page_title: Eugenics Board of North Carolina
section_title: Number of operations
hierarchical_section_title: Eugenics Board of North Carolina / Legacy / Number of operations
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a 2012 government document put out by the Governor's Office of North Carolina addressing the impact of the North Carolina Eugenics Board and Sterilization as part of their executive order and public document
context_page_description: The Eugenics Board of North Carolina was a State Board of the state of North Carolina formed in July 1933 by the North Carolina State Legislature by the passage of House Bill 1013, entitled 'An Act to Amend Chapter 34 of the Public Laws of 1929 of North Carolina Relating to the Sterilization of Persons Mentally Defective'. This Bill formally repealed a 1929 law, which had been ruled as unconstitutional by the North Carolina Supreme Court earlier in the year.
  Over time, the Board shifted their focus to include sterilizations. Their original purpose was to oversee the practice of sterilization as it pertained to inmates or patients of public-funded institutions that were judged to be 'mentally defective or feeble-minded' by authorities. The majority of these sterilizations were coerced. Academic sources have observed that this was not only an ableist and classist project but also a racist one, as Blacks were disproportionately targeted. Of the 7,686 people who were sterilized in North Carolina after 1933, 5,000 were Black.
context_section_description: While it is not known exactly how many people were sterilized during the lifetime of the law, the Task Force established by Governor Beverly Perdue estimated the total at around 7,500. They provided a summary of the estimated number of operations broken down by time period. This does not include sterilizations that may have occurred at a local level by doctors and hospitals.
  The report went on to provide a breakdown by county. There were no counties in North Carolina that performed no operations, though the spread was marked, going from as few as 4 in Tyrrell county, to 485 in Mecklenburg county.
  Some research into the historical data in North Carolina has drawn links between race and sterilization rates. One study performed in 2010 by Gregory Price and William Darity Jr described the practice as "racially biased and genocidal". In the study, the researchers showed that as the black population of a county increased, the number of sterilizations increased disproportionately; that black citizens were more likely, all things being equal, to being recommended for sterilization than whites.
  Poverty and sterilization were also closely bound. Since social workers concerned themselves with those accepting welfare and other public assistance, there was a strong impetus to recommending sterilization to families as a means of controlling their economic situation. This was sometimes done under duress, when benefits were threatened as a condition of undergoing the surgery.
  What made the picture more complicated was the fact that in some cases, individuals sought out sterilization. Since those in poverty had fewer choices for birth control, having a state-funded procedure to guarantee no further children was attractive to some mothers. Given the structure of the process however, women found themselves needing to be described as unfit mothers or welfare burdens in order to qualify for the program, rather than simply asserting reproductive control.
caption: Peak of NC Eugenic Program July 1946 - June 1968
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