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Sterilization laws passed in Michigan, North Dakota, and Kansas.

1913

The Story of Disability Justice
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The state of Michigan enacts a forced sterilization law for “mentally defective” or “insane” persons residing in public institutions, including prisons. Such persons can be sterilized if they are deemed by a board of surgeons and physicians to have the potential to generate “mentally defective” offspring.

North Dakota passes a similar act allowing for the sterilization of people living in state institutions. Thirty-nine sterilizations will be carried out in North Dakota before January 1930.

The Kansas Legislature also passes a sterilization bill this year, paving the way for the over 3,000 sterilizations, which will take place in Kansas over the coming decades. During this time period, Kansas also has a marriage restriction law in effect, which dictates that marrying a person who is deemed mentally "unfit" (e.g., alcoholic, "feebleminded," etc.) carries a fine of up to $1,000 or three years in prison.