Deadline for submission is this Sunday March 1st! Don’t miss the opportunity to spend time with scholars and community advocates in the Rocky Mountains at the Banff Centre. May 22 – 25th, 2015!
Click here to view the poster as a pdf – Scope of Eugenics p
The Scope of Eugenics
Call for Submissions
Eugenics Archives (eugenicsarchive.ca) is pleased to announce a four-day workshop at the Banff Centre, May 22nd-25th, 2015, in Banff, Alberta. To acknowledge the significant contributions made by students to the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada project over the past four years, we invite submissions from early career scholars—students and those within three years of completing their doctorates—from any discipline on topics related to eugenics and its contemporary significance.
Submissions should consist of a single document that includes a (i) summary abstract (<150 words), (ii) longer description (<750 words) outlining the presentation and explaining the relevance of the topic to eugenics, (iii) short biographical statement (<100 words), and (iv) CV. Possible topics include, but are in no way restricted to, the following :
Apologies to eugenics survivors Child welfare
Collective memory Human diversity
Nationalism Quality of life
Queer sexuality Roma peoples
Schizophrenia World Health Organization
Whiteness Particular Countries / Geographic Regions
The project director is happy to provide feedback to potential participants on these and other suggestions (e.g., on particular countries or regions of the world). Participants are expected to attend the whole workshop and to contribute a short article to eugenicsarchive.ca, ideally based on their presentation, within one month of the workshop. Articles accessible via the Encyc or Around the World modules at the site indicate the type of article we have in mind.
Accommodation and meals for all workshop participants will be covered by Eugenics Archives. Participants will also be notified upon acceptance if we are able to cover in full, or contribute to in part, additional travel expenses. The workshop will allow for substantial opportunities to enjoy the Banff surrounds and will encourage networking, mentoring, and informal discussion between junior scholars interested in eugenics and Eugenics Archives team members.
Scope of Eugenics Poster with Mountains
Deadline for submissions : February 15th, 2015 EXTENDED to March 1, 2015 Acceptances : March 15th, 2015
Questions and submissions to the project director, Professor Rob Wilson : scopeofeugenics@gmail.com
Website: https://scopeofeugenics.wordpress.com/
Hosted by the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada 
Eugenics Archives (eugenicsarchive.ca) is pleased to announce a four-day workshop at the Banff Centre, May 22nd-25th, 2015, in Banff, Alberta. To acknowledge the significant contributions made by students to the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada project over the past four years, we invite submissions from early career scholars—students and those within three years of completing their doctorates—from any discipline on topics related to eugenics and its contemporary significance.
Submissions should consist of a single document that includes a (i) summary abstract (<150 words), (ii) longer description (<750 words) outlining the presentation and explaining the relevance of the topic to eugenics, (iii) short biographical statement (<100 words), and (iv) CV. Possible topics include, but are in no way restricted to, the following :
Apologies to eugenics survivors / Child welfare /
Collective memory / Human diversity /
Nationalism / Quality of life /
Queer sexuality / Roma peoples /
Schizophrenia / World Health Organization /
Whiteness / Particular Countries / Geographic Regions
The project director is happy to provide feedback to potential participants on these and other suggestions (e.g., on particular countries or regions of the world). Participants are expected to attend the whole workshop and to contribute a short article to eugenicsarchive.ca, ideally based on their presentation, within one month of the workshop. Articles accessible via the Encyc or Around the World modules at the site indicate the type of article we have in mind.
Accommodation and meals for all workshop participants will be covered by Eugenics Archives. Participants will also be notified upon acceptance if we are able to cover in full, or contribute to in part, additional travel expenses. The workshop will allow for substantial opportunities to enjoy the Banff surrounds and will encourage networking, mentoring, and informal discussion between junior scholars interested in eugenics and Eugenics Archives team members.
Deadline for submissions : February 15th, 2015 Acceptances : March 15th, 2015
Questions and submissions to the project director, Professor Rob Wilson : scopeofeugenics@gmail.com
“I decided to come out with my story so that it doesn’t happen to other women, to our children, to our grandchildren. So that they never find themselves in the situation I am in today.”
