Lv.3 Politics B_Death Penalty

As a new widow（未亡人）, Sarah Rosas Garcia was already struggling to support her nine children when her oldest daughter was picked up by local authorities. Andrea Garcia had been accused of skipping school and being sexually promiscuous（みだらな）, so the authorities responsible for juvenile（青少年の）delinquents（非行）committed her to a state hospital. After being administered an IQ test and assigned a low score, the doctor made their verdict（評決）. They told Sarah her 19-year-old daughter would be sterilized（不妊にする） to prevent passing on what the state saw as a mental deficiency.

This horrific tale may sound like a story from an authoritarian（独裁的な）regime（政権）. But in fact, it took place in Southern California in 1938. And Andrea Garcia was one of thousands of poor women of color targeted by the state’s relentless（冷酷な）campaign of eugenics（優生学）.

Since ancient Greece, there have been efforts to control human populations via reproduction（生殖）, retaining some traits and removing others. But in the 19th century, the discovery of evolution and genetics（遺伝学）inspired a new scientific movement dedicated to this endeavor. In 1883, British scientist Sir Francis Galton named this idea eugenics, drawn from the Greek word for “to be well born.” This wave of modern eugenicists included prominent（有名な）scientists and progressive（進歩的な） reformers who believed they could improve society by ensuring that only desirable traits were passed down.

However, their definition of what traits were and were not desirable was largely determined by the prejudices of their era. Entire categories of people were considered “unfit” for reproduction, including immigrants, people of color and people with disabilities. Meanwhile, their ideal genetic standard reflected the movement’s members: white Europeans of Nordic or Anglo-Saxon descent. As the influence of eugenics spread in the early 20th century, many countries restricted immigration and outlawed（非合法化）interracial（異人種間の）unions.

These measures to improve so-called “racial hygiene（衛生）” were taken to their horrific conclusion in Nazi Germany. The Nazi eugenics campaign systematically（組織的に）killed millions of Jews（ユダヤ人）, as well as individuals from other groups, including Roma, gay men, and people with disabilities. Outside their extreme brutality（残忍性）, however, Nazi eugenics policies reflected similar standards across the globe.

Throughout the mid-20th century, many countries enacted eugenics policies, and governments in Sweden, Canada, and Japan forcibly sterilized thousands of individuals. Sterilization（不妊）was exceptionally（特別に）common in the US. From 1907 to 1979, US policies enforced the sterilization of over 60,000 people, with 32 states passing laws that mandated sterilization for men and women deemed（見なす）“mentally defective.” This label was typically applied based on superficial mental health diagnoses and the results of IQ tests, which were linguistically（言語的に）and culturally biased（偏見がかかっている）against most immigrant populations.

These racist standards were particularly problematic（問題のある）in California. From 1920 to 1945, Latina women were 59% more likely to be sterilized than other women. And the rate of sterilizations in California was incredibly high– this single state performed over one third of the country’s sterilization operations. Such was the case of Andrea Garcia, whose story reflects thousands of individuals with similar fates. With the help of famed（有名な）civil rights lawyer David Marcus, Andrea’s mother argued that California’s sterilization law violated the US Constitution（憲法）, depriving Andrea of her rights to equal protection under the law. However, while one of the three judges overseeing（見届ける）the case voted to spare（助ける）Andrea, the other two did not. Records suggest it’s possible Andrea escaped the impending（差し迫った）surgery, but many more victims of these policies did not.

Although eugenics acquired negative connotations（言外の意味）after the horrors of World War II, many of its practices, including sterilization, continued for decades. By the late 1960s, research into human genetics was more nuanced（微妙な違いを持つ）, and bioethics（生命倫理学）had begun to blunt（弱める）eugenics’ influence. Yet Sweden and the US continued to pursue involuntary（不本意の） sterilization well into the 70s. Finally, class action lawsuits and protest marches in the US galvanized（刺激を与える）lawmakers, and California’s sterilization laws were finally repealed（廃止する）in1979. Unfortunately today, the legal and illegal sterilization of many oppressed（虐げられた） communities still continues around the globe.