Eugenics Past And Present, Driven By Race, Class, Economics

Eugenics – the science of improving the human population via selective breeding or reproduction – is not a concept confined to past centuries and decades, nor to locales outside the United States.

That’s the finding of recent research by University of Cincinnati historian Wendy Kline, who will present a case study on the topic – a case study that examines the use of the controversial contraceptive injection, Depo-Provera, as a eugenic tool – on Nov. 11 at a conference titled “The Study of Eugenics: Past, Present and Future” to be held in Uppsala, Sweden. Her presentation is titled “Bodies of Evidence: Activists, Patients, and the FDA Regulation of Depo-Provera.”

It’s research that is particularly timely given that recent national news coverage has featured North Carolina’s current plans to compensate surviving victims of forced sterilizations that took place there from the 1920s to the 1970s.

UC HISTORIAN’S CASE STUDY ON 1983 DEPO-PROVERA HEARINGS

Kline’s research into the debate surrounding Depo-Provera in the 1970s and 1980s began when she was visiting the Smith College Women’s History Archive where she found a large...