Historical context was what I was after in my visit to the eugenics exhibit now on display at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh. What possibly could have made it acceptable to forcibly sterilize 7,600 North Carolinians between 1929 and 1974?

I wrongly assumed that race would account for the state's actions, since blacks were denied basic civil rights during most of that period. Not necessarily. Whites -- 2,851 women and 675 men -- accounted for most state-ordered sterilizations. African-Americans were second with 2,098 women and 235 men victimized. To my surprise, little of the material I've read on eugenics from that era is overtly racist.

EUGENICS WAS SOLD AS THE SCIENCE of improving the human race through the procreation of people thought to have humanity's best traits, while decreasing the birth rate of those saddled with the worst. It was a field embraced by wealthy and progressive leaders in North Carolina, including the editors of this newspaper. As proof of public support, a 1935 state sterilization manual cited an N&O editorial that read in part, "We cannot make a better world if we deliberately give our substance to subsidizing the production of the least worthy stock among men."

The characteristics of the least worthy were explicit. In North Carolina they included promiscuity, alcoholism, criminality, drug addiction, extreme nervousness and being a pauper.

As harsh as these terms are to the 21st century eye, they were compatible with legal standards of the day. Dr. E.A. Whitney wrote in a 1933 edition of Birth Control Review that eugenics laws across the country permitted forced sterilization for the insane, idiots, feeble-minded, imbeciles, habitual and hereditary criminals, rapists and moral degenerates.

In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court validated this body of law (practiced in 30 states) in Buck v. Bell. Carrie Buck, a 17-year-old Virginian committed to the state mental hospital, was ordered sterilized after she bore a child out of wedlock who was judged "not normal." A charge of promiscuity against Buck and her mother (a patient at the same hospital) was a crucial factor in the case.

IN THE 8-1 DECISION, Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote "three generations of imbeciles are enough." He continued: "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind."

In May 2007, Andrew J. Imparato and Anne C. Sommers of the American Association of People With Disabilities marked the Buck decision's 80th anniversary by warning that intellectual underpinnings of eugenics still survive, particularly with regard to the disabled. They back up their claim with chilling facts and quotes.

From noted Princeton University bio-ethicist Peter Singer: "It does not seem quite wise to increase any further draining of limited resources by increasing the number of children with impairments."

From in vitro fertilization pioneer Robert Edwards: "Soon it will be a sin for parents to have a child that carries the heavy burden of genetic disease. We are entering a world where we have to consider the quality of our children."

Imparato and Sommers also note that less than a year ago Britain's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists argued for "active euthanasia" of significantly disabled newborns. The Brits were following the lead of doctors in the Netherlands who in 2004 came up with the "Groningen Protocol," which spells out criteria for euthanizing babies and children with disabilities.

The eugenics exhibit ends Aug. 3. It's worth your attention, not only because of what it teaches about our past, but to prepare us for the looming ethical and moral storm the advancement of genetics will present in our future.