Molyneux wrote:Broomstick wrote:Jadeite wrote:Did he explore the option of a lawsuit against those who did it?
How could he possibly sue someone for doing what the law
required them to do?
Besides which - by the time he knew the people who had performed the procedure were dead of old age anyhow.
I'd think the government would be liable, then. And for a pretty damn large sum, considering just how nasty a thing they did.
You still don't get it - at the time it wasn't considered nasty, it was considered
the right thing to do. This was not hidden, or criminal, or shady - hell, there are people
today who think that sort of thing is the right thing to do, who believe that the defective (however you define that) should not reproduce and should have the choice of reproduction taken from them. This was not the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment where ill people were left to become more ill.
And there's not a chance in hell the government would open itself up to such a lawsuit - because then the floodgates would be open. This didn't affect just one or two people, it affected a LOT of people.
There is no recourse for the people sterilized under these laws. None. There never will be. Live long enough you'll realize that some forms of injustice are never righted.
I've seen on this board where people have argued that this group or that group should not reproduce, where one should have to apply for a license to reproduce, where there are concerns over the genetic health of humanity... well, when you discuss those matters remember what a hash was made of it in the 20th Century. After all -
who decides who has children, and what are the criteria used? Historically this has been determined by shaky science at best, and frequently through politics or prejudice.