EUGENIC STERILIZATION IN CALIFORNIA

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
1. Among persons sterilized in the California state hospitals for mental diseases, the mean size of family is: married men 1.64 living children, married women 2.03; all men 0.61, all women 1.85. 2. A married unsterilized insane woman will, on the average, produce a living child every 15 years. 3. The fecundity of the unsterilized insane studied as controls is lower than the above figures. It appears that only one-sixth of the married female ccntrols will produce enough children to increase the size of their group. 4. In general, no large group of institutional insane in California will produce enough children wholly to reproduce itself, even if it were not sterilized, the completed family being only two or three children. (Higher figures have been reported elsewhere.) 5. Most of the insane are born of parents who are not themselves insane. The fecundity of these parents appears from other studies to be a little greater than that of insane parents. Any extensive program of eugenic sterilization should find a way to reach these parents, at least through making voluntary sterilization possible, if it is to achieve maximum results. 6. There are no significant differences between the sizes of families of sterilized women with the different types of psychoses. 7. Among sterilized married women, the Protestants were found to have about one-third of a living child more than the Roman Catholics. There was no demonstrated difference among the men. 8. Women who had no near relatives insane had each about one-third of a living child more than those who had a family history of mental disease. There was no demonstrated difference among the men. 9. mong insane women in general (married controls of this study), about one-third are childless. Reasons are given for believing that this represents in part a physiological sterility, with which menstrual disturbances are associated. 10. Insane women who had the largest number of living children also tended to have the largest number of dead children.

This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit: