"the worthlessness and filthiness of certain classes of people"

A century ago powerful men prevented unintended pregnancies. They sterilized the “unfit.”

Indiana was the first state to enact a forcible sterilization law.  By 1942, 30 states had enacted similar laws.  Indiana Acts of 1907, Chapter 215, authorized sterilization of anyone who is “insane, idiotic, imbecilic, feeble-minded or epileptic, and by the laws of heredity is the probably potential parent of socially inadequate offspring likewise afflicted.”

In 1912, J.N. Hurty, President of the American Public Health Association, presented a paper entitled “Rural Hygiene” at the association’s annual meeting. 

The family physician, after becoming cognizant of a contemplated marriage which must lead to nervous and weak offspring, should take steps to prevent its consummation.  If the rules of professional secrecy regarding matters of importance to progeny work against social progress, they are in so far immoral.  The physician must take an active part in race hygiene.

Hurty began his career as a pharmacist.  "It was not until Hurty had become the [Indiana] State Health Officer and had observed the stupidity of mankind, the worthlessness and the filthiness of certain classes of people" that he promulgated eugenics.* 

Fifteen years later, in his decision on Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927), Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., expanded on Hurty's theme:

We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

To Hurty and Holmes, if you had absence seizures or bipolar disorder, maybe even dyslexia, your pregnancy wouldn't be a gift from God.  It would be a drain on the state, and should be prevented, whether you wanted it or not. 

It’s been four generations now since Buck v. Bell.   If you want to safeguard your right to decide whether or when to have children, tell your elected representative how important it is to you.  And tell him or her that you vote.

* You can learn more in THE HOOSIER HEALTH OFFICER: A Biography of Dr. J.N. Hurty and The History of the Indiana State Board of Health to 1925, by Thurman N. Rice, MD, published by the Indiana State Board of Health, 1946.