In Which Holly Writes About Writing (How Unique!)

I just started writing a story today...it's historical fiction (as many good stories are), and concerns eugenics.
What is eugenics?
a. You don't really want to know
b. Okay, ready?
c. It's basically when you decide to 'purify' the human race by eliminating any undesirable traits/genes such as:
1. Certain skin colors
2. Mental Disabilities
3. Conditions such as epilepsy, blindness, or deafness
4. Insanity
5. Criminal Tendencies (because evidently they're genetic)
6. Pretty much anything you can think of that someone somewhere may consider to be 'undesirable'
d. Is it as horrid, disgusting, and wrong as it sounds? Yes.
e. Prime example: The Holocaust
f. In the United States, eugenics even became legal for a few decades in some states (darn that Indiana), and expanded to include compulsory sterilization.
g. Compulsory sterilization is what it sounds like. When you make someone unable to have children just because you don't want their undesirable genes (see above) passed on to future generations. And it wasn't voluntary, folks, needless to say. They even did it to some African American and Native American women without them knowing it. They would go to the hospital to have a baby and come out unable to have any more, thanks to a few choice doctors.
h. Supporters of eugenics? Woodrow Wilson, Alexander Graham Bell, Teddy Roosevelt, and Adolf Hitler, to name a few.

Why did I choose this disgusting topic for a story? Because horrid as it is, I find it fascinating that so few people know that this went on. I mean, everyone's heard of the Holocaust, but hardly anyone realizes that something identical went on in America for decades.

My story is about a teenager named Ted Graham who volunteers at a hospital in Indiana, hoping to become a doctor some day. He befriends a young African American woman who is in the hospital for an illness (I'm thinking pneumonia). Ted accidently discovers compulsory sterilization and realizes that they are about to perform it on his new friend. I'm thinking he'll try to save her, though not sure how far he'll go (fight the system, or just take her and run?) Oh yes, and they also fall in love. I'm setting it in 1908, a year after eugenics became legal in the state of Indiana. This one will require quite a bit of research, but I'm excited about it.

* In case you didn't catch it, I named my main character after two big supporters of eugenics: Theodore Roosevelt, and Alexander Graham Bell. Hoping to do something similar for the girl. I love ironic names.