Alina Primary Source

The reasons why sterilization would allow otherwise fit people to be released back into society was a bit murky at times. Popenoe dictated them that “More clearly than ever, the facts stood out: the multiplication of the feebleminded, so much more rapid than that of the most intelligent and best educated people in the community; the destructive results of parenthood in families handicapped by mental disease; the effectiveness of sterilization, from all points of view, in meeting the problems presented by this facts.” They were divided up into societal and personal arguments.

On the one hand, Popenoe argued, sterilization would prevent mentally unfit people from reproducing and spreading on bad genes. Popenoe quotes a famous eugenist in his phamplet who said that “if all the known feebleminded in such a population as that under consideration could be sterilized for one completely generation, the amount of known feeblemindedness in the next generation would probably be reduced by 36%”. But the forced sterilization program was, even by the eugenicists flawed standards of hereditary, not reaching enough feebleminded people to really remove all of the “bad” genes from society. So the social benefits would probably just reduce the prevalence of certain genes or at least reduce the population of the mentally unfit. The high birth rates, combined with lower birthrates for upper-middle class white people, were particularly alarming to the Progressives. As Popenoe says, “What kind of families are producing the feebleminded who have been sterilized in California? The mean size was five living children. Statistical calculations indicate that this stock is multiplying nearly twice as fast as is the native-white population of the state in general.” 

The other argument is that sterilization would be a benefit to the individual. Popenoe claims that many patients or relatives of patients requested the sterilization procedure because they felt it would be better for them. However, it is difficult to substantiate this claim. Popenoe claims that “only one out of every seven of the sterilized patients who could be reached raised any objection to the operation, and in no instance was this objection raised on rational grounds.” It is unclear what “rational grounds” means from the phamplet, but one could probably assume that any objection that was not based on eugenic or hereditary reasons — for example, consent, or the desire to have a child whether or not the state deemed it mentally unfit—were probably discounted as irrational. Indeed, Popenoe seems to present the standard narrative of the cause of feeblemindedness: 

“An imbecile may be able to support himself after a fashion by unskilled labor. He and his wife may even do fairly well financially because the wife can likewise earn something, by laundering or housework for instance. While the couple will not be very prosperous, not very stable or secure, they may get along

With the birth of a child, this situation is changed. The wife stops earning yet the family must spend more money. Desertion is a common sequel. Every social worker can cite families of this sort in which the husband is perhaps for years only a periodic visitor. Each visit, however, is followed by a pregnancy, the evidence of which starts the husband once more on his travels.

This whole history can be terminated at any point by sterilization. It is hard to believe that anyone concerned would be the loser by an early termination.” 

It is not entirely clear whether this anecdote was based on empirical evidence. However, it certainly highlights the view of forced sterilization advocates about the causes of poverty. Mentally deficient people were unfit for parenthood and therefore did not deserve to have it. This was happening in tandem with the decline in birth rates among educated white people.