"Treat Him as Another Human, Not as an Animal": Patient and Family Protest or Refusal to "Consent" to Eugenic Sterilization in California Institutions, 1922-1950.

This examination of sterilization "consent" in California state institutions during the eugenics era (1922-1950) contributes to bioethical and historical scholarship on institutionalization and the limits of consent. Department of Institutions records digitalized by the Sterilization and Social Justice Lab were used to identify 259 cases where relatives or patients refused to "consent" to sterilization, including thirty-five protest letters written by patients or relatives. This analysis addresses the enigma of why administrators exerted considerable bureaucratic labor to document consent from relatives, or occasionally patients, if the law didn't require it, release was conditional on sterilization, and objections were often ignored. It foregrounds the voices of patients and family members responding to requests to sign permission forms. Many family members were estranged and did not want to make sterilization decisions for or take responsibility for an institutionalized person, yet others tried to forestall sterilizations, contest diagnoses, and seek patients' release without sterilization.