Elena Gorolova, victim of forced sterilization, interview for Romedia’s I’m a Roma Woman campaign
Between 1971 and 1991 in Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic and Slovakia, the “reduction of the Roma population” through surgical sterilization, performed without the knowledge of the women themselves, was a widespread governmental practice. The sterilization would be performed on Romani women without their knowledge during Caesarean sections or abortions. Some of the victims claim that they were made to sign documents without understanding their content. By signing these documents, they involuntarily authorized the hospital to sterilize them. In exchange, they sometimes were offered financial compensation or material benefits like furniture from Social Services – though it was not explicitly stated what this compensation was for. The justification for sterilization practices according to the stakeholders was “high, unhealthy” reproduction.
They sterilized thousands of Roma women in this way. The Czech ombudsman estimated that more than 90,000 women from former Czechoslovakia became infertile as a consequence of such interventions. If the evidence for such treatments performed in the past is not alarming enough, there seems to be proof that this practice was not only common during the Communist era: there are women reporting the same crime in post-Communist times as well, even after Czechoslovakia split into Czech Republic and Slovakia. In what is today Slovakia, 1000 Roma women and girls were sterilized annually in the 1980s. Unfortunately, the practice of forced sterilization in this region of Europe seems to persist to some extent, with cases emerging in other countries as well.
The European Roma Rights Centre pointed at two cases of Romani women who were sterilized in Hungary without their consent. One of them relates back to 2001, when a young woman, A.S. accused a hospital for sterilizing her without her knowledge. Following eight years of intensive lobbying, with several organizations started pressuring the government, in 2009 the Hungarian state compensated A.S. The court acknowledged that the surgery was performed without her knowledge, but it also claimed that the surgery did not harm A.S.’s reproductive capacity as the sterilization was purportedly “reversible”. The second case taken up by ERRC is still in process, as it was rejected in the first instance by the Hungarian Court.[1]
The victims of forced sterilization have begun to speak out against these crimes by creating a movement to stop forced sterilization and bring justice to the victims in the Czech Republic as well. Czech Romani activist Elena Gorolova was one of those who started the movement by founding Group of Women Harmed by Forced Sterilization. She is a victim too, sterilized while having her second child in 1990. Mrs Gorolova, like many other Romani women, was not able to file a civil lawsuit because the deadline for seeking legal action had already expired. Nevertheless, she tried to pursue legal justice with other women, moving her case from the local to the national and international level. They organized demonstrations, such as the one in Ostrava in front of the hospital infamous for sterilizing Romani women in large numbers. Elena is one of the eighty-seven women who sent their complaints to the Czech ombudsman, reporting forced sterilization. In December 2005, in his final statement on the issue, the ombudsman declared that sterilizations performed on Romani women are illegal.[2]
The story of Elena and the others is not the first policy of compulsory sterilization in history. The first was documented in the US in the beginning of the 20th century. African-American women were sterilized against their will, many of them without their knowledge, while they were in a hospital for other reasons or sometimes even while serving a prison sentence. More than 65,000 individuals were sterilized in 33 states in the framework of compulsory sterilization programs. This US policy was followed by several other countries, including Canada, Russia and Germany, that approved compulsory sterilization as a governmental practice.
In the case of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, many lawsuits ended with the victory of the victims of sterilization. However, most of the pursuers kept their identity secret or the outcome of the case was not made public for other reasons. Elena Ferencikova was the first Roma women to sue the Czech Health Authority in 2005 for the damages she suffered when they sterilized her at the age of only nineteen.[3] The court didn’t decide on financial compensation but the hospital where they performed the intervention apologized for sterilizing Elena without her agreement, damaging her future and her harming her status in her community. At the time of the intervention, she was a young bride, with the dream of having a big family.
