What did you think of todays' episode?

America's past is dark and more terrifying than a new American Horror Show season. Throughout the 20th century, the government sanctioned sterilization of many citizens due to eugenics. As my guest Paola and I go into detail about, the US government sanctioned the forced sterilization of its citizens based off of the pseudoscience of Eugenics. History wise, eugenic focused sterilization started in the US in Indiana in 1907. This became public policy that gave the government the right “to sterilize unwilling and unwitting people.” These policies listed the “insane,” the “feeble-minded,” the “dependent,” and the “diseased” as incapable of regulating their own reproductive abilities, therefore justifying government-forced sterilizations. Legitimizing sterilization for certain groups led to further exploitation, as group divisions were made along race and class lines, as Paola and I discuss. Even the 1927 Supreme Court case of Buck vs Bell upheld a court's decision that the government or family could force sterilize in certain situations. This case is infamous for Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s thundering conclusion: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” 

If you ever feel you shouldn't trust the government when it comes to doctors, your suspicions aren't off.