Eugenic jurisprudence is defined by Michael Willrich in Law and History Review as “the aggressive mobilization of law and legal institutions in pursuit of eugenic goals” (Willrich). The eugenics movement largely served as a tool of social control because its ideology and subsequent legislation promoted stigmatization, discrimination, and repression of certain groups for the benefit of the people in power. Sterilization laws correlate with the conflict paradigm of law in that they were a form of coercion used as a weapon of social conflict between the socially adequate and inadequate, a tool of oppression of “unfit” individuals, and they represented the views of the powerful supporters of the movement.
Increasing racial tensions and prejudicial attitudes towards difference were validated by eugenicists’ claims, and the government jumped at the chance to promote their agenda towards “conserving” and “bettering” the human race. The law was used to manipulate individuals viewed as lesser and to enforce the idea of intolerance to “unfavorable” traits of personality such as criminality, homosexuality, alcoholism, mental illness, disability, race, etc. that were perceived to be the sole cause to social and economic problems. The people in power wanted to tie such traits to a genetic basis so they could have a justification to promote a hierarchy and an unequal distribution of power among people in society.