SELECTIVE STERILIZATION FOR RACE CULTURE 



THEODORE RUSSELL ROBIE, M.D. 



Essex County Mental Hygiene Clinic, Cedar Grove, New Jersey 



It is a well known fact that scientists will argue endlessly over the question 

 of whether heredity or environment (nature or nurture) plays the greatest 

 role in the normal development of the average individual, but it is not neces- 

 sary to quibble over the question of which one of these influences plays the 

 greatest role — it is enough to realize that both play an important role. But 

 when we consider the mentally deficient (feeble-minded) person it is an 

 entirely different matter. All the researches that have been made in this 

 sphere so far point to the following facts: (1) the greatest single cause of 

 mental deficiency (50 to 65 per cent) is poor heredity of a specific nature — 

 namely, mental deficiency in one or both parents, and vice versa; (2) the 

 greater proportion of mentally deficient persons who bear children pro- 

 create mentally deficient offspring. Detailed case reports of many gener- 

 ations of hereditary defectives can be found in the extensive researches 

 made by Goddard on "The Kallikak Family" and by Dugdale on "The 

 Jukes Family" ("A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease, and Heredity"). 



By selective sterilization we mean the sterilization of defective individuals 

 in order to prevent them from procreating their kind. Thus it becomes 

 clear how the sterilization selectively of mentally deficient persons improves 

 our racial culture. By preventing the birth of mental defectives, we raise 

 the general average level of intelligence throughout the population — since 

 the preponderance of births in the average and superior group is relatively 

 increased. According to the statistics that were secured during the World 

 War upon the members of the United States Army which drew its members 

 from every walk of life, about between 1 and 2 per cent of the general popu- 

 lation is believed to be mentally deficient to the extent of feeblemindedness. 

 This would include from 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 persons in the United States. 

 Another 13 per cent are mentally deficient in sufficient degree to classify 

 below the accepted standard for average intelligence, this latter group 

 comprising over 14,000,000 persons in the United States. If all those who 

 classify as feeble minded were sterilized we would stamp out the greater 

 proportion of the group which prevents racial and social progress. We 

 would at the same time decrease the size of this other group of intellectually 



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