Until the most recent past, over 87 Romani women filed an official complaint against the Czech health authority The first action on the government’s behalf was an apology in 2009 during a press conference, followed by the report from the Czech Ombudsman about the illegality of the practice in 2005.[4]
Among the individual cases which ended in favor of the victims is that of Iveta Červeňáková who sued the Czech Republic for sterilizing her about fourteen years ago. Her case was in front of the Ostrava Regional Court for one million Czech crowns compensation, since she never requested the surgery. After losing the case, the hospital appealed to the High Court in Olomouc, claiming that her right for financial compensation expired and she can only win an apology. But their statement was not accepted and the Czech Supreme Court decided that Ms Červeňáková still has the right for financial compensation. The case was concluded with an out of court settlement between the hospital and the victim. The details are confidential between the two parties. [5]
The above case seems to be rather typical: the content of out of court settlements is not made public and the reason that women gained mere apologies from the hospitals is usually due to an allegedly expired right for financial compensation. On the other hand, there are cases whose outcome was made public, like one from 2012: the court made the decision that the government was at fault and the woman in question should receive a compensation of EUR 10,000.[6]
Looking at several cases of forced sterilization, a serious infringement of human rights is what should be emphasized, as reflected also by the recommendations from the NGOs’ side, the ERRC and the Czech Government Human Rights Commissioner Monika Šimůnková, who all stress the need for developing a compensation mechanism for all victims of sterilization. A well-functioning mechanism is needed since not all victims are literate enough, have the financial sources, or the knowledge to ask for justice in court. Majority of Czech ministers agreed and a mechanism should be developed by the end of 2013, as part of the already existing legal framework. However, there is a concern that many of the affected women will still be excluded from the opportunity to gain justice.[7]
To add a personal perspective on the issues at stake, I see many reasons justify the need for the government to develop a compensation mechanism. For instance, trends show they are losing cases on the international level. Developing such a mechanism would mean that the cases would remain on the local or national level. Another reason could be financial: whatever compensation mechanism the government develops, the amount of compensation is not equivalent to the cases decided by the European Court of Human Rights. The third reason could be that authorities are trying to escape the negative backlash caused by not assuming responsibility and not criminalizing this governmental practice. In conclusion, the development of a compensation mechanism could keep “embarrassing” cases from reaching international publicity, which could lead to public ignorance if no one realizes how many actual victims there are and in what circumstances these crimes happened.
Of course, one could also argue that after years of injustice affecting hundreds of women, the fact that some women will receive justice might pave the way for others. Still, the question must be asked: is this enough? Is compensation enough? I am concerned that whatever compensation they eventually receive, the truly important development would be if governments themselves are seriously pushed to criminalize forced sterilization: only this could prevent these horrible stories from repeating themselves.
While human rights can be violated by individuals or by institutions, they can only be defended by institutions. The European Court of Human Rights does not deal with single individuals who have committed crimes. Rather, it focuses on why the government in question could not take action against what happened. But where are the doctors, politicians and all the people who personally contributed to or carried out such surgeries, and when they are going to take responsibility for their actions? In order to take action against this human rights violation, blaming the Communist regime is not enough. The practice continues today and forcibly sterilized Romani women are still a long way from receiving true justice.
Written by: Galya Stoyanova, Romani intern at Romedia Foundation
[1] Albert, Gwendolyn. “Forced Sterilization and Romani Women’s Resistance in Central Europe.” Forced Sterilization and Romani Women’s Resistance in Central Europe. N.p., 2011. <http://popdev.hampshire.edu/sites/popdev/files/uploads/u1149/DT_71_Albert.pdf>.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Holt, Ed. Roma women reveal that forced sterilization remains. N.p., 12 Mar. 2005. Web. <http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)71063-1/fulltext>.
[4] Decade of Roma Inclusion . Czech Prime Minister Apologizes to Victims of Coercive Sterilization. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Feb. 2013. <http://www.romadecade.org/czech_prime_minister_apologizes_to_victims_of_coercive_sterilization>.
[5] Stop Torture in Healthcare. <http://www.stoptortureinhealthcare.org/news-and-resources/forced-sterilization/czech-hospital-pays-romani-woman-forcibly-sterilized-14-year>
[6] ROMEA. Czech Gov. compensates another woman over illegal sterilization. N.p., 11 Dec. 2012. Web. 1 Feb. 2013. <http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/czech-govt-compensates-another-woman-over-illegal-sterilization#>.
[7] Open Society Foundations. Against her will – Forced and coerced sterilization of women worldwide.
<http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/against-her-will-20111003.pdf>
For 116 years, thousands of Aboriginal children in Alberta were sent to Indian Residential Schools funded by the federal government and run by the churches. They were taken from their families and communities in order to be stripped of language, cultural identity and traditions.
Canada’s attempt to wipe out Aboriginal cultures failed. But it left an urgent need for reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples.
There were more Indian Residential Schools in Alberta than in any other province. The Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) is holding its Alberta National Event in Edmonton this year.
Come and share your truth about the schools and their legacy. Witness and celebrate the resilience of Aboriginal cultures.
