Is due to the
difference in "risk that the two sexes
constitute to the community"
Ages of the patients, ne SAID, PROP
ably range from 16 to 20.
A few months ago young man In
Osceana County, Mich, secured
$4,000 Judgment against three county
officials whom he charged with induc-
ing him to submit to sterilization
operation. The case is to be retired
soon.