Facing Eugenics
What was the primary role of the Eugenics Board established in Alberta?
To evaluate and decide on sterilization cases
This Canadian province, specifically its Eugenics Board, is the primary focus of the article regarding sterilization practices.
Alberta
What was the name of the institution for mentally defective children?
Provincial Training School or PTS
In the early phases of Alberta's eugenics program, this group of immigrants was frequently targeted for mental health campaigns.
Eastern European immigrants
Who founded eugenics?
Sir Francis Galton
This pseudonym was used for an Aboriginal man diagnosed with catatonic schizophrenia, whose sterilization case involved his Indian agent
George Pierre
The Alberta Eugenics Board operated for this many years.
44 years
These two forms of eugenics were the encouragement and discouragement of procreation.
Positive and negative eugenics
What were the two main methods of sterilization of the female and male individuals
Hysterectomy and castration
What year did the Sexual Sterilization Act start?
1928
Although the official program didn't explicitly target them early on, this group saw a dramatic increase in sterilizations in the program's final years, according to some studies.
First Nations and Métis people/Aboriginal people
Instead of just measuring intelligence, the Board looked at qualities like personality, emotions, and behavior, which are all part of a person's ______.
Mentality
In 1937, this significant change was made to the Sexual Sterilization Act, making it easier for the Board to sterilize certain individuals.
The removal of consent requirements for "mental defectives".
This reproductive organ was stolen from certain individuals and used for experimentation.
Testicles
In some historical contexts related to eugenics, husbands would level this specific accusation against their wives.
Feeble-minded
This concept, often linked to Social Darwinism, suggested that Aboriginal populations were in a state of natural decline, potentially explaining their initial absence from direct eugenics discussions.
The "dying race" theory
What was the main argument of the article?
The article argues that intelligence-based diagnostics were not the primary decision makers in determining whether an individual should be sterilized or not.
Disabled individuals, specifically considering their gender, were sterilized regardless of whether they were already infertile or had a nearly impossible chance of conceiving.
Males with down syndrome
This female physician, observing high child and maternal mortality rates linked to poverty, used that evidence to advocate for discouraging procreation among lower social classes.
Dr. Helen MacMurphy
In the context of Alberta's eugenics movement, intelligence was equated with whiteness, the English language, Western customs, middle-class values, thrift, and this.
Hygiene
This common medical procedure, often performed without knowledge or consent, was revealed through oral histories of Aboriginal women in the 1960s and 70s.
Hysterectomy/sexual sterilization
According to the article, this historical assumption about the Board's decision-making process is challenged, particularly regarding IQ scores.
The belief that IQ tests played a critical/defining role
This specific court case in the late 1990s brought widespread interest to the history of eugenics in Alberta and became a key historical investigation of the Board.
Leilani Muir vs the Queen in Right of Alberta
BONUS: what is the most important year and date?
July 25, 1979
Sterilization was done primarily for these types of reasons, rather than strictly scientific ones.
Social reasons or political and social reasons