Fit to Parent: Have We Learned the Lessons of America's Eugenic History?

Guest: Paul Lombardo, Regents' Professor and Bobby Lee Cook Professor of Law, Georgia State University In the early 1900s, it was legal for people in America to be sterilized against their will –the Supreme Court even said so. After the Nazi horrors came to light most states stopped enforcing their eugenics laws. Even so, there were people into the 1970s who were being forced into sterilization because they were poor, black, disabled, in prison or just deemed unfit to parent. We hope that’s all in the past, right? But have you ever thought to yourself, “that person really shouldn’t be allowed to have kids”? Parents with intellectual disabilities in America, for example, have their children removed by the state up to 80 percent of the time, according to the National Council on Disability. Have we fully learned the lessons of our dark history with eugenics?