Eugenic sterilization in New Zealand: The story of the mental defectives amendment act of 1928

Abstract

New Zealand has had a reputation for being a social laboratory. Yet New Zealanders were apparently ambivalent about embracing eugenics, notably never enacting an explicitly eugenic sterilization law. Nevertheless, the 1928 Mental Defectives Amendment Bill originally contained a clause providing for sterilization on eugenic grounds. Hamish Spencer outlines the history of the drafting of this clause and its subsequent failure to gain parliamentary approval, before suggesting possible reasons for this course of events. He notes that this narrative must also explain how close the sterilization clause came to being enacted. This closeness illustrates a general point, that the passage or failure of sterilization legislation is an oversimplifying dichotomous view of different countries’ eugenic histories.