The Fallacy of Sterilising the Insane

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 177, 17 October 1927, Page 6

The Fallacy of Sterilising the Insane

A Philosophic and Biological Error Sterilisation laws and movements for such legislation are causing thinking people to ask, has a solution been found to the treatment of the feeble•winded and the insane? In an article published in the N.C.W.C. Bulletin, a Roman Catholic magazine published in the United States, Dr. H. H. McClelland, an American psychiatrist, attacks legalised human sterilisation as a fallacy from a philosophic and a biological viewpoint. To segregate and sterilise the mentally sick would not eradicate insanity. Taking up the more debatable philosophical point Dr. McClelland states the doctrine of the young materialistic school of thought on the identity of mind and brain. The mind is but a function of the brain. If the brain be normal or from “good stock’* then the mind will be normal also, but if the brain of the parent is faulty then that of the offspring of such a person will necessarily be faulty also through the characteristic “being** carried along in the germ cell. On the other hand theistic philosophy, old as civilisation itself, regards the mind as not a function of the brain but an expression of the Infinite, coming not through generation but by creation. NOT ACCEPTABLE TO THEISTS On these grounds he claims that no one who believes in theistic philosophy can support the principle of sterilisation. Those who have a materialistic conception of life may accept sterilisation as a remedy; those who have a theistic conception will think in terms of doing everything they possibly can to alleviate the sufferings of the mentally sick. "In my opinion,*’ says Dr. McClelland. “the present day thoughts on sterilisation are a direct result of a lack of understanding of the mentally sick patient together with a great mass of false statistics that have been prepared by eugenic enthusiasts. Several years ago we were told that as soon as the saloon disappeared the asylums of the country would be emptied because alcohol was the great cause of mental sickness. From a medical viewpoint alcohol seldom, if over, caused insanity. Many mentally sick people drank alcohol to excess, but It was not the cause of their mental Illness, but a symptom of their lack of Judgment. GERM CELL IMPREGNABLE “Likewise to-day we are told that •like breeds like’ and that we should sterilise the mentally sick so that they cannot have mentally sick children. This line of reasoning is just as false as the former. If an insanity or a leeble-mindedness could get into a germ cell and produce its like then an education could get into the germ cell and the children of college graduates would be born with a complete education. A careful unbiased study of the family trees of those who axe mentally sick will reveal that there is no greater proportion of mental sickness than there is in the family trees of those who are mentally well, sterilisation would be of no more value In eliminating the mentally sick than cutting off their ears. “Ther.» is a very definite biologic law that we must never lose sight of that will keep our opinions straight on this sterilisation question. It is: The citadel of the germ cell is impervious to attack. No disease that is known to man may be inherited through a germ cell. The germ cell Is true blue always. “There is a growing school of medical opinion that all marked abnormal mental reactions are intimately connected with the environment of the individual, both internal and external. It is believed that mental sickness is closely related to the deliria. This opinion or theory of the cause of mental sickness coincides with the view of the theistic philosophy and certain rather large observations made in several different parts of the United States tend to further the idea.’* Dr. McClelland says that it takes poets to awaken people to the need of certain problems and the constant discussion of freak sterilisation legislation will gain more and more friends for the great down-trodden class of folk who are appropriately called •'God’s most neglected people.”