Review
"Should be required reading for legislators and biomedical policy-makers who are not familiar with the history of sterilization abuse in the United States." -- Science
"This book, replete with compelling statistics, chronicles the sad saga of the involuntary sterilization, between 1907 and the early 1960s, of 60,000 'mental defectives,' a broad term that included retarded persons, criminals, prostitutes, rapists, epileptics, inebriates, and the insane. As one might have predicted, nonwhite persons, particularly blacks, as well as immigrants and the poor, were special targets..Reilly concludes his excellent book with the hope and admonition... that we must forever guard against the kind of flawed thinking that supported this activity." -- New England Journal of Medicine
