A Vermont legislative committee is taking up the question of whether the state should apologize for a 20th century program to sterilize citizens who were labeled feeble-minded or criminal.
The House Human Services Committee takes testimony today on the measure. It would be a nonbinding resolution expressing the state’s regret about the so-called eugenics movement.
Backers of the resolution say its harms fell disproportionately on Vermonters of Abenaki and French-Canadian heritage, as well as poor Irish and Italian immigrants.
Vermont was one of many states that passed so-called eugenics laws in the 1920s and ’30s to try to prevent citizens labeled feeble-minded from having children.