--- title: Human Sterilization Today url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/human-sterilization-today-1938/ description: First page of a 1938 pamphlet from a private California foundation promoting eugenic sterilization. section: Collection --- [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/) **Content note:** Pro-sterilisation pamphlet using "insane and feebleminded" for patients, with a disparaging remark about Catholics. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) [![Human Sterilization Today](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/human-sterilization-today-1938.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/human-sterilization-today-1938.jpg) # Human Sterilization Today First page of a 1938 pamphlet from a private California foundation promoting eugenic sterilization. It reports that state institutions had 'sterilized nearly 12,000 insane and feebleminded patients', says the operation 'merely cuts and seals the tubes' and 'is not a mutilation in any sense of the word', and wraps the policy in the name 'Human Betterment' and the language of a medical case study. - **Date:** 1938 - **Period:** [Interwar](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=interwar) - **Made by:** Human Betterment Foundation, Pasadena, California - **Region:** [North America](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=north-america) - **Country:** [United States](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=united-states) - **Medium:** [Books and pamphlets](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=book-pamphlet) - **Issuer type:** [NGO](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=ngo) - **Regime:** [Roosevelt Administration](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=roosevelt-administration) - **Leader:** [Franklin D. Roosevelt](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=franklin-d-roosevelt) - **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public) - **Purpose:** [Persuade or win support](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=persuade-support) - **Themes:** [Health](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=health), [Science and technology](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=science-technology) - **Techniques:** [Euphemism / doublespeak](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/euphemism/) [Glittering generalities](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/glittering-generalities/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/) - **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are - **Source:** [Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Sterilization_Today.jpg), retrieved September 27, 2026 - **Rights:** Public domain (U.S. publication without copyright notice) Human Betterment Foundation, Pasadena; Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division. ## Text on the object Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked ``` A publication of the HUMAN BETTERMENT FOUNDATION Pasadena, Calif. HUMAN STERILIZATION TODAY With the Compliments of THE HUMAN BETTERMENT FOUNDATION 321 PACIFIC SOUTHWEST BUILDING PASADENA, CALIFORNIA During the last twenty-eight years, California state institutions have sterilized nearly 12,000 insane and feebleminded patients. The following pages embody results shown by a case-study of the first 10,000 of these sterilizations. This sterilization is a surgical operation, which prevents parenthood without in any way or degree unsexing the patient, or impairing his or her health. It merely cuts and seals the tubes through which the germ cells—the spermatozoa and ova,—must pass. It is wholly different, therefore, from the crude and brutal operations of castration and asexualization, performed for the selfish purposes of the perpetrators. Primitive and pagan peoples castrated boys to produce eunuchs. Roman Catholics continued the practice until modern times, to provide male soprano voices for their cathedral choirs. Unlike these practices, modern sterilization is not a mutilation in any sense of the word. In men, the operation (vasectomy) can be performed under a local anaesthetic in fifteen or twenty minutes, and in light work occasions no loss of time. In women, the operation (salpingectomy) involving the opening of the abdomen, is comparable to an uncomplicated operation for chronic appendicitis, which means a week or two in bed. In either sex, failures are almost unknown. 1 ``` This is page 1 of the pamphlet only (the committed image). The 'With the Compliments of...' lines are a rubber-stamp impression overprinted on the title page, transcribed in the position they appear. Ghosted text from the facing page, bleeding through the paper, is visible in the background of the scan but is not transcribed here since it belongs to a different page. [← Eesti rahwas, hoia kokku! (Estonian people, hold together!): Rahvarinne election leaflet](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/eesti-rahvas-hoia-kokku-rahvarinne-1938/) ['Askari wetu washinda Wajapani / Smash the Japs!' (British poster for East Africa) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/askari-wetu-smash-the-japs-1939/) ## Using the same techniques - [詔書 (Imperial Rescript on the Annexation of Korea), Korean translation, Official Gazette of the Government-General of Korea no. 1, p. 17](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/annexation-rescript-korea-gazette-1910/) (Aug 29, 1910 · Glittering generalities, Euphemism / doublespeak). Content note: Official Japanese imperial text on the 1910 annexation of Korea, printed in Korean translation; shown as issued. - ["Sous le soleil équatorial" (Le Petit Journal illustré, 6 July 1924)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/petit-journal-congo-ocean-railway-1924/) (Jul 6, 1924 · Euphemism / doublespeak, Glittering generalities) - ['Instructions to All Persons of Japanese Ancestry' (exclusion order posted in San Francisco)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/exclusion-order-japanese-ancestry-1942/) (Apr 11, 1942 · Euphemism / doublespeak) - [Attention American Soldiers! I Cease Resistance (surrender pass, leaflet 17-J-1)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/i-cease-resistance-leaflet-1945/) (1945 · Euphemism / doublespeak, Testimonial) - [Address announcing a 'special military operation'](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/special-military-operation-address-2022/) (Feb 24, 2022 · Euphemism / doublespeak, Semantic hijacking) - [Gold solidus of Constantine I, reverse RESTITVTORI LIBERTATIS](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/solidus-constantine-i-restitutori-libertatis-0313/) (0313 · Glittering generalities) - [Gold solidus of Justinian I, reverse VICTORIA AVGGG with Victory holding a Christogram staff](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/solidus-justinian-i-victoria-avggg-0538/) (0538 · Transfer, Glittering generalities) - [Frontispiece to Eikon Basilike, The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Majestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings (Hollar, 1649)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/eikon-basilike-frontispiece-hollar-1649/) (1649 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)