Virginia eugenics victims compensated for sterilisation

[frigidmagi]

BBC

Lawmakers in the US state of Virginia have agreed to pay compensation to people who were forcibly sterilised by the authorities decades ago.

Victims will be paid $25,000 (£16,000) following a legal fight by campaigners.

Along with more than 30 other US states, Virginia once operated a sterilisation program for individuals deemed undesirable or mentally unsound.

More than 8,000 Virginians were operated on between the 1920s and 1970s.

The state's programme was said to be the model for the Nazi eugenics policies introduced by Adolf Hitler when he aspired to create a master race.

Several countries practiced forced sterilisation during the 20th century, including Sweden, Canada and Japan.

'They took my rights away'

In the US, about 65,000 Americans were sterilised in 33 states.

More than a fifth of those sterilised in Virginia were African Americans.

Two-thirds were women, many of whom went in for other procedures and were unaware of what was happening to them, reports the BBC's Rajini Vaidyanathan.

In 1927 the US Supreme Court upheld Virginia's Eugenical Sterilisation Act law. It remained in force until 1979.

The state issued an apology over the policy in 2001. Campaigners say there are only 11 known surviving victims of the programme.

The compensation deal was welcomed by 87-year-old victim Lewis Reynolds. "I couldn't have a family like everybody else does," he told the Associated Press news agency. "They took my rights away."

Virginian is the second state, after North Carolina, to approve a compensation package for victims who are still alive.

In 2013, North Carolina legislators agreed to pay $50,000 to surviving victims - thought to number about 1,800.

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[Lys]

It should have been more. How is it that North Carolina can afford to pay $50 000 to 1800 people but richer Virginia can only come up with $25 000 for 11?

[B4UTRUST]

Lys, the only answer I can give to that is because it's Virginia. If there is any way possible, legal or quasi-legal, and in some cases probably illegal, to fuck you out of money, Virginia will find it and use it. I've lived in probably half the states in this country at one point in time or another in my life being a military brat and in the military myself. I can honestly say that Virginia is one of the worst I've ever lived in. We're a commonwealth. Oddly, wealth is one thing that isn't common here. Being a commonwealth seems to be a funny latin word meaning 'fuck you, pay me.'

That's about all I've got as far as an answer goes, unfortunately.