Chicago, United States - Elaine Riddick, 60, was 13-years old when she was raped and became pregnant. Riddick carried out her pregnancy and immediately after giving birth to her son, she was sterilised without her consent. Because both of her parents were alcoholics and her mother was in prison, Riddick was raised by her grandmother in the state of North Carolina. The family relied on government assistance at the time.
Riddick says the social worker assigned to them illegally obtained her grandmother's signature on the sterilisation consent form - her grandmother was illiterate and unaware of what she agreed to. It wasn't until she was 19 that Riddick found out what happened to her after her delivery. During this time, she and her husband were trying to start a family, but were unable to conceive. Confused, she went to see a doctor to find out what was wrong.
"He told me I had been butchered," Riddick says. "I was totally devastated when I found out. I was humiliated. I blamed myself that they did that to me." It is better for the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, Supreme Court Justice In addition to the emotional consequences, Riddick experienced severe physical side effects including haemorrhaging, fainting, and unusually long menstrual periods. She eventually needed a hysterectomy at the age of 44.
"Nobody should go into a woman's body and invade it like that," Riddick told Al Jazeera. Riddick's experience was not unusual. An estimated 7,600 people considered mentally deficient by public health officials and sterilised under North Carolina’s eugenics programme, which ran from 1929 until 1974. The programme aimed to prevent the birth of the mentally disabled, criminals and others the state judged as "morons", "unfit", and "feebleminded". Some victims were as young as 10-years old. In July 2013, North Carolina state lawmakers
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