(excerpt from TRC.ca)
Alberta National Event – March 27 – 30, 2014 will be held in Edmonton at the Shaw Conference Centre 9797 Jasper Avenue. No registration needed to attend. Those wishing to provide a statement to the Commission may register onsite during the event.
You can download the program click here
On Thursday March 20 from 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm at the University of Alberta, Lister Centre, Maple Leaf Room
Understanding the TRC: Exploring Reconciliation, Intergenerational Trauma, and Indigenous Resistance featuring:
Commissioner Dr. Wilton Littlechild
Dr. Rebecca Sockbeson
Dr. Ian Mosby
James Daschuk
Dr. Keavy Martin
Tanya Kappo
Moderated by Jodi Stonehouse
Reception 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm – Tea, bannock and berries. Event is free.
Gala Reading featuring:
Marilyn Dumont
Daniel Heath Justice
Eden Robinson
Gregory Scofield
Anna Marie Sewell
Richard Van Camp
Friday, March 21 from 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm in Humanities Centre L-1 (111th Street and Saskatchewan Drive)
Giveaways. Books for sale. Free Admission
You find this information and links to campus maps here
Some medical professionals see gender variance as a natural characteristic of human diversity, similar to sexual preference, that should be accepted and even celebrated. An article in Macleans (Jan 6, 2014) explores the lives of supportive families and their trans and gender variant children..
The Public Health Agency of Canada published comprehensive recommendations in 2010 for schools to support gender-variant students and several provincial governments have added “gender expression” to the list of prohibited grounds for discrimination. The tides may be turning but the need for education is high. The negative judgement of trans individuals suggests there is a 17% higher risk for suicide and even higher risks for being bullied by others.
The Macleans article also has a short video embedded within and pictures throughout, providing a glimpse into the daily lives of trans and gender-variant children and their families. This is an excellent introduction and movement towards educating the public and advancing the needs of trans youth – which is a natural characteristic of human variation.
You can read the article here: http://www2.macleans.ca/2014/01/13/what-happens-when-your-son-tells-you-hes-really-a-girl/
In the United States the National Gay and Lesbian Task Forces and the National Center for Transgender Equality conducted a survey of 6,450 trans and gender non-conforming individuals from all 50 states. This study was the first of its kind and provides us with a clear picture of what needs to change in order to stop the injustice in their lives..
Discrimination against trans and gender variant individuals provides critical data for policymakers, community activists and legal advocates to confront the appalling realities. Respondents experience higher levels of poverty and a staggering 45% of those survey reported attempting suicide. Harassment and discrimination in education was reported at alarmingly high rates and include physical assault (35%) and sexual violence (12%). Harassment was so severe that it led to almost 15% to leave school in K-12 settings or in higher education..
Abuse by Police, discrimination in health care and public accommodations, employment discrimination and economic insecurity, as well as housing discrimination, barriers to receiving updated documents (identification and personal records). The 6,450 individuals all reported that family acceptance was of great importance, although the majority reported experiencing family rejection. Despite all of the harassment, mistreatment, discrimination and violence faced by trans individuals the study demonstrates their determination, resourcefulness and perseverance. This report is a call to action for all of us, especially for those who pass laws and write policies. Inaction is a form of violence that will negatively affect trans and gender variant people. Take up the call for human rights for transgender, transsexual, trans, and gender variant people and confront the patterns of abuse and injustice. Let’s learn (and teach) the values of human variation to our children, to each other and let’s learn more ourselves!.
You can access the full report titled “Injustice at every Turn” here: http://www.TheTaskForce.org or here: wwww.TransEquality.org. You can also get more information about the survey at: http://www.EndTransDiscrimination.org
Future Past: Disability, Eugenics, & Brave New Worlds. A public symposium on the history and ongoing implications of eugenics ideologies and practices for people with disabilities.
Why do these issues matter? How can we address them in teaching and pedagogy, in policy and activism, and in art?
On November 1, 2013 at San Francisco State University, Seven Hill Conference Center from 9:00 am – 8:00 pm.
The Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada is co-sponsoring a conference, dinner and reception plus the screening of FIXED: The Science/Fiction of Human Enhancement. Conference organizers include: Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability, Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada, and the Center for Genetics and Society.
Registration is free: geneticsandsociety.org/futurepast
Future Past is the result of a cross-national collaboration among advocates and academics interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the long and tangled relationship between disability and eugenics, and the contemporary implications of genetic technologies to the lives and futures of people with disabilities.
