Alberta Eugenics Board
Encyclopedia
In 1928, the Province of Alberta
, Canada
, passed legislation that enabled the government to perform involuntary sterilizations on individuals classified as mentally deficient. In order to implement the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta
in 1928, a four-person Alberta Eugenics Board was created. These four individuals were responsible for approving sterilization procedures. In 1972, the Sexual Sterilization Act was repealed, and the Eugenics Board dismantled. During the 43 years of the Eugenics Board, it approved nearly 5,000 individual sterilizations, and 2,832 procedures were actually performed.
to adopt a sterilization act, and were the only ones who vigorously implemented it. The western provinces, British Columbia
, Alberta, and Saskatchewan
, were close to the United States
and highly influenced by American trends - during early debates regarding a sexual sterilization bill in Alberta, there were many references made to the U.S. legislation. Canada was rapidly becoming populated by immigrants, and the theme of Eugenics
was emerging - supported by sponsors such as J.S. Woodsworth, Emily Murphy
, Helen MacMurchy
, Louise McKinney
, Irene Palby, Nellie McClung
, and the president of the University of Alberta, Robert Charles Wallace
. In Alberta, Eugenics had seemingly positive intentions with the goal of bettering the gene
pool.
In 1918, the Canadian National Committee on Mental Hygiene (CNCMH) was established by Dr. Clarence Hincks. The aim was to fight “crime, prostitution, and unemployment” which it claimed was strongly tied to feeblemindedness. One of the projects that the CNCMH and Hincks took on, along with Dr. C.K. Clarke, was conducting provincial surveys of institutions, and making subsequent recommendations to the provincial government In 1919, Hincks and the CNCMH carried out a survey in Alberta, visiting several mental institutions. The results of their survey, published in 1921 attributed the frightening social inefficiency and corruption to mental inadequacy, and fervently recommended sterilization as a preventative measure. Indeed, they claimed to have found a link between mental abnormality and immorality.
At a United Farmers of Alberta
convention in 1922, in response to the survey by Hincks and the CNCMH, the government was called on to draft and implement legislation for the segregation of feebleminded adults. As well, they were asked to investigate the feasibility of implementing a sterilization program in Alberta. R.G. Reid, the United Farmer’s of Alberta Minister of Health, assured the activists that the government was in favor of a sterilization program, and were only waiting for public opinion to catch up.
The United Farm Women of Alberta were one of the most powerful forces pushing for sterilization laws, and used their connections with the UFA government to aid in getting the legislation passed. At a campaign in 1924, president Mrs. Margaret Gunn proclaimed, “democracy was never intended for degenerates.” The reasoning that supporters of involuntary sterilization gave was that families with defective offspring were a financial burden on the province, especially in times of economic adversity.
On March 25, 1927, Honorable George Hoadley, the new Minister of Agriculture and Health in John E. Brownlee’s UFA government first introduced a sexual sterilization bill. Hoadley himself was not trained in either biological or agricultural science, so it was unusual that he pursued the eugenics movement so vehemently. The bill faced enormous opposition, primarily from the Conservative
and Liberal Parties
, and did not pass the second reading. Hoadley promised to reintroduce it the following year. He reintroduced the bill on February 23, 1928 and it was subsequently passed. On March 21, 1928, Alberta adopted what would forever be known as the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta. Brought in by the U.F.A., the Act remained in place under the Social Credit governments of William Aberhart
and Ernest Manning
. It was not until Peter Lougheed
’s Progressive Conservative
government came into power in 1972 that the Eugenics Board was dismantled and the Sexual Sterilization Act repealed.
principles were well understood by geneticists in 1928, advocates of the Eugenics movement held onto the belief that “like begets like.” They believed that the mentally ill would procreate and the result would be offspring who were in a sense replicates their parents. However, it is known (and was known at the time) that for recessive
disorders, like doesn’t always beget like, and with dominant disorders, there is a 75% risk of inheritance to the child. At times, the progeny of parents with mental deficiencies are born without any inherited disorder. In addition, many of the mental disorder phenotypes witnessed in the patients were due to environmental interactions, such as German measles, and were independent of an individual’s genome
.
and the Council of the College of Physicians. The other two non-medical practitioner members were appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, and had to be well-known and of prominent reputation.
