[6] In the Neo-Lamarckian genetic framework, activities such as prostitution and alcoholism could result in the degeneration of future generations, amplifying fears about the effects of certain social ills.
However, the supposed genetic malleability also offered hope to certain Latin American eugenicists, as social reform would have the ability to transform the population more permanently.
The eugenics movement arrived in Mexico in the context of the widespread devastation and violence of the Mexican Revolution,[7] which had resulted in a pronounced decline in population as well as a growing nationalist sentiment.
While not passed at the height of the eugenics movement, the law was written with the intention of implementing population control and marriage restriction.
[9] Disabled people and those with venereal and other diseases that were perceived to be hereditary were barred from marriage so that they can not procreate and damage the family unit and the interests of the species.
The report concluded that a lack of sex education was the primary cause of negative personal habits and was responsible for the supposed decline of society.
The committee's outline for sex education ended by stating that family health was the basis of the nation's "happiness" and "progress.
[7] Puericulture, an idea focused on the role that mothers played in ensuring the "proper" hygiene of the child, shaped eugenic reforms in Mexico.
By then, the Society of Puericulture had created a branch dedicated to eugenics and addressed sex education, infantile sexuality, and disease in relation to caring for a child.
[15] In 1930, he attempted to eliminate prostitution with Law 362, which sanctioned the state to "locate and treat" Veracruz citizens who have been diagnosed with venereal diseases.
[15] In Jalapa, women were rounded up, imprisoned, and then forcibly treated for venereal disease as part of a eugenic effort to eliminate prostitution and its "negative" health effects.
Law 121 founded the Section of Eugenics and Mental Hygiene in the public health department, responsible for studying the "physical diseases and defects of the human organism" that were naturally passed from parent to child.
[15] Six months after the passage of Law 121, an addendum was passed that legalized sterilization of "the insane, idiots, degenerates, or those demented to such a degree that their defect is considered incurable or hereditarily transmissible.
A 1936 editorial in the Mexico City newspaper, Excelsior told readers "The Indians, with rare exceptions, are proof that the theory of environment cannot be sustained by scientific criteria....
In 2011, the Mexican government took steps to prevent sterilization abuse by introducing a legal measure to make the practice punishable with prison time.