Program – November 1, 2013
9:00 – 9:15: Welcome
9:15 – 9:30: Table Introductions
9:30 – 11:30: What? Eugenics and Disability: Past and Present
Many people are unaware of the history of eugenics movements in North America, yet they are disturbingly relevant today.
Presenters:
Table Discussions
11:30 – 12:30 : Lunch
12:30 – 2:30: So What? The Consequences of Misremembering Eugenics
What are the social and ethical consequences of omitting eugenics from historical memory or misrepresenting it? What is the price of the pursuit of “human betterment” for reproductive and disability justice?
Presenters:
Table Discussions
2:30 – 3:00: Break
3:00 – 5:00: Now What? Looking Ahead to Brave New Worlds
What is being done – and what can be done – to increase public and student understanding of the legacies of eugenics through teaching, activism and art?
Presenters:
Table Discussions
5:00 – 6:30: Dinner and Reception
6:30 – 8:00 Sneak-preview screening
FIXED: The Science/FIction of Human Enhancement
Producer/DIrector Regan Brashear will answer questions
Please join us in Edmonton at the University of Alberta for a series of events throughout Wednesday October 16 to Tuesday October 22, 2013 that mark:
Alberta Eugenics Awareness Week (AEAW) 2013 ~ Oct 16 – Oct 22, 2013
Wednesday Oct 16 – Rob Wilson, University of Alberta, Standpoint Eugenics. Brown-bag lunch co-sponsored with the Dept. of Educational Policy Studies. Noon-1:30pm, 7-102 Education North.
Thursday Oct 17 – Eugenics and Indigenous Perspectives. Discussion panel co-sponsored with the Faculty of Native Studies. Panelists: Tracy Bear, Joanne Faulkner, Jerry Kachur, Noon-1:00pm, 2-06 Pembina Hall.
Friday Oct 18 – 1) Persons’ Day Panel: Feminism, Motherhood and Eugenics: Historical Perspectives. Panelists: Wendy Kline, University of Cincinnati, Erika Dyck, University of Saskatchewan, and Molly Ladd-Taylor, York University. Noon – 1:00 pm, Henderson Hall, Rutherford South. Wheelchair accessible. 2) Wendy Kline, University of Cincinnati, “The Little Manual that Started a Revolution: How Midwifery Became a Hippie Practice”, 3:30 – 5.00pm, Assiniboia 2-02A, co-sponsored with the Departments of History and Classics, and Women’s and Gender Studies. 3) FIXED: The Science/Fiction of Human Enhancement. A documentary by Regan Brashear www.fixedthemovie.com, co-sponsored with the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine and the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre. Telus Centre 150. Doors at 6:30 pm, film at 7:00 pm. Q&A with Dr. Gregor Wolbring (who is featured in the film) following the film. Wheelchair accessible and closed captioned.
Saturday Oct 19 – Team Meeting, Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada. 2-02A Assiniboia Hall (9:00 am – 4:30 pm) Lunch provided; please RSVP to moyra@ualberta.ca by Noon Oct 16th.
Monday Oct 21 – 1) Joanne Faulkner, University of New South Wales, The Politics of Childhood and Community Identity. Noon – 1:00 pm in 7-152 Education North. Co-sponsored by the Departments of Educational Policy Studies and Human Ecology. 2) World Premiere “Surviving Eugenics in the 21st Century: Our Stories Told” 7:00 pm – 9:15 pm Metro Cinema at the Garneau, 8712 – 109 Street NW, Edmonton. Trailer: http://youtu.be/QoM12GAJm8I; closed captioned and ASL interpretation; wheelchair access through the alley entrance. Please sign up in advance at Facebook to help us with numbers!
Tuesday Oct 22 – 1) Joanne Faulkner, University of New South Wales, The Coming Postcolonial Community: Political Ontology of Aboriginal Childhood in Bringing Them Home. 4.00 – 5.30pm in Assiniboia 2-02a. Co-sponsored with the Departments of Philosophy and Sociology. 2) Difference and Diversity: An Evening of Performances. Featuring CRIPSiE (formerly iDance), a reading by Leilani Muir, the art work of Nick Supina III, and much more. Education North 4-104. Doors at 6:30 pm, performances at 7:00 pm. Please sign up in advance via Facebook to help us with numbers!
