The Governor’s Eugenics Compensation Task Force released today a preliminary recommendation to Gov. Bev Perdue stating clearly that “I’m sorry” is not nearly enough to compensate 7,600 North Carolinians who were sterilized without their consent.

Elaine Riddick, a victim of forced sterilization, offers testimony at the task forces June 24 meeting.

The procedures occurred between 1929 and 1974 when the N.C. Eugenics Board was in the business of deciding who was and who wasn’t fit to reproduce.

“The state of North Carolina must move beyond just an apology,” the report states.

That includes, according to the report: lump sum financial damages and mental health services to the estimated 2,944 living victims, funding for a traveling N.C. Eugenics exhibit and the continuation and expansion of the N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation.

The task force was established in March and has until Feb. 1 to complete its work. The group has been collecting evidence at chilling public hearings.

The full 93-page report is here.

Victims of the Eugenics Board program can access patient files and check their status by calling, toll-free, 1-877-550-6013 or visit http://www.sterilizationvictims.nc.gov/.

“No amount of money can replace or give value to what has been done to nearly 7,600 people,” the report states. “Men, women, boys, girls, African Americans, Whites, American Indians, the poor, undereducated and disabled who our state and its citizens judged, targeted and labeled ‘morons,’ ‘unfit,’ and ‘feebleminded.’”