Saga - 2005, Page 46

Abstract
S T E R I L I S AT I O N I N I C E L A N D , 1 9 3 8 – 1 9 7 5
Following in the wake of the other Nordic countries, Iceland legalised sterilisa-
tions in 1938. On the one hand, the law permitted such operations for medical
reasons, and on the other, in the cases of the mentally retarded or insane, due to
eugenics or social circumstances. While the country’s medical community want-
ed to go even further and allow sterilisation for social reasons that were not prin-
cipally occasioned by mental retardation or insanity, the author of the laws, the
Surgeon General of Iceland at that time, was not prepared to include such a pro-
vision.
Although he gave no explanation for this, various evidence suggests that he
thought the laws would then be too unrestricted, with a greater danger of the
procedure being misused. This legislation was influenced by the eugenics move-
ment, just as was the case with similar legislation in the other Nordic countries,
and the Surgeon General ascribed to various views of that movement, for exam-
ple its message on the desirability of sterilisation for the retarded. Nonetheless,
he rejected the Nordic racist movement, emphasising that the Icelandic act on
sterilisation had no ideological connection with it. Nordic racism modelled on
the Nazis did however have Icelandic supporters when the aforementioned law
was enacted in the 1930s. This was probably the only time that a stance was taken
in a single instance of Icelandic legislation with respect to both racism and the
then growing Nazism: and in this case against both.
About 700 people, of whom 98% were women, underwent a sterilisation
operation under the act. Medical reasons were listed as the main reason in 83.4%
of the cases, which were voluntary sterilisations. Eugenic/social reasons were
listed as the main reason in 16.6% of the cases. These were coercive sterilisations,
not performed at the patient’s behest. About half of the applications for opera-
tions in this category were not signed by the patient.
The act remained in effect until 1975, when it was revised because of chang-
ing attitudes. Similar revisions simultaneously took place regarding the legisla-
tion on sterilisation in other Nordic countries, and the laws now in effect in
Iceland resemble the ones in those countries.
U N N U R B I R N A K A R L S D Ó T T I R46
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