Gov't, forced sterilization victims reach compensation settlement

15 million is still considerably less than the extra medial and social welfare costs that would have been incurred if the sterilizations had not taken place. A financial win for the government but involuntary sterilizations are best left in the past.

That the law was on the books until 1996 is in of itself a disgrace.

I recall at that time being in utter dis-belief, that even after the horrors of Nazism 40+ years before, Eugenics was still officially legal.

An extract from the NY Times 2019 -

"The law was broadly permissive in the conditions that doctors could use as justification for sterilization. Schizophrenia, epilepsy, muscular dystrophy, albinism and even “abnormal sexual desire” were all grounds for sterilizing patients.*

Many of the operations were conducted in psychiatric hospitals or other institutions where intellectually disabled patients lived. Although the law gave patients or their families the chance to appeal a doctor’s recommendation, in many cases the patients did not know what was happening and did not give consent".

15 million is small change. 150 million would be the minimum amount for the LDP (the party that oversaw this horror) to freely payout to even begin to garner a hint of respect.

The decades they challenged this just adds to the despicableness.