Dr. MacEachran, a philosopher and professor at the University of Alberta, was appointed Chair, and he served continuously in this position for nearly 40 years, resigning in 1965. He was succeeded by Dr. R.K. Thompson, a medical doctor who was head of the Board until the Sexual Sterilization Act was repealed in 1972. Over the 43 years that the Eugenic Board was in operation, there were only 21 board members. Between 1929 and 1972, all four board members were present for approximately 97% of the 398 Alberta Eugenics Board meetings that were held.
The first meeting of the Board was held in January 1929. At their second meeting, in March 1929, the Board established protocol to be followed during it’s quarterly meeting. The superintendents of the mental health institutions were to present the cases to the Board, along with prepared presentation summaries for each individual. These presentation summaries documented family history, sexual history, medical history and diagnosis, personality, social development, educational status, results of IQ testing, criminal record, ethnicity, religion, age, and whatever else could be used to guide the Board in making their decision. The patients were then interviewed by the board, and if the patients were not well enough to debut in front of the Board, the Board sometimes made visits to that patient’s institutional ward. Presenting institutions in Alberta included the Alberta Hospital in Ponoka
, the Provincial Training School in Red Deer
, the Alberta Hospital in Oliver, and Deerhome. Consent was initially required for all operational procedures, either from the patients or their parent or guardian. A competent surgeon was appointed to the case, however he was “not to be liable to any civil action by reason of such operation.” Types of operations performed included vasectomies
, salpingectomies
(tubal ligation), orchidectomies (removal of testes), oophorectomies
(removal of ovaries) and sometimes hysterectomies
. Operations were performed in approved hospitals designated by the Board. In addition to the appointed Board members and presenters, it was not uncommon for other professionals, support staff, or visitors be present during the interviews.
Typically, there was attendance of 4 – 15 people per meeting, averaging 8.4 persons per meeting. On average, the Board spent approximately 13 minutes reviewing each case, and were able to discuss approximately 13 cases per meeting. The Board retained individual-level files for all of the cases considered. One of their main concerns was keeping tabs on the number of people processed. In addition to the routine case reviews, the Board also spent time during 63% of their meetings discussing general issues, signing forms, and examining correspondence.
By 1937, 400 operations had been completed. In 1937, and 1942, amendments were made to the Act. The first amendment came shortly after the Social Credit government came into power in 1934. The new Minister of Health, Dr. W.W. Cross, was dismayed that only hundreds of individuals had been sterilized, when thousands could have. He proposed an amendment that increased the authority of the Board, and widened the application of the Act. Dr. C.A. Barager, the Director of Mental Health for Alberta and a participant and presenter at Board meetings also urged the Board to remove the consent requirement from the Act. Following the change in legislation, if individuals were regarded as mental defectives, consent was no longer necessary for their sterilization. Another portion of the 1937 amendment increased the power that the Board held over individuals – sterilization procedures could now be performed if the Board deemed an individual “incapable of intelligent parenthood.” The success of this amendment was celebrated in 1937 in an article published by two mental health professionals, R.R. MacLean and E.J. Kibblewhite, where they noted the increasing simplicity with which they could proceed with their business. There was a high correlation between absence of consent requirement and subsequent sterilization: 89% of all presented and passed individuals whose cases did not require consent were sterilized, as opposed to 15% of cases where consent was necessary. A month after the 1937 amendment to the act, a special meeting was held in order to bring up cases presented in the past, where individuals were previously outside the scope of the Eugenics Board, but now were within the Board’s jurisdiction.
The 1942 amendment further increased the efficiency of the Board. Non-psychotic individuals with syphilis
, epilepsy
, and Huntington's Chorea were now encompassed by the Act, however for an unknown reason, the Board maintained that consent was still required in these cases.
The 1930s were the shaping years of the Board, and they often turned to the Attorney General’s Department and the Minister of Health for advice. The young Eugenics Board was cautious and spent a considerable amount of time on each case. They seemed concerned with patient welfare, and were simply a group of educated people who wanted to improve the quality of the province. However, the 1930s were still responsible for the most patient presentations – 1470 out of the 4785 presented.
