Stuff You Should Know - Is it legal to sterilize addicts?

Episode Date: March 11, 2011

It's a controversial idea, to say the least: If evidence shows that addicts tend to be irresponsible, abusive parents, then why should they have children at all? In this podcast, Josh and Chuck explore the practice (and legality) of sterilizing addicts. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. That makes this Stuff You Should Know, the podcast, the addiction, right?

Yay. Outdoor, I just realized I was giving all kinds of awesome sign language, but no one can see that. I could see it. It was having a beneficial effect on me. I was pumping you up. Yeah. Um, Chuck. Josh. How you doing? Good. Great. Good. Almost said good. I'm great. It's Friday afternoon. Glad to hear that, dude. You're about to go on vacation, too. I am. You're probably pretty excited, right? I am very. You all even tonight? Tomorrow morning. Awesome. Yes. You ready? Yes. Chuck. Yes. Do you know the economic cost for child abuse in the United States? I do, but I won't ruin it. It's massive. Let's talk about it, because you can chart anything. Yeah. Economists are pretty good at that. They're really good at

that. You've got direct costs like foster care programs, law enforcement, hospital care, medical costs, that kind of thing. You've got indirect costs like funding the court system, right? Loss of productivity for all the people who have to like go to be on a jury, right? All that kind of thing. $104 billion in 2007 is what child abuse costs the U.S., right? Josh, that sounds almost like more money than we spend on education in the United States. It was. It was? That year. What? Well, the year before. Yeah. Isn't that interesting? It's interesting and sad. Yeah. Um, so if you have no heart, but dollar signs really make sense to you, you can agree that child abuse is a bad thing, right? Right. If you do have a heart, then

child abuse is a bad thing. Exactly. Either way, it's a bad thing. Right. Child abuse, though, is not necessarily all just battering children or sexually molesting children. There's also, and most of them, are cases of neglect. Yeah. They have a stat here. 86.6% are neglect, right? And they surveyed some child welfare workers and is an awkward stat, but it is 80% of them estimated that about half of their neglect cases were from drug-addicted parents, right? Which makes sense. It does make a lot of drugs. You're not going to provide care for your child adequately. Another study found that children who were born addicted to drugs, meaning that they have drug-addicted parents who did drugs while they were pregnant, or drug-addicted

mothers, at least, those kids are two to three times more likely to be abused than non-addicted children. I would argue that they're already abused. That's a good point, but even beyond that, I'd say 100%. Yeah. Even beyond that, they are much more likely to become abused, right? Probably through neglect. Yeah. Because if you are like, I really need to score some crack, you're not going to be like, but first, I need to make sure my child has a healthy dinner. I got a pump and dump before I go out and hit the streets. That's another thing, too. So what we've just done, and what is not very difficult, we've connected drug-addicted parents to child abuse. Yes. We started out with child abuse is bad, right? Why don't we just sterilize drug addicts so they

can't have any kids? Sounds like a great idea. Does it? It sounds like an idea that's actually being done is what that sounds like. Yes. And I have my dancing shoes on for this podcast. Do you? Because this is tricky business, dude. Yeah. You can see both sides. It's this lady, Barbara Harris, makes some points where I think, interesting point. Plus, she has some cred. Let's talk about her real quick. Barbara Harris is the founder of something called commune or children require a caring community crack because communities spelled with a K. And that's, I can't believe she stretched that. She is a former international house of pancakes waitress who is a mother, a biological mother to six children and an adopted mother to four

