61 Sterilized, Probe Ordered Transcript
Friday, January 12, 1934
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[Headline] 61 Sterilized, Probe Ordered
[Subheading] Michigan Official Says Patients Objected
Detroit, Mich. (AP) — Charges that a number of patients at the Wayne county home for mental defectives had been sterilized over their objections resulted Thursday in an order for an investigation.
Hundreds of sterilization operations have been performed in Michigan institutions under a state law enacted four years ago.
[Subsection] Cites Petitions.
Auditor E.H. Williams laid the charges before the board of county auditors. In reply, Dr. R.H. Haskell, superintendent of the county home, said that 61 operations have been performed on inmates and all were carried out on petition of their patients’ families.
Dr. Haskell said that 842 sterilization operations had been performed at the Michigan home and training school, at Lapeer, up to last May 31. The law, enacted in 1929, also is invoked frequently in the state asylums, he said.
[Subsection] Williams’ Charge.
Williams said he had been informed that a social worker for the training school had induced some of the parents of inmates to give consent for sterilization operations by representing that they were signing petitions for release of their children.
Dr. Haskell said the social worker named assured him there was no basis for that charge.
[End of article]
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