Sterilization Laws via Eugenics Archive"Of all the legislation enacted during the first four decades of the 20th century, sterilization laws adopted by 30 states most clearly bear the stamp of the eugenics lobby. The first law was passed in Indiana at the urging of the prison physician, Harry Clay Sharp, who advocated vasectomies as a way to prevent the transmission of degenerate traits. At meetings of the American Medical Association, Dr. Sharp convinced many fellow physicians to lobby their legislatures for laws allowing the involuntary sterilization of sex offenders, habitual criminals, epileptics, the "feebleminded," and "hereditary defectives."
Clearly, these laws were meant to keep "defective" individuals from reproducing amongst themselves and, thus, reduce the burden of "social dependents" who had to be supported in state institutions. Less clear, perhaps, was the intent to prevent mildly retarded people from reproducing with normal people, and thus, contaminate good genetic stock. This fear was generated by Henry H. Goddard's study of Martin Kallikak (1912), a normal man who sired a "defective" line after having an illicit affair with an attractive, but "feebleminded" girl. This was analogous to the fear of a mixed race person who might "pass for White.""