African-American children who are born to a drug-addicted mother. She's adopted them. She walks the walk. She spends her days driving the United States in an RV, promoting her organization. And the main purpose of which is to carry out what's called project prevention, which is what we just mentioned, Chuck, sterilizing addicts. Yeah. And we should say that her RV is not any ordinary RV. It has, the whole thing is decorated with a huge picture of a dead baby, a line of crack cocaine, I believe a razor blade. And then some things just don't go together is the quote. Yeah. Is that right? I couldn't find that one. I read that in a time article, I think, but I saw a picture of the one that she's using in the UK. And it's a picture

of a baby crying. And it says she has her father's eyes and her mother's heroin addiction. So she has a knack for getting her message out there. And one of the ways she's done that, aside from her RV is a string of billboards in the 90s in Los Angeles that had taglines like, don't let pregnancy ruin your drug habit. Yeah. It's going to get some attention. Yeah. Or I think there's another one is like, like drugs, are you pregnant? Get sterilized, get 300 bucks or something like that, which basically is like, get sterilized and we'll give you $300 in drug money. Well, there you go. The cat's out of the bag. That's what you're doing. Well, there's a lot of ways to look at this. It is a bribe to, it's a bribe to drug addicts who

will, in most cases, spend this money on drugs to give up their fertility. This woman is buying drug addicts fertility through her program. Another way to look at it is that she is taking a lot of the burden off of the state who are going to eventually be charged with caring for these children who are not yet conceived. And like we said, originally there were billboards, flyers, aggressive methods like hanging out at AA meetings and NA meetings. And basically, Barbara Harris' view is that if you've ever been addicted, even if you're clean now, just go ahead and get sterilized because you've kind of given up your right to have children. She doesn't see reproduction as a right, which is what makes her very contentious to most people.

Very controversial thing that she's doing here. Clearly. So, Chuck, how does this work? Do you know? Well, Josh, it's important to point out that she will only accept someone into the program that already has one child. At least one. At least one child. Yeah, you're right. And the drug addicts will have to fill out the paperwork and have their counselor, probably social counselor, or judge appointed counselor sign something that says they are in fact drug addicts. Or a social worker. Yeah. Or an arrest report. You have to prove your drug addict first off. Got to prove it. And then you can either be sterilized or you can go on long-term birth control. Right. And if you go on birth control, you get 200 bucks. Get 100 up front, right?

100 when you sign a contract that says I will do this and keep it up. Cash money. And 100 after you prove that you're doing it. Or you get 300 bucks. Here's what they do. This is a bystander organization. They don't provide any kind of clinics where they perform the sterilization. Basically, what they do is say prove to us you're a drug addict. Okay, we believe you're a drug addict. You're not qualified. Sign this contract that says you'll go do this. Now go do it. Get Medicaid or Medicare to pay for your sterilization program. So you and I are paying for this free sterilization. And then come bring us a note from the doctor that says that this happened that proves that this procedure happened that you're sterilized.

And here's your 300 bucks. And hey, if you bring by one of your crack addict buddies, we'll give you another 50 bucks if they do it. Yep. Always got to pay the referral fee. Yeah. No strings attached. No counseling. Except for a contract. That's another problem too. There isn't any kind of counseling. There's no parent classes, no parenting classes, no drug cessation programs. It's just here's some money to go give up your reproduction, your ability to reproduce. And since it's founding, I'm sorry, within 13 years of its founding, she has worked with more than 3,700 drug addicts in the United States. And about a third of those were sterilized. Yeah. From my math, roughly. The rest, I guess, are on long-term birth control.

Wow. And now she's making her way to the U.K. and she wants to go to Kenya for women with HIV and AIDS. Yeah. So that's pretty successful in the U.S. in 13 years. In the U.K., she's finding a much harder time of it. Well, sort of. Well, she's getting a lot more flack. Yeah. But she got support to begin with. This is the reason she went over there. Some anonymous donor gave her 20 grand. Right. And she got a lot. The BBC did a special on her, and she got a bunch of phone calls saying, please come over here. And then the anonymous donor came along, gave her 20 grand. She said that she took that as a sign. 20,000 signs. She started to set up in the U.K. and if you go on the Project Prevention website,

it says there's a U.K. tab that you can click. So she is set up in the U.K. and then you also mentioned Kenya. She's getting probably the most grief of all for Kenya, understandably. Basically, she has decided that not only can you break the cycle of addiction by taking away the ability to reproduce among addicts, you can cure AIDS by just letting everybody who has AIDS die out and not reproduce basically children with AIDS or HIV. Right. That's one step further. In both cases, it depends on who you are and how you're looking at it. Right. Because there are definitely people out there who support the Kenya AIDS Initiative and sterilizing addicts. Because in both cases, what you're looking at is an end to a perceived cycle where everything else is failing.

