Book Reviewed: The Unfit Heiress: The Tragic Life and Scandalous Sterilization of Ann Cooper Hewitt by Audrey Clare Farley

The case of heiress Ann Cooper Hewitt This book narrates the sad tale of Ann Cooper Hewitt, the daughter of famed engineer and inventor Peter Cooper Hewitt, and how her case about eugenics, arranging human reproduction to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable. This was not only common but widely accepted in the United States and it targeted poor women and racial minorities. When Ann was caught with her hands down her under-garment by her mother Maryon Hewitt, she 3 years old girl. Her mother became overly concerned that her little girl has inherent deformities that may lead to promiscuity. The doctors back in 1920 confirmed the anxiety of her mother and later sterilized without the knowledge of Ann Hewitt. Much of the book discusses the legal and medical scholarship that worked to expose the inequities in the system regarding eugenics. When Peter Cooper Hewitt died in 1921, his estate was worth over $4 million, the future equivalent of about $200 billion in 2021, compounded at 4% interest rate. According to his will, Ann would receive two-thirds of this amount, and her mother would receive one-third. A caveat, however, stipulated that should Ann die childless, her share would revert to her mother. At this time forced sterilizations was widely accepted. Involuntary sterilization of poor, disabled, and wayward individuals gained quick acceptance to reduce the number of unsound people in the population. Ann’s mother Maryon Hewitt was first charged with “mayhem” in 1936 for her daughter’s sterilization, but charges were dropped, and Ann filed the civil suit against her mother for $500,000 in January 1936, alleging that she paid the doctors to remove her fallopian tubes without Ann’s knowledge. Soon after, the San Francisco district attorney charged Maryon and both doctors with “mayhem,” a rare charge that was reserved for cases involving the act of disabling or disfiguring an individual. Judge Tuttle dismissed the case against her mother and declared. “The prosecution has completely failed to make a case against the defendants, mother Maryon and the two doctors. According to the judge, sterilization in California was not a crime; therefore, mayhem had not been committed, and there had been no conspiracy to commit it. The judge disagreed with the prosecution that the timing of Ann’s sterilization (occurring within a year of her 21st birthday) was meaningful. He claimed, “The law makes no distinction between a case where the minor is 19 years of age and where the minor is five years of age.” From a legal perspective, “both are under the identical disability so far as consent to an operation is concerned, and the parents or guardian have the same power to consent in each case.” If this reality leads to situations that are unjust, “then the remedy is with the legislature and not the courts.” At that time, there was not a single protest, riot or even op-ed written to criticize the decision, recalls author Audrey Farley. In doing so, the ruling lessened the burden of proof to demonstrate a woman’s unfitness for motherhood. Also, in denying that mayhem had been committed, the case might have affirmed individuals’ right to sexual pleasure. Prior to 1936, legal scholars had struggled to apply the definition of mayhem (the “unlawful and malicious removal of a member of a human being or the disabling or disfiguring thereof or rendering it useless”) in sterilization cases because they couldn’t pinpoint the primary purpose of the female sex organs. If the organs’ primary purpose was reproduction, these scholars reasoned, then a case of mayhem could indeed be made. However, if the organs’ primary purpose was gratification of sexual desires, then there was no case for mayhem. Which was it? The defense suggested that pleasure was a right of all women, but procreation is a privilege of the certain few that hurt Mexican Americans in California who were branded as reckless breeders. This meant that now more than ever, eugenicists needed to emphasize societal interests over individual ones. Rather than simply claiming that sterilization was protective or even curative, they needed to stress the impact to society when defective individuals reproduced. Author Farley offers a fascinating discussion of medical ethics and legal responsibilities of the legislatures and judicial systems. This exposes the hypocrisy that existed 100 years ago when it was believed that upper class and wealthy have more rights with regards to reproduction because they have healthy hereditable characteristics.