Leilani Muir
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Leilani Marietta Muir (previously named Leilani Marie Scorah) (born July 15, 1944, in Calgary) was the first person to file a successful law suit against the province of Alberta, Canada for wrongful sterilization under the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta. Her case led to the initiation of several other class action suits against the province for wrongful sterilization.
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[edit] Early life
Leilani was born into a family where she was largely unwanted, and had a difficult childhood. Her mother was often inebriated and withheld food from Leilani. However, Leilani reportedly maintained an average performance in school. The only allegations made against her by the school were for stealing food. As Leilani aged, her mother tried to find ways to remove her from the family. When she was eight, Leilani's mother placed her in the Midnapore Convent for a month. Then, in 1953, Leilani’s mother sent an application for Leilani to attend the Provincial Training School for Mental Defectives (a.k.a the Michener Center) in Red Deer, Alberta. At that time Leilani was rejected due to a high volume of patients, but she was later accepted, on July 12, 1955, shortly before her 11th birthday. Leilani was accepted into the school solely on the basis of information provided by her mother, without any diagnostic testing. Before Leilani could be accepted into PTS, the program required a signature from a guardian permitting the legal enforcement of compulsory sterilization. Leilani’s mother used her then boyfriend’s (future husband’s) name, Harley Scorah, to agree to the sterilization of her daughter. Leilani saw her mother only intermittently over the years until her departure from the school at the age of 20.
[edit] Eugenics in action: The rise of the Sexual Sterilization Act in Alberta
Leilani’s sterilization is part of a progression towards forced sterilization and eugenics that began in the 19th century. In 1883, Francis Galton, a cousin to Charles Darwin, coined the term “eugenics” (from the Greek eugenes meaning “good in birth”), but the concept had been around since the time of Plato. In essence, eugenics is a combination of applying Mendel’s laws of dominant and recessive genes and Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to “improve the human stock”. It was believed many mental and behavioral traits, whether “inferior” or “superior”, were passed down from adults to their children. Those who were considered inferior were believed to be “unfit to breed” because the genes they contributed to the human gene pool would hinder the development ("evolution") of a better human race. People considered inferior or damaging to the human race included criminals, psychotics, lazy people, social degenerates, morons, inter-mixed races (African-Caucasian, Italian-Irish, Polish-Ukrainian, etc.), immigrants, Catholics, alcoholics, First Nations people, epileptics, unwed mothers, many poor people, and others.
Eugenics has been attempted in many countries in many ways, including practicing sterilization, castration, and homicide on "defectives." By 1907 the first eugenic sterilization law was enacted in the United States and in 1910 a Eugenics Committee of the American Breeders Association (ABA) and the Eugenics Records Office had been established. Both affiliations were largely influenced by Charles Davenport and Harry Laughlin, but both were headed by Davenport himself. By 1933, eugenics made its way back over to Europe in the rise of World War ІІ. The idea of eugenics greatly influenced Hitler, and he gathered information from both Canada and the United States about the sterilization procedure. He then aggressively applied methods of eugenics to anyone whom he deemed to be a degenerate, especially Jews. After Hitler's excesses were revealed after World War ІІ, support for eugenics and utilization of sterilization began to die down in the United States and Britain.
However, in Alberta, Canada, even after World War II, forced sterilizations continued. The western provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan were all influenced by theories of eugenics, but it was only in Alberta that a sterilization act had been vigorously implemented. About 2,832 adults and children were sterilized in Alberta between the passing of the Sexual Sterilization Act in 1928 and its repeal in 1972. One of the main advocates for sterilization who helped pass the Sexual Sterilization Act was the first female magistrate of the British Empire, Emily Murphy. Under her influence, many Albertans, especially farmers who saw first hand what selective breeding can do in livestock, began to agree that eugenics was a positive thing. One of the people influenced by Emily Murphy’s opinions was the Provincial Minister of Agriculture and Health, George Hoadley. Hoadley convened the first meeting of the Alberta Eugenics Board a year after the Sexual Sterilization Act was passed. This board interviewed all people considered to be of inferior quality and either recommend sterilization or no sterilization, depending on the board's findings. The three members of this group elected John M. MacEachran as chairman, a position he had held from 1929 to 1965. MacEachran was a huge figure in promoting the continued sterilization of people who were considered to be degenerates in Alberta. Although all of the members of the Eugenics Board were collectively responsible for implementing most of the authorizations of sterilizations under the Sexual Sterilization Act up to 1972, MacEachran was present for every signed authorization of sterilization performed in Alberta until his death in 1965. He was also noted as being the founder of the psychology and philosophy department at the University of Alberta.