In 1939, a depletion of staff due to the Second World War
resulted in less time being spent per patient, and a drop in the sterilization rate. Beginning in the 1940s, women were more likely to be presented to the Board, even though they constituted less than 40% of all patients in the feeder institutions. On average, 64% of all women who were presented were sterilized, in comparison to 54% of men. There was a noticeable gender bias in the decision to present an individual. Out of the 2832 sterilization procedures completed, 58% were performed on females. Dr. J. Grekul has suggested that this inequality was due to women being more easily convinced to agree to sterilization.
The late 1950s and 1960s were characterized by sterilizations at younger ages, and a higher approval rate than in previous decades. The 1950s and 1960s combined resulted in 2034 presentations. Over 70% of all individuals presented were sterilized, as compared to 40% and 50% in the 1940s and 1930s, respectively. This increase in activity was partially due to the escalation of activity at the Provincial Training School in Red Deer, where they sustained enthusiasm for the sterilization program. The Board had become streamlined and were able to process more cases per meeting. They had become so efficient that sometimes operations were scheduled before patients had even been presented.
Although teenagers and young adults made up less than 20% of the Albertan population at the time, they comprised 44% of all presented cases, and 55% of all sterilization cases. Children and Albertans who were 40 years of age or older were greatly under-represented in the whole picture, as the Eugenics Board focused their efforts on individuals in the ‘child bearing years’ – those who were able and most likely to reproduce.
Over all decades, aboriginals
were the foremost targets of the Eugenics Board’s attention. Although they were only responsible for 2 – 3% of the population, they were 6% of all presented cases. In the last few years that the Act was in place, Indians
and Métis
comprised about 27% of the sterilizations, although they were only accountable for 2.5% of the population.3 Furthermore, 74% of all aboriginal cases presented resulted in sterilization, which was alarmingly high – 14% above the average for all cases.
The Alberta Hospital in Ponoka was responsible for roughly 60% of all cases considered, followed by the Red Deer PTS with 21%, the Alberta Hospital in Oliver with 14%, and Deerhome with 4%.
At times, surgeons performed operations without the approval of the Board, and other times they were given the power to decide which operation should be performed. Board also approved sterilization procedures for individuals who were already infertile – most notably a group of 15 Down syndrome
boys where testicular biopsy
tissue was surgically removed for the purpose of outside research experiments.
In the mid-1990s, Leilani Muir
, a victim of involuntary sterilization in 1959, sued the Alberta government. The case went to a full trial in 1995, and she was awarded nearly one million dollars Canadian including damages and legal costs. Since her trial, over 700 victims of the Alberta Eugenics Board have attempted to contest the Alberta government for similar reasons; the majority of these have been settled out of court.
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, passed legislation that enabled the government to perform involuntary sterilizations on individuals classified as mentally deficient. In order to implement the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta
Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta
In 1928, the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, Canada, enacted the Sexual Sterilization Act. The Act, drafted to protect the gene pool, allowed for sterilization of mentally disabled persons in order to prevent the transmission of undesirable traits to offspring.At that time, eugenicists argued that...
in 1928, a four-person Alberta Eugenics Board was created. These four individuals were responsible for approving sterilization procedures. In 1972, the Sexual Sterilization Act was repealed, and the Eugenics Board dismantled. During the 43 years of the Eugenics Board, it approved nearly 5,000 individual sterilizations, and 2,832 procedures were actually performed.
Historical context
The province of Alberta was the first part of the British EmpireBritish Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
to adopt a sterilization act, and were the only ones who vigorously implemented it. The western provinces, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, Alberta, and Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
, were close to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and highly influenced by American trends - during early debates regarding a sexual sterilization bill in Alberta, there were many references made to the U.S. legislation. Canada was rapidly becoming populated by immigrants, and the theme of Eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
was emerging - supported by sponsors such as J.S. Woodsworth, Emily Murphy
Emily Murphy
Emily Murphy was a Canadian women's rights activist, jurist, and author. In 1916, she became the first woman magistrate in Canada, and in the British Empire...
, Helen MacMurchy
Helen MacMurchy
Helen MacMurchy was a Canadian doctor, author, and a pioneer in the medical field.- Biography :MacMurchy, the daughter of Archibald MacMurchy, graduated with first class honour in medicine and surgery in 1901 from the University of Toronto. She interned at Toronto General Hospital, the first woman...
