Eugenics Record Office. BULLETIN No. 10A - DNA Patent Database ...

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EUGENICS RECORD OFFICE, BULLETIN NO. 10 A.
12. Sociology: Relative rights and duties of the race and the
individual whom society proposes to sterilize. Part the sterilized in-
dividual takes in the social fabric and the attitude of society toward
such individuals. Estimate of the relative proportion of the socially
unfit committed to institutional care to those living in the population at
large. Method of reaching defective and potential parents of defec-
tives not in institutions. Relation of sterilized individuals to the social
evil, and the spread of venereal diseases. Estimate of the present
social handicap of defectives on the American and other peoples.
Relative roles of heredity and environment in producing defectives.
Relative rights of control of society and the individual over germ-
plasm. Presentation of special problems connected with the elimina-
tion of each of the several following classes of the socially unfit: (a)
the feeble-minded class, (b) the pauper class, (c) the inebriate class,
(d) the criminalistic class, (e) the epileptic class, (f) the insane class,
(g) the asthenic or physically weak class, (h) those predisposed to
specific diseases or the diathetic class, (i) the physically deformed, (j)
those with defective sense organs, or the cacæsthetic class.
13. Political Economy: Measure of the economic handicap of the
presence of defectives. Their relation to national, industrial, military,
and intellectual efficiency and to national perpetuity. Relation of
sterilization on different scales to future population, and to the relative
extent of the defective classes. Relation of sterilization to immigration.
14. Statistics: Data relative to the past, present and probable
future cost of maintaining defectives; their number and classification;
their rate of increase—absolutely, and compared to the rate of increase
of the better strains. The age of persons committed to State custody.
Rate of commitment. Length of commitment.
15. Law: Examination of existing sterilization laws with the
view to determining whether the constitutional personal guarantees
are sufficiently safeguarded. Do the committees and commissions
authorized to enforce the several sterilization laws constitute special
courts? Can the decisions of such commissions and committees reverse
or modify court decrees? Is sterilization in any of the laws held a
punitive remedy? If so, can it be considered as a second punishment
for one offense, or as cruel or unusual punishment? Is the State taking
any retaliatory measures toward a certain class of offenders in author-
izing the operation? Can the sterilization of degenerates, or especially
of criminals, be legitimately effected through the exercise of police
functions? Flexibility of the common law in adapting itself to new