It's not necessarily the case, though. There is drug treatment for drug addiction. Right. There are drugs that can treat HIV. There are also educational programs that you can teach people to take better care, take preventative measures. This lady's not interested in that. Well, in the U.K., it's all free, too. I mean, it's a part of the state, the government medical program. Well, same here. Well, yeah, I guess you can get birth control for free here, can you? Medicaid and Medicare. Yeah. That's how this thing is functioning. Right. Addicts go get these procedures or their birth control for free through taxpayer-funded programs like Medicaid and Medicare. They get 300 bucks. She's given them 300 bucks. Right. Just talk

about Kenya for a second longer. Did you look at that? No, I didn't look much into it, actually. She found a doctor who said that he'll insert IUDs, which is long-term birth control, but it's temporary. It's reversible for seven bucks a pop, and then her organization will pay women with HIV aids 40 bucks for it. So 47 bucks a person. She's just buying their reproductive abilities in Kenya. There are a lot of people who are frustrated by that. I'm sure. So, Chuck, how is any of this legal? Well, Planned Parenthood is one organization that says, you know what, this is possibly illegal if you're talking contract law because there's something when you have a vasectomy or any kind of sterilization that says informed consent, like you have to be in there of

your own free will. It's not daddy is an out in the car forcing you to go in and get your tubes tied. Right. That kind of thing. They basically are saying that this 300 bucks is coercive, it's a bribe, and it's not informed consent going on. No, because if there's a bribe involved, yeah, you can't like informed consent can exist. Medicaid and Medicare requires informed consent. But here's the loophole. The informed consent has to be between the patient and the provider. Project prevention is a third party and interested third party who is really not involved in that equation. And the court protects the lady going into get her tubes tied? Yes, and the court's protecting the lady who's paying the person to go get their tubes tied because this is,

even though like it's extremely unethical and immoral in some people's eyes, it is still technically illegal because the provider of the sterilization service is not giving this person 300 bucks someone else's. Here are two of her arguments, which made me at least sit back and think for a minute about what the heck is going on here. Because this is, like I said, this is a narrow line, this lady's walking. Some might say she's way, way over it. One of the arguments used against her is that these women are not in their right mind to decide to have this procedure done. They're on drugs, you're given this money. So her argument back is, so they're not of sound mind enough to have this procedure, but they're of sound mind enough to

decide to have a kid. Yeah, it's a good argument. Her other big argument is against her is that you're taking away a woman's right to choose to have a baby, essentially. And her argument in reverse is, well, why is that right more important than a child's right to be born into a normal environment and have a shot at a normal life? Right. So I believe that she is not necessarily trying to create some pure race of smart white people. I think she is trying to stop crack babies from being born. Yeah. But the way she's doing it is definitely stirred the pot. The impression I have is that even this lady's critics are, say that she's a true believer. Yeah. She's not like a, she's not a social engineer. She doesn't see it like that. Right.

