How blood quantum requirements are problematic. Despite their economic and sociopolitical utility, blood quantum requirements are harmful to Indians for three principle reasons. First, due to intermarriage and admixture among cultures, subsequent Indian generations face great difficulty in meeting even loose blood quantum membership criteria, since the average blood quantum of their populations is inevitably diluted. Second, as individual Indians fall below minimum blood percentage cutoffs, they lose eligibility for essential federal services, such as health care. Third, to the extent that the term "Indian" should be socially-not biologically-defined, blood quantum requirements are over exclusive and, some argue, genocidal.
-Redefining Race: Can Genetic Testing Provide Biological Proof of Indian Ethnicity? by Eric Beckenhauer pg. 170 Vol.56:161 October 2003
Stanford Law Review
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