Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders: Report of the Committee of Inquiry Appointed by the Hon. Sir Maui Pomare, K.B.E., C.M.G., Minister of Health — John Shaqi
Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders: Report of the Committee of Inquiry Appointed by the Hon. Sir Maui Pomare, K.B.E., C.M.G., Minister of HealthNew Zealand. Committee of Inquiry into Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders
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Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders: Report of the Committee of Inquiry Appointed by the Hon. Sir Maui Pomare, K.B.E., C.M.G., Minister of Health
New Zealand. Committee of Inquiry into Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders
Mental health laws -- New Zealand; People with mental disabilities -- Care -- New Zealand; People with mental disabilities -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- New Zealand; Sex offenders -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- New Zealand; Sterilization (Birth control) -- New Zealand
If the recommendation as to sterilization being authorized under the
conditions specified is adopted, the Committee think it would be
advisable to introduce some provision as in the American Acts, making it
unlawful to perform operations whose object is the prevention of
reproduction in cases not authorized by the Board unless the same shall
be a medical necessity.
SECTION 11.--SEGREGATION.
It will be neither possible nor desirable to segregate all mental
defectives. Feeble-minded children who are receiving adequate care and
training in their own homes will, of course, be left there. When they
reach the age of adolescence the question of their disposal should be
considered by the Board. In many cases the inmates of special schools,
after they have received some training, would do well if returned to
their homes or boarded out in selected foster-homes under supervision.
The real difficulty arises, especially in the case of girls, when the
age of adolescence is reached.
In the opinion of the Committee it is of the utmost importance that
mental defectives should be prevented from reproducing. No person who
has been placed on the register should be allowed to marry until the
Eugenic Board has given its consent by removing the name from the
register.
It is altogether wrong to suppose that there is any unkindness in taking
the feeble-minded, who are unable to battle for themselves, under the
care of the State and preventing them from bringing forth another
generation of defectives. The real unkindness consists in allowing such
unfortunates to be brought into the world.
In school, and still more in the after-struggle for existence, the
feeble-minded find themselves the butts of their fellows, and the
"inferiority complex" thus developed tends to make them sink lower in
the scale both in intellect and morals.
"On the other hand, it is the general experience of those who have had
many years' practical experience with defectives that the majority are
far happier in suitable institutions engaged in congenial occupations,
and having the companionship of their mental equals, than when they are
exposed to the difficulties of an outside world to which they are
incapable of adapting themselves. In many cases, indeed, such freedom
amounts to the infliction of positive cruelty."
This statement is taken from the memorandum of the Central Association
for Mental Welfare of Great Britain, to which reference has already been
made, and this Committee can, from their own observation, endorse the
views thus expressed.
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