A Whisper Past: Childless after Eugenic Sterilization in Alberta

by Leilani Muir

Leilani Muir was severely abused by her mother, who told many lies in order to have her daughter admitted to the Provincial Training School for Mental Defectives in Red Deer at the age of 11 and branded a moron. But Muir never was mentally defective and never should have been in that institution in the first place. Because of a terrible injustice, a normal child became an insider in a mental institution and is now able to convey to us what life was like there in the 1950s. She tells about how she was briefly questioned by the Alberta Eugenics Board and then sterilized by two clumsy physicians under the guise of having her appendix removed. The agony of her many later attempts to have the sterilization operation reversed is described in detail. She eventually launched a lawsuit against the Alberta government and won an important judgement that led to compensation being paid to hundreds of other victims. After the trial, she became a public figure and continues to speak against all forms of child abuse and discrimination against the disabled. This is Leilani Muir’s story in her own words.

Genres: Eugenics

187 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 2, 2014

Reviews

[Kerri · Rating 5 out of 5]

great read, it was sad to hear the stories of how people were treated in the past and how some people are still not capable of loving their children unconditionally.

[Gail Amendt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember following the author's court case against the Alberta government on the news back in the 1990's, and being shocked by what I heard. I knew that the Alberta government had practiced eugenics at one time, but this story brought the consequences of this practice to the forefront and made me really consider the implications and injustice of eugenics. Leilani Muir was placed in the Provincial Training School For Mental Defectives at the age of eleven, and spent the next ten years there. There was nothing wrong with her mentally, but her abusive mother did not want her. Thus a child of normal intelligence came to be labelled a moron, institutionalized, denied an adequate education, used for medical experiments, and at the age of fourteen sexually sterilized under the province's eugenics law. Muir successfully sued the Alberta government for her wrongful institutionalization, poor education and sterilization, paving the way for other victims of the eugenics policy to receive compensation. In this book, she tells her story very eloquently, showing once and for all that she is indeed a very intelligent and competent person. Yes, her lack of formal education does show at times, but I am certainly not going to judge her for that. Her resilience astounds me, and I am amazed that she survived her early childhood at all. Her story is an important one that should never be forgotten.

[Irene Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a raw, powerful, courageous memoir showing the resilience of the human spirit despite terrible brutality and injustice. This is a difficult journey to read but one that begs attention. Written so simply, so authentically, you journey along with the author. You won't see the end that is coming in this memoir, yet when it does, it will strike you as shockingly inevitable and utterly heartbreaking.

The challenges that faced the author as a child, a young woman, and into her later years came not only from an abusive upbringing, but also from Canadian policies and institutions that further betrayed and exploited her, then sterilized her without her consent or knowledge as a child, at the age of 14.

It makes me ashamed to know that my country committed such willful breeches of human rights as the forced sterilizations of vulnerable minorities. But this is a past, and a recent past, that we must come to terms with if we are to prevent future crimes against humanity.

What the author leaves behind is a deeply personal memoir and a historical truth that deserves to be known. Her courage and determination not only helped other victims of forced sterilization fight for compensation but also allowed the creation of the "Living Eugenics Archive". Indeed, an extraordinary legacy for someone that society tried to throw away.

[Eli Barnet · Rating 1 out of 5]

Weirdly ableist