The problem is, is like, I think a lot of people are worried about where she's getting her funding. I'm sure her largest donor apparently crack and project prevention have about $500,000 a year in operating budget, which I guess is enough to fuel the RV around the country and keep the website going and pay as many addicts as possible. But most of that money's coming from a guy who is a billionaire named Richard Mellon Scaife. Scaife. Never heard of him. I hadn't either, but he's apparently on the right hand of the spectrum. Okay. Politically. Yeah. He runs the Pittsburgh Tribune, which is a right-wing newspaper as far as its leanings. And he, the idea of a billionaire funding a project like that scares the tar out of people because it gives

it a classist bent. Right. Even if this lady's a former IHOP waitress, if the people who are giving her the money to do this indefinitely are billionaires, then what you're talking about is how one person put it, you have a structure in which the economically privileged can and do dictate who will and who won't have children, end quote, which means you're on crack or you're black or we've decided that you're unfit to reproduce. But instead of forcing it, we're going to pay you. But really, what's the difference? Yeah. I mean, it's a nonprofit quote unquote, but a nonprofit funded by a billionaire. It's a different kind of nonprofit. You know what I'm saying? The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take America's public enemy. Number

one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm a prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil asset for it.

Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jordan Klepper, Daily Show contributor, Trump rally pass holder. And as of today, my most daring title yet, podcast host. This is Jordan Klepper fingers the conspiracy and all new limited series podcast from the Daily Show. Now, normally when I hear Trump's supporters bring up these, let's just call them what they are 100% unverified banana gram conspiracy theories. We grab the sound bites, pack them in the segment for the Daily Show and move on to the next person. I feel like cult is such a native word. We are not a cult. If you go online, there's a whole list of pedophile symbols. Really? Yes. What's on your back? Q flag.

Q and A. One of those crazy people. Now we're doing it differently. I'm finally diving into some of the most incredible conspiracy theories that have been pitched to me at Trump rallies. Like, did you know that Osama bin Laden is a guy named Tim? Yeah, we're doing a whole episode on that one. JFK Jr., coming back from the dead, that's an episode. The deep state, that too. We're going way down the rabbit hole. Listen to Jordan Klepper fingers the conspiracy on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another criticism is that it is racially disproportionate. She will point out that 1,000 clients were African American, whereas more than 1,800 have been white. But as far as percentages of population goes,

it's skewed heavily towards blacks. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, in hard numbers, it's like, well, there's way more white people than black people who've taken part in this. But if you look at the proportion of the population, 70-something percent of the U.S. population is white, whereas only like about 13 percent is black. So those numbers actually are very disproportionate. And also the original billboards targeted low-income, predominantly African American areas of Los Angeles at the beginning. I think ultimately what scares people is that even if this is an addict's choice, even if you agree this addict is making their own decision, and in some cases there are, in this time article, there's a woman named Joanne Chevarria,

and she's just like this model participant. There's a quote from her that said, like, when you stop having kids, it makes you think about what else you can do in life. She already has five kids. The state has custody of them. She got sterilized and took her $300 and bought Easter presents and educational toys for her children who she's trying to get back. Yeah, she already had three kids, and then she gave birth to two drug-addicted twins because she was addicted to meth. She started doing meth at eight months pregnant. Yeah, which is not a good time to start doing meth. Never is a good time to start doing meth.

That's a particularly bad time to start. I would agree with that. Yeah, so she's a poster child. She is, but even if she's walking around, right, the whole idea that reproduction and reproductive rights should and could be controlled by other people, whether they're a private organization funded by a billionaire or the government, smacks of the eugenics movement. We've already done this before, and it proved horrific. Yeah, we need to talk about eugenics. We definitely do. Let's do it.

Well, remember it came up in the Crime Scene Photography podcast, right? Yes. It was a big deal in the US. Yeah, when did it start? Turn of the Century? Yeah, early 20th century. Eugenics was a movement, a concept that you could create a fitter human species if you removed undesirable traits like chronic disease, low socioeconomic status. Do you want to hear what this model law for eugenics? Yeah, we'll say what the model law is first. Who was it that came up with that?