[edit] The sterilization of Leilani Muir
Leilani had been at the Provincial Training Center for two years and four months when she underwent an Intelligence Quotient exam. Low IQ was a major qualification for sterilization. Since Leilani had never had her IQ tested, she was brought to the Calgary Guidance Clinic to take an IQ test. Leilani scored an overall mark of 64. The Eugenics Board found the IQ test more than sufficient grounds for sterilizing Leilani, since an IQ score lower than 70 iss considered degraded intelligence. After her meeting with members of the Eugenics Board, Leilani was given the formal label of “Mental Defective Moron”. Although she was not told at the time, the board ordered that she be sterilized on the basis of her IQ score, her Irish-Polish background, her Catholic religion, her incapability of being able to uphold an intelligent parenthood, and the fact that she had shown definite interest in the opposite sex. On January 19, 1959, at the age of 14, doctors performed a bilateral salpingectomy (the destruction of the fallopian tubes) on Leilani. Leilani had been told that she was undergoing surgery to have her appendix removed. Although this was true, and the doctors did remove Leilani’s appendix, Leilani was not informed that her appendectomy was to be accompanied by sterilization. Leilani did not find out until almost a decade later why she could not bear children.
[edit] Leilani’s case
When Leilani was 20, her mother showed up at the PTS asking to take her daughter to dinner. In fact, once outside the PTS, Leilani's mother offered Leilani an ultimatum: either leave with her that night and serve as her babysitter, or be left to live out the rest of her life at The Provincial Training School. With little choice, Leilani chose to go with her mother and departed the PTS without authorization.
Over the next ten years, Leilani experienced greater independence, worked as a waitress, baby-sat, and had two marriages. During Leilani’s first marriage, she found out she could not bear children. After years of trying to conceive and batteries of tests, a doctor informed Leilani that she had been intentionally sterilized. Over the years, Leilani had tried to adopt but was denied because of the stigma of her being an ex-inmate at PTS.
During her second marriage, Leilani became highly depressed and sought professional help in the year of 1989 while living in British Columbia. While trying to determine if she would be a good prospect for group therapy, Leilani took another IQ test and scored 89. This mark surprised the doctor who administered the test, George Kurbatoff, who knew Leilani’s background. Not long after that Leilani decided that her recent IQ exam proved that she was of normal intelligence and should never have been sterilized, and she sought to sue the Alberta government for wrongful sterilization. Leilani's case came to trial on June 12, 1995 with the Honorable Madame Joanne B. Viet presiding. After over 6 months of testimonials and hearing the life of Leilani Muir, Viet came to a decision. On January 25, 1996, Viet ruled in favor of Leilani and awarded damages to her in the amount of $740,780, and later $230,000 for legal costs. Viet proclaimed that “the province wrongfully surgically sterilized Ms. Muir” and the “particular type of confinement of which Ms. Muir was a victim resulted in many travesties to her young person: loss of liberty, loss of reputation, humiliation and disgrace; pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of normal developmental experiences, loss of civil rights, loss of contact with family and friends, [and] subjection to institutional discipline”. Since Leilani’s case, about 700 other people who were sterilized under the Sexual Sterilization Act were awarded damages in a class action suit against the government of Alberta for wrongful sterilization, which was settled out of court.
[edit] Leilani today
Leilani currently resides in rural Alberta with her three cats and Shih Tzu. She works part-time in the food industry and enjoys spending her free time with family, friends, pets and wild animals. Leilani is also in the process of writing an autobiography about her life which is set to come out some time in the near future.
[edit] Films
- The Sterilization of Leilani Muir. Produced by the North West Center, National Film Board of Canada. 1996. Montreal, Canada
[edit] Resources
- Buchanan, E. “Playing God with People’s Lives”. 1997. Genesis of Eden Diversity Encyclopedia [1]
- Wahlsten, D. “Leilani Muir versus the Philosopher King: Eugenics on trial in Alberta”. 1997. Genetica 99:185-198. Kluwer Academic Publishers: Netherlands
- Veit, J. (1996) Muir v. The Queen in Right of Alberta. Dominion Law Reports, 132(4th series): 695-762.
