A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes

by Adam Rutherford

But in the USA, and a few other countries (notably Sweden), the forced, involuntary and often secret sterilization of undesirables was embraced enthusiastically. From 1907 when Indiana passed the first mandate, until 1963, forced sterilization was legally administered in thirty-one states, with California the most vigorous adopter. The most recent cases of forced sterilization in that famously liberal state occurred in 2010.