ASL Interpretation can be arranged for events, please contact moyra@ualberta.ca prior to the event.
All Events are FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!
All events are at the University of Alberta, Edmonton.
Join us in Edmonton on Monday October 21, 2013 at the Metro Cinema at the Garneau for the world premiere of Surviving Eugenics in the 21st Century: Our Stories Told. A series of unique short videos, survivors of Alberta’s eugenic era share their stories. What does eugenics mean now for a variety of people parenting, or considering parenting in contemporary Alberta?
Watch the trailer (at the end of this post!)
The ideas and practices aimed at improving “human breeding” known as eugenics were influential across North America in the first half of the 20th century. The Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta was law in the province from 1928 until 1972 and was aimed to prevent what it called the “multiplication of the evil by transmission of the disability to progeny”.
The province of Alberta occupies a special place in this history. First, it is the province in which the vast majority of eugenic sterilizations in Canada were performed (approximately 90%), with British Columbia being the only other province to pass involuntary sterilization legislation that was explicitly eugenic. Alberta’s eugenic sterilization program was vigorously implemented until the repeal of the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta in 1972. Secondly, it was against the Province of Alberta that Leilani Muir won a landmark legal case in 1996 for wrongful sterilization and confinement, a case that has helped to preserve a rich documentary basis for understanding the history of eugenics in Western Canada.
The typical grounds for eugenic sterilization were that a person’s undesirable physical or mental conditions were heritable, and that those persons would not make suitable parents. Central amongst those targeted by such eugenic practices were people with a variety of disabilities, especially (but not only) developmental disabilities. Yet many other marginalized groups— single mothers, First Nations and Métis people, eastern Europeans, and poor people—were also disproportionately represented amongst those subject to eugenic ideas and practices, such as sterilization. An understanding of why, and of how eugenics operated as it did in Western Canada, is relevant not only to the 3.6 million Canadians with a disability, but to all Canadians who embrace human diversity and strive to build inclusive communities.
Surviving Eugenics in the 21st Century: Our Stories Told premieres at the Metro Cinema at the Garneau (8712 – 109 Street, Edmonton) on Monday October 21, 2013. Doors open at 6:30 pm and the film begins at 7:00 pm.
Join the film-makers, survivors, and other interviewees present for this world premiere! Closed captioned (CC). Sponsored by the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada www.eugenicsarchive.ca FREE ADMISSION
The trailer: http://youtu.be/2NREI24ugT0
This year Alberta Eugenics Awareness Week (AEAW) will take place October 16 through October 22, 2013.
Our bi-annual Team Meeting will be held at the University of Alberta in Assiniboia Hall 2-02A (our regular room) on Saturday October 19th from 9:00 – 4:30 (time will be confirmed closer to the date). Please save the date and plan to attend.
We will also be holding an event on Friday October 18th to mark Person’s Day. Living Archives Team Member Dr. Joanne Faulkner from the University of New South Wales will be giving a talk along with other team members.
We are currently planning other events and talks with the Faculty of Native Studies and the Department of History at the University of Alberta throughout the week.
Sunday October 20 we will be showing FIXED, a movie that features Team member Dr. Gregor Wolbring. Gregor will be on hand following the film for discussion and questions. You can see a short trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84TaYi15vps
Location and time will be announced shortly!!
On Monday October 21, 2013 we will be presenting the premier of our interview videos in a short film presentation called: “Surviving Eugenics in the 21st Century: Our Stories Told” . This will be held at Metro Cinema 8712 109 St, Edmonton. More details will be forth coming.
On Tuesday October 22, 2013 we will be holding An Evening of Performances (still working on the title) at the Arts-based Research Studio (4-104, Education North). CRIPSiE (formerly iDance) will be performing and Leilani Muir will be reading from her book. We have several artists that will be performing – one team member will be showing us her skills with hula hoops (yes that’s correct hula hoops!). Rumor has it that a Belly Troupe made of up of all ages, sizes and abilities will be performing, but you will have to attend to find out if this is only a rumor. We have other performers who have expressed interest but are not finalized yet so more details will be announced soon.
If you plan to attend from out of town please contact Moyra. For those of you in Edmonton and planning on attending we need volunteers throughout the week, please contact Moyra: (moyra@ualberta.ca)
All events are FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC. Save the dates and plan to attend! Bring your friends and families and spread the word. Posters will be distributed soon!
