Indiana’s health commissioner apologizes for state’s role in developing eugenics

BostonHerald.com:

"An Indiana official publicly apologized for the state’s role 100 years ago in pioneering state-authorized sterilization of ”imbeciles,” paupers and others it deemed undesirable.
Health Commissioner Dr. Judith Monroe expressed regret on behalf of the state Thursday for its passing of the first such eugenics law. She also unveiled a historic marker that will stand across from the Statehouse.
”It is one (law) that we do regret but we should not forget,” she said.
In 1907, then-Gov. J. Frank Hanly signed a state law widely regarded as the first in the world to permit sterilization in a misguided effort to improve the quality of the human race. "