Va. lawmakers revive eugenics compensation bill - Richmond Times-Dispatch: General Asse... - 0 views
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Mike Dunavant on 06 Jan 14Very timely when talking about the Holocaust and Virginia's Eugenics movement. "Advocates for people who were sterilized in Virginia under the misguided science of eugenics are seeking compensation for surviving victims in the upcoming session of the General Assembly, with more support than last year when legislators quashed their first attempt. More than 8,000 Virginia residents lost the ability to have children, and at least half of those surgeries on women and men were performed in Madison Heights at what's now the Central Virginia Training Center. Most of them occurred between 1920 and 1950, although they continued until about 1970. The number of sterilizations dropped sharply after German war-crimes defendants, on trial in Nuremburg after World War II, claimed Virginia's eugenics law was the model for a German program that sterilized thousands of people."