, Louise McKinney
Louise McKinney
Louise McKinney née Crummy was a provincial politician and women's rights activist from Alberta, Canada. She was the first woman sworn in to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta and the first woman elected to a legislature in Canada and in the British Empire...
, Irene Palby, Nellie McClung
Nellie McClung
Nellie McClung, born Nellie Letitia Mooney , was a Canadian feminist, politician, and social activist. She was a part of the social and moral reform movements prevalent in Western Canada in the early 1900s...
, and the president of the University of Alberta, Robert Charles Wallace
Robert Charles Wallace
Robert Charles Wallace, CMG, BA, BSc, MSc, PhD, FRSC was a Scots-Canadian geologist, educator, and administrator who served as president of the University of Alberta , the principal of Queen’s University , and the head of the Arctic Institute of North America .-Early Life and Education:Robert...
. In Alberta, Eugenics had seemingly positive intentions with the goal of bettering the gene
Gene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...
pool.
In 1918, the Canadian National Committee on Mental Hygiene (CNCMH) was established by Dr. Clarence Hincks. The aim was to fight “crime, prostitution, and unemployment” which it claimed was strongly tied to feeblemindedness. One of the projects that the CNCMH and Hincks took on, along with Dr. C.K. Clarke, was conducting provincial surveys of institutions, and making subsequent recommendations to the provincial government In 1919, Hincks and the CNCMH carried out a survey in Alberta, visiting several mental institutions. The results of their survey, published in 1921 attributed the frightening social inefficiency and corruption to mental inadequacy, and fervently recommended sterilization as a preventative measure. Indeed, they claimed to have found a link between mental abnormality and immorality.
At a United Farmers of Alberta
United Farmers of Alberta
The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary...
convention in 1922, in response to the survey by Hincks and the CNCMH, the government was called on to draft and implement legislation for the segregation of feebleminded adults. As well, they were asked to investigate the feasibility of implementing a sterilization program in Alberta. R.G. Reid, the United Farmer’s of Alberta Minister of Health, assured the activists that the government was in favor of a sterilization program, and were only waiting for public opinion to catch up.
The United Farm Women of Alberta were one of the most powerful forces pushing for sterilization laws, and used their connections with the UFA government to aid in getting the legislation passed. At a campaign in 1924, president Mrs. Margaret Gunn proclaimed, “democracy was never intended for degenerates.” The reasoning that supporters of involuntary sterilization gave was that families with defective offspring were a financial burden on the province, especially in times of economic adversity.
On March 25, 1927, Honorable George Hoadley, the new Minister of Agriculture and Health in John E. Brownlee’s UFA government first introduced a sexual sterilization bill. Hoadley himself was not trained in either biological or agricultural science, so it was unusual that he pursued the eugenics movement so vehemently. The bill faced enormous opposition, primarily from the Conservative
Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta
The Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta is a provincial centre-right party in the Canadian province of Alberta...
and Liberal Parties
Alberta Liberal Party
The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time...
, and did not pass the second reading. Hoadley promised to reintroduce it the following year. He reintroduced the bill on February 23, 1928 and it was subsequently passed. On March 21, 1928, Alberta adopted what would forever be known as the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta. Brought in by the U.F.A., the Act remained in place under the Social Credit governments of William Aberhart
William Aberhart
William Aberhart , also known as Bible Bill for his outspoken Baptist views, was a Canadian politician and the seventh Premier of Alberta between 1935 and 1943. The Social Credit party believed the reason for the depression was that people did not have enough money to spend, so the government...
and Ernest Manning
Ernest Manning
Ernest Charles Manning, , a Canadian politician, was the eighth Premier of Alberta between 1943 and 1968 for the Social Credit Party of Alberta. He served longer than any premier in the province's history, and was the second longest serving provincial premier in Canadian history...
. It was not until Peter Lougheed
Peter Lougheed
Edgar Peter Lougheed, PC, CC, AOE, QC, is a Canadian lawyer, and a former politician and Canadian Football League player. He served as the tenth Premier of Alberta from 1971 to 1985....
’s Progressive Conservative
Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta
The Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta is a provincial centre-right party in the Canadian province of Alberta...
government came into power in 1972 that the Eugenics Board was dismantled and the Sexual Sterilization Act repealed.