It is the first time in England and Wales a court has sanctioned a man’s sterilization. A High Court judge has sanctioned the sterilization of a man “in his best interests” in a landmark legal ruling.
The 36-year-old, from the Midlands, has learning difficulties and already has a son, born in 2010, with his girlfriend.
Justice Eleanor King ruled that a vasectomy could take place after hearing that another child could cause the man :psychological harm.”
Experts said he was capable of sexual consent but did not have the capacity to make decisions about contraception.
The entire story was released today in the BBC News and can be viewed here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23721893
An article by Professor Alex Stern, Living Archives Team Member, has been released today in The Huffington Post. The article, Sterilization Abuse in State Prisons: Time to Break With California’s Long Eugenic Patterns, reveals that at least 148 female prisoners in 2 California institutions were sterilized between 2006 and 2010. Tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years – and there are perhaps 100 more dating back to the late 1990s, according to state documents and interviews. Professor Stern’s work points to a discernible racial bias in the state’s sterilization and eugenics programs.
Corey G. Johnson of the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) published on July 7th a detailed expose’ of unauthorized sterilizations of unwilling women in California prisons. Johnson’s excellent report brought international attention to a scandal that some activists and researchers have at least partially documented. It is important to note that, as the CIR report says, these sterilizations were illegal: Federal and state laws ban inmate sterilizations if federal funds are used, reflecting concerns that prisoners might feel pressured to comply. California used state funds instead, but since 1994, the procedure has required approval from top medical officials in Sacramento on a case-by-case basis. Yet no tubal ligation requests have come before the health care committee responsible for approving such restricted surgeries….
How could this happen?
Governor Gray Davis apologized in 2003 for California’s twentieth-century sterilizations, 20,000 procedures carried out under an explicitly eugenic law. He did so quietly, via press release, and with no attempt to discover or compensate the victims. (Recognized experts on American eugenics were disappointed at the time: Paul Lombardo called it “premature” and Alexandra Minna Stern said it was “preemptive.”) Now his statement seems like a sham. The fault is no longer the law, it’s the failure to follow the law.
North Carolina is still struggling to pass a budget that includes compensation for its victims of eugenic sterilization. California has barely started the process of coming to terms with its troubled history.
The California state prison system is overcrowded — Governor Jerry Brown is appealing a federal court order to release inmates — and conditions are so bad that 30,000 are on hunger strike. If this report about sterilization helps to usher in a period of genuine reform, that would be wonderful.
We would still need to educate all too many people, inside and outside the jail system, about the moral and practical harm of modern eugenics. Based on some of the remarks by state officials that Johnson reported, and on some of the comments on coverage of his investigation, people slide right back into eugenic ways of thinking.
Justice Now is an organization that works with women in prison. Their website has links to the CIR reports and videos.
Professor Stern’s article in the Huffington Post raises awareness about eugenic practices and calls for a new era of human rights and the protection of vulnerable populations. Tony Platt co-authored the post. The original article can be found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-stern/sterilization-california-prisons_b_3631287.html
CBC Radio One is exploring the ethical ramifications of cutting-edge reproductive technologies, such as three parent in-vitro fertilization and post-menopausal pregnancy. From June 25, 2013 through August 29, 2013 on CBC Radio One, Tuesday at 7:30 pm and Thursday at 9:30 pm. All ten episodes are available online here: http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2013/08/06/lets-make-a-baby-pushing-the-boundaries-of-conception/
Well, at last, here it is. Watch, enjoy, share, like.
Interesting article on the construction of disability in China by Yee-Fui Ng (Sessional Lecturer and PhD Candidate, Monash University Law School). The abstract: This article explores the tension between the Chinese government’s strong engagement in disability rights and simultaneous focus on ‘quality births’, which results in the abortion of disabled foetuses. At a broader level, the author examines the politicised and cultural construction of disability in China by scrutinising how the ‘disabled’ are defined, administered, policed and governed in postsocialist China.
