I am speechless. But then I thought, this is the south and there are many hidden issues relegated to race and gender that we may never know. I hope these women read God's promise in Deuteronomy that there shall be no barren among them. What the enemy meant for evil, God can turn it around for good!

What about the de facto eugenics that seem to be happening now where children are aborted due to gender, genetic issues, and/or number of children in a family?

@Christian Lawyer: if as you say my reference to the connection between Margaret Sanger's project and Hitler's Final Solution detracts from my larger point that even well-intentioned people (including good Christian folk) can do evil, limited as we are by our cultural blindspots, then you are correct: that reference does mar the post. The record on Sanger is highly disputed; I will grant you that. Thank you for bringing up the related topic of anti-miscegenation laws, another evil wrought by the eugenicist mindset, and one the short length of my post didn't allow me to address.

An otherwise good article about a horrible episode in our nation's history is marred by the unsupported reference to Margaret Sanger's "Negro Project" being the foundation for Hitler's "Final Solution." While the pro-life groups have been circulating claims about the supposed goals of the "Negro Project" for years, all the major fact-checking organizations have rated those claims, and the claims that Planned Parenthood has some plan to kill off black babies, as out-and-out lies. The Washington Post give its worst "Four Pinocchios" rating. washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/herman-cains-rewriting-of-birth-control-history/2011/10/31/gIQAr53uaM_blog.html Politifact rated it a "Pants-on-Fire" lie. politifact.com/georgia/statements/2011/apr/08/herman-cain/cain-claims-planned-parenthood-founded-planned-gen/ http://www.factcheck.org/2011/11/cains-false-attack-on-planned-parenthood/ FactCheck.org said it was "False." factcheck.org/2011/11/cains-false-attack-on-planned-parenthood/ Yes, it's true that Sanger, like many others of the early 20th century, accepted some of the views of the eugenics movement for at least some period of time, but she clearly moved away from those views as it became clear where they were ultimately heading. Here is a scholarly, and quite frank, look at Sanger and her non-relationship to Hitler and the "Final Solution," which is published as part of a project at New York University gathering and publishing volumes of Sanger's original writings. There's a lot of material there where one can read both her original writings and what scholars working with her papers conclude from those writings. It also has a link to other academic collections of Sanger's original writings. http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/secure/newsletter/articles/sanger-hitler_equation.html BTW, it would have been good to note how eugenics theories were used by some, including within the church, to bolster the Jim Crow laws against "race mixing" in the South. The eugenics movement was an abomination that was not limited to one end of the political spectrum.

@Newly Karen: I love your rationale for banning abortion and how you distinguish it from other sins. That's very helpful: some sins have enormous social implications (all sin does, of course, affect others, but not always directly); that's a legitimate consideration for regulation. @Laura: yours is the crucial question. It is quite scary to consider the way most of us cannot see past the mores of the times we live in. Recognizing that in great humility, I think, goes a long way.

Wow, I did not know any of this. The inhumanity of man, sadly, shocks me again and again.

"Yesterday’s undisputed mandate is today’s undisputed mistake. Just as the Scripture says, 'There is a way that appears right, but in the end it leads to death' (Proverbs 14:12). The ill-founded eugenics movement demonstrates that 'even the compassion of the wicked is cruel.'" Wow--powerful Scripture passages, esp. in this context. Thank you for this post. It is powerful.

I consider myself fairly well read but I was shocked to see how recent forced sterilization occured in our own country. I knew about movements in the earlier 1900s (Sangers era and of course Hitler) but North Carolina in the 1960s and 70s?! Social workers could refer women for sterilization?! I worked in social services for a few years, and while this is very dark humor, we sometimes joked about this; the ability to sterilize a parent whose child was in foster care. Now, that's not a *funny* joke but when you see children every day who are sexually abused and neglected it can wear on you, and seeing the same abusing parents continue to have more babies while their other kids are being cared for by foster parents, and ultimately taxpayers, you kind of tend to vent. BUT, I didn't realize this ACTUALLY HAPPENED. No one is qualified to make that decision for someone else. In a perfect world, every child would be cared for and wanted, but we can't take away that option. I'm not sure how I'd feel getting a check 40 years later for a decision that invaded my basic human rights.

Well written article about a troubling subject. I wonder, though, if I had lived during a time when eugenics movement was considered "irrefutable science", if I would've recognized it as horrible and ungodly. And just as importantly, would I have worked against it or said "it's none of my business"?

Incredible article. Very enlightening about a practice that most people are only vaguely aware of if not totally ignorant about. Thanks for bringing scripture into it and helping us understand the motive behind forced sterilization.