A guy named Harry Laughlin. He was the head of the Eugenics Record Office. Now, remember at the time, this was 1914, that he came up with the model law. There was this idea that, like you said, Chuck, you could create a fitter human race by basically weeding out the undesirable elements and just letting the healthy, robust ones reproduce. Simple as pie. You get yourself a nice Aryan race. Boys from Brazil. Right. To carry this out, most people who are unfit don't really consider themselves unfit, and even worse, in a lot of cases, one of the sure signs that they are socially unfit

is that they're sexually promiscuous. So you've got to take matters into your own hands, and the government has to force sterilization through the courts. And not just promiscuous. Should we read out some of the things in the law? Well, these are the undesirables. Take it, Chuck. The feeble-minded, the insane, criminalistic, the epileptic, the inebriate, the disease, the blind, the deaf, the deformed, and dependent, and orphans, ne'er-do-wells, tramps, homeless, and paupers. The only thing I don't see in here is skull-duggery. Right. I'm surprised. That's probably in here somewhere, actually.

So that was the model law for forced government-mandated sterilization. Those were the people who were targeted. Yeah, this is the U.S. And by the time this model law was created, a couple of states already had their own compulsory sterilization laws based on the idea of eugenics, right? I think Indiana and Connecticut were hot on the trail, right? Yeah. California came fairly late to the game in the early to mid-20s. They had a law, but by that time, by 1924, 2,500 of the 3,000 people who'd been forced to be sterilized under this law were in California. And one of the ideas behind it

was that it was a tax-saving measure. Right. Really interesting considering today's. It sounds very familiar. The U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes very famously said something that might also sound familiar as far as logic goes. He said, quote, it is better for all the world if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them star for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. And he finished up, and we'll talk about this case, was saying three generations of imbeciles are enough. He's talking about Kerry Buck. Yeah.

And she was a 17-year-old in Charlottesville, Virginia. She was the first person chosen to be sterilized in Virginia under the new model law. Yeah. She had a kid but was not married. Her mother was an insane asylum called the Virginia Colony for the Epileptic and the Feeble-Minded. It's not a place you want to visit and not leave. And here's her story. She was picked because they thought that she shared hereditary traits with her mother, a feeble-mindedness and sexual promiscuity. They thought it was genetic. She already had one kid, and they thought, you know what, it's probable that she's going to have a socially inadequate child after this. And let's sterilize her. Let's make her case number one in Virginia.

Yeah. They went to court. It went all the way to the Supreme Court. People testified against her that she had a record of immorality and syphilis, prostitution and untruthfulness. So the judge said, okay, let's sterilize her. And it was upheld. And it was upheld. Because all of her Wendell Holmes decision that quote came from the majority opinion that, yeah, we should go ahead and sterilize this girl and she's sterilized. But what happened, Josh, afterward? Well, her kid was studied tremendously. This was not like there was popular widespread support for eugenics in the US. But there are also plenty of people who are like, what are you doing? This is the worst thing we've ever done. So her kid, Vivian

Buck, was followed. A lot of stuff was not entered into the public record during Kerry Buck's trial or hearings. For one, she wasn't promiscuous. She was raped by her foster parents relative. That's why she had Vivian. Right. And then Vivian was not an example of a third generation feeble minded person. She was a solid B student, apparently, and was on the honor roll. That was her first grade report card. So basically, this woman was the test case to keep sterilization going or to really get it going, prove fraudulent in the end. Well, not only that, but her defense lawyer, it turns out this was later uncovered, conspired with the lawyer for the insane asylum to guarantee that would be upheld. So it was completely fraudulent, but it was upheld in Virginia.

And 8300 Virginians were sterilized after that Buck versus Bell case. 8300. Harry Laughlin, the guy who was running the eugenics record office and who wrote that model law in 1914, he went on to get a metal from the Nazi government in 1933 for his contribution to the science of racial cleansing from the University of Heidelberg. Yeah, got an honorary degree. And I didn't know this, but apparently the Rockefeller Foundation funded the German, I can't remember the name of the research facility, but funded the German research facility where this was being born over there. Is it Mingola? Is that the guy? Rockefeller Center was funding them at the time too. And the Nazi says, this is a great idea and we'll go on to sterilize 350,000 people.

