In the early twentieth century, the eugenics movement won many
supporters with its promise that social ills such as venereal disease,
alcoholism, and so-called feeble-mindedness, along with many other
conditions, could be eliminated by selective human breeding and other
measures. The provinces of Alberta and British Columbia passed
legislation requiring that certain "unfit" individuals undergo
reproductive sterilization. Ontario, being home to many leading
proponents of eugenics, came close to doing the same.In the Public Good
examines three legal processes that were used to advance eugenic ideas
in Ontario between 1910 and 1938: legislative bills, provincial royal
commissions, and the criminal trial of a young woman accused of
distributing birth control information. Taken together, they reveal who
in the province supported these ideas, how they were understood in
relation to the public good, and how they were debated. Elizabeth
Koester shows the ways in which the law was used both to promote and to
deflect eugenics, and how the concept of the public good was used by
supporters to add power to their cause.With eugenic thinking finding new
footholds in the possibilities offered by reproductive technologies,
proposals to link welfare entitlement to "voluntary" sterilization, and
concerns about immigration, In the Public Good adds depth to our
understanding. Its exploration of the historical relationship between
eugenics and law in Ontario prepares us to face the implications of
"newgenics" today.