In November, I posted on the Australian Senate Inquiry into the forced sterilization of women and girls with disabilities. Women With Disabilities Australia (WWDA) has just made its powerful, eye-opening submission to the Inquiry. And there’s something you can do, pronto, that may make a difference here: endorse or support the submission. Anyone who thinks that forced sterilization is a “thing of the past” shoudl read this submission. First, from the submission (p.20),
There is a historical precedent in several countries including for example the USA (until the 1950s), in Canada and Sweden (until the 1970s), and Japan (until 1996) indicating that torture of women and girls with disabilities by sterilisation occurred on a collective scale – that is, mass forced sterilisation. This policy was rationalised by a pseudo-scientific theory called eugenics – the aim being the eradication of a wide range of social problems by preventing those with ‘physical, mental or social problems’ from reproducing. Although eugenic policies have now been erased from legal statutes in most countries, vestiges still remain within some areas of the legal and medical establishments and within the attitudes of some sectors of the community:
“Disabled people should not have babies.” Continue reading
Here’s the poster for the upcoming panel, Reproductive Autonomy: Control of Sexuality that we’re hosting this Wednesday as part of the U of Alberta’s Pride Week. The sesssion will feature Lise Gotell and Lane Mandlis as speakers, with Moyra Lang and Rob Wilson performing an interpretative dance (ok, perhaps not, … but we’ll do something useful … or at least will be there). Please print and post, or distribute electronically. Text only version included as well.
Wednesday March 20, 2013 at 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm in Education South Building at the University of Alberta the Living Archives on Eugenics is sponsoring a panel discussion featuring Professor Lise Gotell, Chair of Women’s and Gender Studies and Dr. Lane Mandlis, with Moyra Lang, and Professor Rob Wilson. ASL interpreting services will be offered at this event. Find us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/270019033131796/?fref=ts
From a “better babies” competition, 1913
A Senate committee was recently established in Australia to review existing law and social policy concerning the sterilization of people with disabilities.
It seems that the inquiry is a response to public response (surprise? outrage?) to finding out that this practice continues in Australia under state and territorial legislation, and beyond it.
I suspect that the commission will find that Continue reading
When the Social Security Act was being written by Congress in 1939, no one thought that it might be possible to conceive a child posthumously. In 2003, 18 months after the death of her husband, Karen Capato, a Florida resident, gave birth to his (her husband’s) twins (see article). Robert, Karen’s husband, preserved his sperm in a sperm bank and gave written consent for its use by his wife before he died.
After her husband’s death, Karen applied for social security survivor benefits for the twins, but was denied because Florida laws recognize the eligibility of inheriting property only if the children who are to inherit property are named in a last will and testament. This apparently also translates into an ineligibility of the twins to receive survivor benefits. Robert could not have written the twins into his will because he did not know that they were going to exist at some point in the future. Regardless of whether or not he discussed possibilities with his wife, he had no way of knowing the genders or the number of children he would father posthumously.
There is, to my mind, a question of whether Karen’s twins can really be called “survivors” since they did not literally survive their father. And since it was Karen’s own choice to have them after her husband was already dead, perhaps counting on survivor benefits for aid was a tad premature and maybe even irresponsible. These worries aside, however, it is interesting to live at a time when technological advances create such problems for the legal system. After all, there is no question regarding biological parentage in this case. Half of Robert’s DNA had been willingly transferred to a future generation.
While thinking about what sorts of people there should be, we think in terms of human variation. However, we don’t always stop to consider why a variety of humans are “people” in the first place and what exactly makes them into “people.” It would be difficult (and likely hopelessly so) to argue that a sperm cell is a person. And yet, at the time of conception, that was all that remained of Robert. I would think that it would be absurd to insist that Karen’s twins are essentially fatherless (it is true that their father is dead, but it is not the case that they have not been fathered). It would be equally absurd to think of the doctors who prepared the fertilized egg as fathers (the medical team has no parental responsibilities toward the twins). Although the twins were not a result of sexual intercourse between Robert and Karen, their conception is an instance of sexual reproduction (Robert’s and Karen’s genetic material is present in equal proportions in the resulting offspring). So when asked who their parents are, the twins should refer to Robert and Karen and not just Karen or Karen and the hospital staff or even more absurdly to Karen and Robert’s sperm. So did Robert father the twins? I’d say he did! If that’s the case, then does he qualify to be represented under the general question of what sorts of “people” there should be? When we think about human variation, do the dead count? I think they do! If, by recognizing all kinds of people as “people,” we implicitly assume that we have duties toward them, then by making conceptual space for Robert and other deceased individuals (this also includes all of us at some point), we ought to recognize our duties toward the dead. Perhaps that should inform the court’s decision in the case of the twins even if they are not literally “survivors.”
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