And turns out that's not even enough. So we're just going to start killing them. So if you start people that say like, oh, what could something ever lead to? You never know what it could lead to. Well, in the U.S., in the United States, it led to 33 states with compulsory sterilization laws on the books that continued into the 1970s. Sterilizing the mentally retarded in the U.S. I was alive. I was born and this was going on. And ultimately about 60,000 people lost their ability to reproduce at the hands of the U.S. government. Unbelievable. And the guy who wrote this great paper, he's actually a pretty much an expert on the eugenics movement in the U.S. Paul Lombardo. He's a

University of Virginia professor. He points out that the Kerry Buck case that basically allows compulsory sterilization of feeble minded people is still on the books. It's not overturned. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, but it's one of those that's not true. You couldn't do it today, but wouldn't that be interesting if that came up when somebody ultimately challenges project prevention? I have a list of people who supported eugenics. Are you going to call them out? I am. And this is not to say that they supported sterilization because eugenics had a lot more to do with it. It was broader than just sterilization. But Woodrow Wilson, Margaret Sanger, who is the founder of Planned Parenthood, who was a lightning rod herself in her time.

Big time and continues to be. Now Planned Parenthood is criticizing Barbara Harris, which really says something. Oliver Wendell Holmes, obviously we mentioned him, H.G. Wells, Teddy Roosevelt, John Maynard Keynes, and George Bernard Shaw are just a few who thought eugenics was a pretty good idea at the time. Charles Lindberg, did you see him? No, no, no. Was he in there? Do you remember? He was all about... I thought it was Darwin. And Lindberg. Really? I didn't know Lindberg was in there. It was in that one article you sent me. No, that was for transhumanism. Right, but it was for certain people. It was based on eugenics. So Chuck, like you said, you had your dancing shoes on and I can appreciate that.

Should we talk about Jack Skinner real quick though? Or do you want to? Well, yeah, because that was when it was actually struck down in 1942 at Oklahoma Criminal. They were going to start sterilizing criminals, or they had been already probably, right? Repeat criminals. Repeat criminals. Yeah. And he was a chicken thief and an armed robber. And this went to court, and Justice William O. Douglas struck it down and had a very good point. He said, you're not going to, essentially, I'm paraphrasing, you're not going to sterilize a three-time

embezzler. Right, but you'll sterilize a chicken thief. So it comes back to class once again. Yeah, and then that's where we are again. Again, you did a good job with your dancing shoes. Yeah, I'm dancing. Nice. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana.

Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty, exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. Cops, are they just, like, looting?

Are they just, like, pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil asset for it. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jordan Klapper, Daily Show contributor, Trump rally pass holder, and as of today,

my most daring title yet, podcast host. This is Jordan Klapper, Fingers the Conspiracy, an all-new limited series podcast from the Daily Show. Now, normally, when I hear Trump supporters bring up these, let's just call them what they are, 100% unverified banana gram conspiracy theories. We grab the sound bites, pack them in the segment for the Daily Show, and move on to the next person.

I feel like cult is such a native word. We are not a cult. If you go online, there's a whole list of pedophile symbols. Really? Yes. What's on your back? A Q flag. Q and A.

One of those crazy people. Now, we're doing it differently. I'm finally diving into some of the most incredible conspiracy theories that have been pitched to me at Trump rallies. Like, did you know that Osama bin Laden is a guy named Tim? Yeah, we're doing a whole episode on that one. JFK Jr., coming back from the dead, that's an episode. The deep state, that too.

We're going way down the rabbit hole. Listen to Jordan Klapper, Fingers the Conspiracy, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Depending on how you feel about it, this isn't going anywhere. This lady's been doing this for 13 years, and it first got attention right when she first started doing it. She gets attention every once in a while.

