1899

Chicago surgeon Albert John Ochsner performs vasectomies on two patients for prostrate problems, and begins to see eugenic possibilities of the operation – article in JAMA in 1901 on vasectomy’s potential to address social pathologies  Henry C. Sharp, an Indiana state superintendent, reads the article, begins performing vasectomies at Indiana State Reformatory, “made a clarion call in favor of sterilization,” and saw through passage of America’s first eugenic sterilization law in April 1907 (Hansen & King, 74-78).