North Carolina Says Sterilization Victims Should Get $50,000

A North Carolina task force says citizens who were sterilized against their wills should be compensated with $50,000 each.

The panel recommended that the money go to verified, living victims, including those who are alive now but may die before the lawmakers approve any compensation. The panel had discussed amounts between $20,000 and $50,000 per person.

Before the vote, chairwoman Laura Gerald said the task force was seeking a balance between the victims’ needs and political reality, noting that “compensation has been on the table now for nearly 10 years, but the state has lacked the political will to do anything other than offer an apology.”

North Carolina is one of about a half dozen states to apologize for past eugenics programs, but it is alone in trying to put together a plan to compensate victims.

State officials sterilized more than 7,600 people in North Carolina from 1929 to 1974 under eugenics programs, which at the time were aimed at creating what was seen as a better society by weeding out people such as criminals and mentally disabled people considered undesirable.

Up to 2000 victims are believed to still be alive.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.