5 Mar 2018

When NZ almost legalised eugenic sterilisation

From Afternoons, 2:21 pm on 5 March 2018
Logo of the Second International Congress of Eugenics, 1921

Logo from the Second International Eugenics Conference, 1921, depicting eugenics as a tree which unites a variety of different fields. Photo: Public Domain

In 1928, New Zealand came very close to legalising eugenic sterilisation.

Hamish Spencer is a University of Otago geneticist contributed a chapter to the book Eugenics at the Edges of Empire, in which he reveals that NZ came close to giving a small committee the power to compulsarily sterilise what were then called the feeble-minded, unfit, degenerates and imbeciles.