Like begets like
Although Mendelian inheritanceMendelian inheritance
Mendelian inheritance is a scientific description of how hereditary characteristics are passed from parent organisms to their offspring; it underlies much of genetics...
principles were well understood by geneticists in 1928, advocates of the Eugenics movement held onto the belief that “like begets like.” They believed that the mentally ill would procreate and the result would be offspring who were in a sense replicates their parents. However, it is known (and was known at the time) that for recessive
Recessive
In genetics, the term "recessive gene" refers to an allele that causes a phenotype that is only seen in a homozygous genotype and never in a heterozygous genotype. Every person has two copies of every gene on autosomal chromosomes, one from mother and one from father...
disorders, like doesn’t always beget like, and with dominant disorders, there is a 75% risk of inheritance to the child. At times, the progeny of parents with mental deficiencies are born without any inherited disorder. In addition, many of the mental disorder phenotypes witnessed in the patients were due to environmental interactions, such as German measles, and were independent of an individual’s genome
Genome
In modern molecular biology and genetics, the genome is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information. It is encoded either in DNA or, for many types of virus, in RNA. The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA/RNA....
.
Structure of the Alberta Eugenics Board
The Alberta Eugenics Board was constructed in order to administer the sexual sterilization program.1 In section 3, the Act called for a four person Eugenics Board to determine, on a case by case basis, whether sterilization was appropriate for a particular individual. The Act gave the Board power to examine people discharged from mental health institutions, and to direct sterilization if deemed necessary. Not only was unanimous decision required, but consent, either from the patient, parent, or guardian, was essential for the surgical procedures to proceed. The Act put in place specific requirements for the board members: Two of the Board members were required to be medical practitioners, nominated by the Senate of the University of AlbertaUniversity of Alberta
The University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the best universities in Canada...
and the Council of the College of Physicians. The other two non-medical practitioner members were appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, and had to be well-known and of prominent reputation.
The original four members
The original four members appointed to the board were:- Dr. E. Pope, EdmontonEdmontonEdmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...
, - Dr. E.G. Mason, CalgaryCalgaryCalgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
, - Dr. J.M. MacEachranJohn M. MacEachranJohn Malcolm MacEachran was a Canadian philosopher and psychologist, whose most notable credentials involved the development of the Psychology and Philosophy Department at the University of Alberta...
, Edmonton, and - Mrs. Jean H. Field, KinusoKinuso, AlbertaKinuso is a hamlet in northern Alberta, Canada within the Municipal District of Big Lakes, and surrounded by the Swan River Indian Reserve...
.
Dr. MacEachran, a philosopher and professor at the University of Alberta, was appointed Chair, and he served continuously in this position for nearly 40 years, resigning in 1965. He was succeeded by Dr. R.K. Thompson, a medical doctor who was head of the Board until the Sexual Sterilization Act was repealed in 1972. Over the 43 years that the Eugenic Board was in operation, there were only 21 board members. Between 1929 and 1972, all four board members were present for approximately 97% of the 398 Alberta Eugenics Board meetings that were held.
The first meeting of the Board was held in January 1929. At their second meeting, in March 1929, the Board established protocol to be followed during it’s quarterly meeting. The superintendents of the mental health institutions were to present the cases to the Board, along with prepared presentation summaries for each individual. These presentation summaries documented family history, sexual history, medical history and diagnosis, personality, social development, educational status, results of IQ testing, criminal record, ethnicity, religion, age, and whatever else could be used to guide the Board in making their decision. The patients were then interviewed by the board, and if the patients were not well enough to debut in front of the Board, the Board sometimes made visits to that patient’s institutional ward. Presenting institutions in Alberta included the Alberta Hospital in Ponoka
Ponoka, Alberta
Ponoka is a town in the province of Alberta, Canada. It is situated in the south/central parkland region of rolling hills. Industries are agriculture , and oil and gas production...
, the Provincial Training School in Red Deer
Red Deer, Alberta
Red Deer is a city in Central Alberta, Canada. It is located near the midpoint of the Calgary-Edmonton Corridor and is surrounded by Red Deer County. It is Alberta's third-most-populous city – after Calgary and Edmonton. The city is located in aspen parkland, a region of rolling hills...
