Eugenic sterilization advocacy used farming metaphors to justify forced procedures
Evidence
Every farmer knows that should he slaughter the best specimens of his domestic animals without letting them procreate and should instead continue breeding inferior individuals, his breeds would degenerate hopelessly. This mistake, which no farmer would commit with his animals and cultivated plants, we permit to go on in our midst to a large extent. As a recompense for our humanness of today, we must see to it that these inferior people do not procreate. A simple operation to be executed in a few minutes makes this possible without farther delay… No one approves of the new sterilization laws more than I do, but I must repeat over and over that they constitute only a beginning. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 391 (
#exemplifies, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: German scientists framed compulsory sterilization as a humane agricultural necessity — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 391; Nazi breeding ideology literalized Enlightenment metaphors of human cultivation — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 387
Broader Connections
- German scientists framed compulsory sterilization as a humane agricultural necessity
#exemplifies(0.95) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 391