I just heard about her a couple of months ago. I reckon if you've seen that RV around town, you'll pay attention. Yeah, and if you're in the UK, look out for it, because they're already investigating her people for very aggressive tactics. Apparently this woman came out of a clinic with her kid, and one of the project prevention people ran up and was like, hey, how would you like 300 pounds to be sterilized,

or 200 pounds to be sterilized? And she's like, what? She wasn't a drug addict. Yeah, which caused a tremendous amount of offense, and now it's being investigated. She's just thin. I'm wondering what kind of reception she'll ultimately have there.

And she's got her sights on Australia next. Really? Yeah. So project prevention, sterilizing addicts. The answer to the question? Technically, yeah, it's legal. Rates of eugenics. Yeah, but that's not illegal.

That's right. And apparently you can go out and compulsorily sterilize to a feeble-minded person, as long as you can provide that they were feeble-minded. You know, we should do some podcasts on some awesome things that America has done. I feel like we're always dredging up these awful things that we did in our past history,

but a lot of people don't know. I was never taught about eugenics in high school. Oh, no, neither was I. I didn't know we sterilized 60,000 people. But I think that's why we have to do this sometimes, Chuck, because we know a lot of the good stuff. You're right. We do need to come up with some great,

awesome stuff to talk about, too. But I think people generally think that way. And I think that a lot of this dirty, nasty stuff just gets covered over, and it can't. It can't. Because we're in the midst of a case of history repeating itself. Absolutely. And if we don't talk about it, if people don't know about it,

then you don't have the luxury of hindsight. Or to make an informed decision. Huzzah to that, sir. So sterilized addicts will bring you the article, which we just pretty much did to death. But if you want to see some pictures of heroin and a methodic couple with their child, you can type in sterilized addicts at the handysearchbar

at HowStuffWorks.com, which means it's time for listener mail. Not so. It is time for what do we call it? Administrative detail. Administrative detail. Breaks on. That was a really good break sound, Chuck. Thank you.

Quick announcement, everyone. We are coming to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. You need a badge to get in to see us. We're going to be doing a live podcast. You need a gold or platinum level interactive badge? I think it's a krypton level, right? Kryptonite. Yes.

No, it's not. But we're going to be podcasting live regardless at the Driscoll Hotel. OK. 11 AM, Monday, March 14th. Yeah. And we'd like you to come down and see us. We'll podcast and then do a little Q&A.

Plainly, we would like you to come see us. So just come see us. Well, you was your problem. Yeah, get your hands on a badge. You can do it. Yeah. Just take one. Most of the people wearing the interactive badges

are going to be pasty, maybe a little weak. Right. So just get a badge. Yeah, exactly. And we'll see you there. All right. Back to it? Yeah.

OK, we like to take time every couple of months to thank people who send us gifts in the mail, because it's a real nice thing to do. Yeah. Sometimes people are plugging their little Etsy site. We'll plug that away. It's fine. Travis, local Travis, sent us tickets to the Village Theater

here in Atlanta, improv. Yeah. And I haven't gone yet, but I got my tickets. We should go on the same night. Let's do it. But don't tell Jerry. We'll double date. OK.

Sounds good. Let's thank Becca E and her two dogs, Freya and Freya, for the homemade doggy treats that our dogs enjoyed. Yeah. Mine are still enjoying them. Mine too. I still have a few left. They love them.

They're delicious. They're like Scooby Snacks, but made from home. Joey sent us personalized Ghost Buster shirts. Yeah. And it's like the Tuxedo T-shirt. It's as if you are wearing the Ghost Buster's uniform. And it says Bryant on it. Mine says Clark.

Oh, does it? Yeah. OK. Thought it might say Roland. Yours says Roland, because I think you got Jerry's. I'm just kidding. Stinkfreedirect.com sent us some nice over control stuff. Thank you very much for that.

We actually need it. Mary Magenta, which has a great name, she sent us homemade calendars. And I have mine hanging up on my cube. I use it. And tomorrow is full radish on my calendar. And I think that means full moon. Jay Nolan of JayNolanFilm.com sent home baked cookies.