, the Alberta Hospital in Oliver, and Deerhome. Consent was initially required for all operational procedures, either from the patients or their parent or guardian. A competent surgeon was appointed to the case, however he was “not to be liable to any civil action by reason of such operation.” Types of operations performed included vasectomies
Vasectomy
Vasectomy is a surgical procedure for male sterilization and/or permanent birth control. During the procedure, the vasa deferentia of a man are severed, and then tied/sealed in a manner such to prevent sperm from entering into the seminal stream...
, salpingectomies
Salpingectomy
Salpingectomy refers to the surgical removal of a Fallopian tube.-Indications:The procedure was first performed by Lawson Tait in patients with a bleeding ectopic pregnancy; this procedure has since saved the lives of countless women...
(tubal ligation), orchidectomies (removal of testes), oophorectomies
Oophorectomy
Oophorectomy is the surgical removal of an ovary or ovaries. The surgery is also called ovariectomy, but this term has been traditionally used in basic science research describing the surgical removal of ovaries in laboratory animals...
(removal of ovaries) and sometimes hysterectomies
Hysterectomy
A hysterectomy is the surgical removal of the uterus, usually performed by a gynecologist. Hysterectomy may be total or partial...
. Operations were performed in approved hospitals designated by the Board. In addition to the appointed Board members and presenters, it was not uncommon for other professionals, support staff, or visitors be present during the interviews.
Typically, there was attendance of 4 – 15 people per meeting, averaging 8.4 persons per meeting. On average, the Board spent approximately 13 minutes reviewing each case, and were able to discuss approximately 13 cases per meeting. The Board retained individual-level files for all of the cases considered. One of their main concerns was keeping tabs on the number of people processed. In addition to the routine case reviews, the Board also spent time during 63% of their meetings discussing general issues, signing forms, and examining correspondence.
By 1937, 400 operations had been completed. In 1937, and 1942, amendments were made to the Act. The first amendment came shortly after the Social Credit government came into power in 1934. The new Minister of Health, Dr. W.W. Cross, was dismayed that only hundreds of individuals had been sterilized, when thousands could have. He proposed an amendment that increased the authority of the Board, and widened the application of the Act. Dr. C.A. Barager, the Director of Mental Health for Alberta and a participant and presenter at Board meetings also urged the Board to remove the consent requirement from the Act. Following the change in legislation, if individuals were regarded as mental defectives, consent was no longer necessary for their sterilization. Another portion of the 1937 amendment increased the power that the Board held over individuals – sterilization procedures could now be performed if the Board deemed an individual “incapable of intelligent parenthood.” The success of this amendment was celebrated in 1937 in an article published by two mental health professionals, R.R. MacLean and E.J. Kibblewhite, where they noted the increasing simplicity with which they could proceed with their business. There was a high correlation between absence of consent requirement and subsequent sterilization: 89% of all presented and passed individuals whose cases did not require consent were sterilized, as opposed to 15% of cases where consent was necessary. A month after the 1937 amendment to the act, a special meeting was held in order to bring up cases presented in the past, where individuals were previously outside the scope of the Eugenics Board, but now were within the Board’s jurisdiction.
The 1942 amendment further increased the efficiency of the Board. Non-psychotic individuals with syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
, epilepsy
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
, and Huntington's Chorea were now encompassed by the Act, however for an unknown reason, the Board maintained that consent was still required in these cases.
Proceedings of the Eugenics Board
Between 1929 and 1972, 4785 cases were presented to the board, and 99% of these cases were approved. The 60 cases that were not approved were deferred cases that were later re-considered, and 14 of them were eventually passed. Only 60% of all cases that were sanctioned by the Board were actually completed, resulting in 2832 sterilization procedures performed in Alberta during the 43 years that the Alberta Eugenics Board was in power.The 1930s were the shaping years of the Board, and they often turned to the Attorney General’s Department and the Minister of Health for advice. The young Eugenics Board was cautious and spent a considerable amount of time on each case. They seemed concerned with patient welfare, and were simply a group of educated people who wanted to improve the quality of the province. However, the 1930s were still responsible for the most patient presentations – 1470 out of the 4785 presented.
