Sterilization and the British Conservative party: Rethinking the failure of the Eugenics Society's political strategy in the nineteen-thirties

Abstract

This article argues for a revised view of the British eugenic sterilization campaign, proposing that a failure to maximize the contemporary political terrain significantly contributed to its lack of legislative success. The Eugenics Society's unwillingness to alienate Labour or overtly to link sterilization to concerns articulated by Conservative M.P.s rendered it somewhat rudderless when, actually, it could have been attached to broader concerns (including the economic depression). While there were key elements arguing for a more aggressively pro-Tory stance, the fact that the strongest advocate of this course, George Pitt-Rivers, was so sympathetic to Nazi Germany undermined this strategy's chances.