Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act
The Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act, enacted in 1928, emerged from the eugenics movement and authorized the forced sterilization of individuals deemed mentally deficient. This legislation, which remained in effect until its repeal in 1972, was justified by the belief that preventing the reproduction of certain individuals could enhance the genetic quality of the population. The act established the Alberta Eugenics Board, which was responsible for evaluating individuals in mental institutions and approving sterilization procedures. Over its duration, more than 2,800 people were sterilized, often without their informed consent.
The act's implementation led to widespread stigmatization and suffering, as many individuals faced social and personal consequences from these actions. This dark chapter in Alberta's history contributed to numerous wrongful sterilization lawsuits, particularly following a landmark case in 1995 when Leilani Muir sued the provincial government. The eventual repeal of the act was prompted by a growing recognition of its ethical and scientific shortcomings, alongside a shift towards greater respect for human rights. The legacy of the Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act continues to resonate, highlighting the importance of informed consent and the protection of individual rights.
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Subject Terms
Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act
The Law: Legislation passed in Alberta, Canada, allowing the government to sterilize people with mental disabilities
Date: Enacted on March 21, 1928
An outgrowth of the eugenics movement popular in the early twentieth century, Alberta’s 1928 Sexual Sterilization Act initiated the forced sterilization of thousands of people deemed mentally deficient before the law’s repeal in 1972. The legacy of this legislation was wrecked lives, stigmatization, and, by the end of the twentieth century, a bevy of wrongful sterilization lawsuits.
In 1918, two University of Toronto psychiatrists, Clarence Hincks and Charles Kirk Clarke, formed the Canadian National Committee on Mental Hygiene (CNCMH). In 1921, the CNCMH published a survey of mental institutions in Alberta along with recommendations for their improvement. These researchers followed the social scientific theory of eugenics, which held that the human gene pool could be improved by discouraging the reproduction of people regarded as undesirable, such as criminals and the mentally disabled, on the assumption that socially undesirable traits are hereditary. Thus, the CNCMH survey recommended government-sponsored sterilization, a surgical procedure that renders a person unable to reproduce, for people described as “feebleminded.”
Eugenicists and their political supporters, most notably Alberta Health Minister George Hoadley, then succeeded in bringing the Sexual Sterilization Act (SSA) to the floor of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in 1927, securing its passage on March 21, 1928. The SSA created a four-member Alberta Eugenics Board, consisting of two medical practitioners and two nonmedical professionals. To administer the SSA, the Eugenics Board examined people who were recommended for discharge from mental institutions. The board could approve their discharge “if the danger of procreation with its attendant risk of multiplication of the evil by transmission of the disability to progeny were eliminated” through board-approved sterilization. Rulings for sterilization had to be unanimous and accompanied by consent from the patient or a legal guardian. The law was strengthened in 1937 by an amendment removing the requirement of consent.
Impact
Over more than four decades, more than 2,800 people were sterilized under the Sexual Sterilization Act. The only other Canadian province to pass a sexual sterilization law was British Columbia, but sterilization was pursued less energetically there than in Alberta. The law’s final repeal was motivated by an acknowledgment that it relied upon a deeply flawed understanding of human genetics, as well as human rights. In 1995, Leilani Muir successfully sued the provincial government of Alberta for wrongful sterilization under the act, precipitating a flood of similar legal action by people subjected to compulsory sterilization.
Bibliography
Black, Edwin. War against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003.
Dowbiggin, Robert Ian. Keeping America Sane: Psychiatry and Eugenics in the United States and Canada 1880–1940. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997.
Lombardo, Paul A. Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.