In 1939, a depletion of staff due to the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
resulted in less time being spent per patient, and a drop in the sterilization rate. Beginning in the 1940s, women were more likely to be presented to the Board, even though they constituted less than 40% of all patients in the feeder institutions. On average, 64% of all women who were presented were sterilized, in comparison to 54% of men. There was a noticeable gender bias in the decision to present an individual. Out of the 2832 sterilization procedures completed, 58% were performed on females. Dr. J. Grekul has suggested that this inequality was due to women being more easily convinced to agree to sterilization.
The late 1950s and 1960s were characterized by sterilizations at younger ages, and a higher approval rate than in previous decades. The 1950s and 1960s combined resulted in 2034 presentations. Over 70% of all individuals presented were sterilized, as compared to 40% and 50% in the 1940s and 1930s, respectively. This increase in activity was partially due to the escalation of activity at the Provincial Training School in Red Deer, where they sustained enthusiasm for the sterilization program. The Board had become streamlined and were able to process more cases per meeting. They had become so efficient that sometimes operations were scheduled before patients had even been presented.
Although teenagers and young adults made up less than 20% of the Albertan population at the time, they comprised 44% of all presented cases, and 55% of all sterilization cases. Children and Albertans who were 40 years of age or older were greatly under-represented in the whole picture, as the Eugenics Board focused their efforts on individuals in the ‘child bearing years’ – those who were able and most likely to reproduce.
Over all decades, aboriginals
First Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
were the foremost targets of the Eugenics Board’s attention. Although they were only responsible for 2 – 3% of the population, they were 6% of all presented cases. In the last few years that the Act was in place, Indians
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
and Métis
Métis people (Canada)
The Métis are one of the Aboriginal peoples in Canada who trace their descent to mixed First Nations parentage. The term was historically a catch-all describing the offspring of any such union, but within generations the culture syncretised into what is today a distinct aboriginal group, with...
comprised about 27% of the sterilizations, although they were only accountable for 2.5% of the population.3 Furthermore, 74% of all aboriginal cases presented resulted in sterilization, which was alarmingly high – 14% above the average for all cases.
The Alberta Hospital in Ponoka was responsible for roughly 60% of all cases considered, followed by the Red Deer PTS with 21%, the Alberta Hospital in Oliver with 14%, and Deerhome with 4%.
Board controversy
The majority of the Board’s activities were conducted in secrecy, away from the criticism of the public eye, and even away from legislative inquiry. This secrecy, combined with the cooperation of the Social Credit government, resulted in the Board pursuing illicit activities not encompassed by the Act. The fact that the Board approved nearly every case it examined might suggest that their meetings and interviews were ineffectual, and they didn’t perform any serious investigation before approving a patient for sterilization. Some cases were passed even when patient IQs were above the cutoff point established by the board.At times, surgeons performed operations without the approval of the Board, and other times they were given the power to decide which operation should be performed. Board also approved sterilization procedures for individuals who were already infertile – most notably a group of 15 Down syndrome
Down syndrome
Down syndrome, or Down's syndrome, trisomy 21, is a chromosomal condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 21st chromosome. It is named after John Langdon Down, the British physician who described the syndrome in 1866. The condition was clinically described earlier in the 19th...
boys where testicular biopsy
Biopsy
A biopsy is a medical test involving sampling of cells or tissues for examination. It is the medical removal of tissue from a living subject to determine the presence or extent of a disease. The tissue is generally examined under a microscope by a pathologist, and can also be analyzed chemically...
tissue was surgically removed for the purpose of outside research experiments.
The end of the Eugenics Board
In 1972, Mr. King introduced the bill that revoked the Act. He cited three reasons for doing so:- The Sexual Sterilization Act was based on medical and genetics theories which are now of questionable scientific validity.
- The Act was full of legal ambiguities, most notably in the section exempting surgeons from civil liability. A legal opinion provided to the government suggested that this exemption was most likely ineffective.
- The primary reason for repealing the act was that fundamental human rights were in violation.2
In the mid-1990s, Leilani Muir
Leilani Muir
Leilani Marietta Muir was the first person to file a successful law suit against the province of Alberta, Canada for wrongful sterilization under the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta...
, a victim of involuntary sterilization in 1959, sued the Alberta government. The case went to a full trial in 1995, and she was awarded nearly one million dollars Canadian including damages and legal costs. Since her trial, over 700 victims of the Alberta Eugenics Board have attempted to contest the Alberta government for similar reasons; the majority of these have been settled out of court.