I guess we should say again, that's Jay Nolan of JayNolanFilm.com, J-A-Y. Cookie bribe. Tony from Wisconsin. He's a Scani, and he sent us lovely drawing of a butterfly. And Tony, I think, is young, because I think it was a crayon drawing, but it was from the heart. Yeah.

VFP sent us a postcard from Dubai. Very nice. Sent us each one, I believe. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, yeah, we got two. Kate and TC sent us a homemade Valentine of a T-Rex holding a heart.

And it was, we like homemade stuff. It was very cute. Yeah. Kate and TC. Victor sent us a postcard from Malta. Lindsay and Nick, they sent us a real picture. Yeah, so. It's been a while since I've held a real picture like that.

Of us with them, we met them at the Brooklyn Trivia event. And Nick, I think it was Army, was leaving to go to Afghanistan. I think the next day, and they took time to route themselves through Brooklyn to come to our Trivia event. We met them both, and he is back in two days from today. Oh, is that right? Well, two days from the day she wrote the letter. Right, I think he's back.

I think he said hi on the Facebook page. Oh, really? I think so. He's back. Yeah. He's definitely back by the time this is out. Oh, yeah. So Nick, glad you're back safe and sound, buddy.

Thanks for the picture, Lindsay and Nick. We got a huge, awesome assortment of Christmas cookies from Mona Colonteen. Oh, yeah, Mona Sinis. She's a big fan on the stuff you should know on Facebook page. Yeah, Mona's a nice girl. And she sent us tons of Christmas cookies, which were awesome.

I say girl, Mona's not a girl. She's a lady. She's a lady. Joe Garden, our buddy Joe. Garden from the onion. Definitely. Sinis onion t-shirts and hoodies. Because he promised them months and months ago.

And you can support Joe if you like funny things by buying his books. Yeah. The Dangerous Book for Dogs, The Devious Book for Cats. And my favorite, The New Vampire's Handbook, a guide for the recently churned creature of the night. And Joe writes these with other onion writers, and they're all obviously very funny.

And speaking of the onion, Chuck was used for a photo for an onion article on a hunter being busted for not having a license, right? Yeah. So the hunter becomes the prey. That's right. Yeah. How could we not thank Aaron Cooper, who

made us some super cool Magnum PI t-shirts with our images on them? Yeah. That was actually a t-shirt contest submission that was just so awesome. He made them anyway and sent them to us. It's awesome. We couldn't use it.

Yeah. Licensing rights and all that. And Coop, we always thank Coop just because his awesome photo shots, because he saw the full metal Jack Owens. Yeah. That was pretty good. Yeah. And off-putting.

Of course, Andrew and Janelle for their Christmas card. Right? Yeah. Ben and Leah sent us a Christmas card, too. Abigail, she is a 12-year-old who sent us four handwritten letters. Nice. And it's always nice to get a handwritten letter,

because it reminds me of being 12 years old. Yes. Emily, not my wife. Emily sent us 15. I'm sorry, she is 15. And she sent us a letter because her mom took her computer away because of overuse. Wow.

So she had to write a letter. Tony in Hawaii sent us a handwritten letter as well. And Martin Van Nostrand. Of course. Weirdo. Sent us our twisted friend. He sent us some of our best stuff ever. Yeah, he always sent us great stuff.

Bacon-related things, CDs of comedians and weird bands. And he basically sent us a box of little goodies from merchbot.com, which he said, make sure you think merchbot. Support those guys. Yeah. merchbot.com. Thanks to everybody who sent us stuff, whether it was a postcard, a letter, a bacon tuxedo,

what have you. We appreciate you. If you want to go say hi to us, you can check us out on Facebook at facebook.com slash stuff you should know. We also tweet at S-Y-S-K podcast. And as always, you can send us an email. Oh, wait.

Go join our Kiva team. K-I-V-A dot org slash team slash stuff you should know. And then you can always send us an email. Stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner

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