eugenics: why i hate the famous five
http://www.abheritage.ca/famous5/ach..._eugenics.html
http://cannabislink.ca/papers/murphy/famous5on50.htm
But the person who did more than anyone to persuade Canadians of the need for eugenics was Helen MacMurchy, who in 1915 became Ontario's "inspector of the feeble-minded." ... They had their greatest influence in Alberta, where Canada's first woman magistrate Emily Murphy lectured widely on the dangers of bad genes. "Insane people," she proclaimed, "are not entitled to progeny." Another prominent campaigner for sterilization was the suffragist Liberal MLA Nellie McClung, whose promotion of the benefits of sterilization, especially for "young simple-minded girls," was vital to the passage of eugenics legislation in Alberta. Another of the "Famous Five," the Hon. Irene Parlby, repeatedly alarmed the public to the growing rate at which the "mentally deficient" were propagating. Her "great and only solution to the problem" was sterilization...
The Alberta Eugenics Board took on a life of its own. Neither the wave of revulsion that followed the revelations of Hitler's policies to "purify" the German people, nor the strong repudiation of eugenics ideas by leading scientists had any impact on the operation of the board, which continued its work with the full support of the Social Credit government. The new Conservative government of Peter Lougheed finally erased the law in 1972.
A celebrated law case finally brought the eugenics disgrace to light. Leilani Muir sued the Alberta government for wrongfully confining her, stigmatizing her as a moron, and sterilizing her.
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.c...=A1ARTFET_E126