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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBuck v Bell: The Supreme Court Case That Fueled the Eugenics Movement
There was nothing wrong with Carrie Buck. Nonetheless, several well-respected men had a tremendous interest in proving that there was. Harry Laughlin, director of the Eugenics Record Office, who had never met Carrie, swore that she was an immoral, lying prostitute. Aubrey Strode, a former Virginia legislator, who authored the Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924, argued in front of the Supreme Court that Carrie's reproductive capabilities needed to be taken away. Although it was of very little interest to anyone at the time, Carries harrowing experience in the spotlight stemmed primarily from circumstances out of her control.
Carrie Buck, born in 1906, grew up as the daughter of a desperately impoverished single mother before becoming the foster child of a well-off couple. She was taken out of school after the sixth grade to work full time cleaning the houses of well-to-do families. Carrie was raped at the age of 16 by her foster mothers nephew, becoming pregnant as a result. Her foster parents reacted viciously and had Carrie declared mentally incompetent and sent to the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-minded. The colony was created as a result of the burgeoning eugenics movement and sought to segregate those who were seen as genetically inferior so that their defects might be kept from spreading through reproduction.
The American eugenics movement exploded onto the political scene in the early 20th century, promising, in the words of breakfast cereal magnate and ardent eugenicist John Harvey Kellogg, a new and glorified human race which sometime, far down in the future, will have so mastered the forces of nature that disease and degeneracy will have been eliminated. If the genetically inferior could be taken out of the equation, the belief went, this utopian future could be achieved. The evidentiary foundations of the eugenics movement were rather ludicrous and pseudo-scientific, but nonetheless, counted Americans such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson among its supporters.
- Snip -
That is how Carrie Buck found her case in front of the Supreme Court, where men argued whether or not they would allow her to have more children. Irving Whitehead, who served as Carries defense attorney, had been childhood friends with Aubrey Strode (who was arguing in favor of having Carrie sterilized) and formerly served on the board of the Virginia colony. Carrie, clearly without adequate legal representation, found herself on the losing side of an 8-1 vote of the highest court, in a case designated Buck v. Bell. (Priddy died during the court battle and the case took the name of his successor.) Writing for the majority, Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. offered a bone-chilling justification: It is better for all the world if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. In a reference to Carries mother and daughter, Holmes opined, Three generations of imbeciles are enough.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/buck-v-bell-the-supreme-court-case-that-fueled-the-eugenics-movement/ar-AAOFbaQ?li=BBnb7Kz
Carrie Buck, born in 1906, grew up as the daughter of a desperately impoverished single mother before becoming the foster child of a well-off couple. She was taken out of school after the sixth grade to work full time cleaning the houses of well-to-do families. Carrie was raped at the age of 16 by her foster mothers nephew, becoming pregnant as a result. Her foster parents reacted viciously and had Carrie declared mentally incompetent and sent to the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-minded. The colony was created as a result of the burgeoning eugenics movement and sought to segregate those who were seen as genetically inferior so that their defects might be kept from spreading through reproduction.
The American eugenics movement exploded onto the political scene in the early 20th century, promising, in the words of breakfast cereal magnate and ardent eugenicist John Harvey Kellogg, a new and glorified human race which sometime, far down in the future, will have so mastered the forces of nature that disease and degeneracy will have been eliminated. If the genetically inferior could be taken out of the equation, the belief went, this utopian future could be achieved. The evidentiary foundations of the eugenics movement were rather ludicrous and pseudo-scientific, but nonetheless, counted Americans such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson among its supporters.
- Snip -
That is how Carrie Buck found her case in front of the Supreme Court, where men argued whether or not they would allow her to have more children. Irving Whitehead, who served as Carries defense attorney, had been childhood friends with Aubrey Strode (who was arguing in favor of having Carrie sterilized) and formerly served on the board of the Virginia colony. Carrie, clearly without adequate legal representation, found herself on the losing side of an 8-1 vote of the highest court, in a case designated Buck v. Bell. (Priddy died during the court battle and the case took the name of his successor.) Writing for the majority, Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. offered a bone-chilling justification: It is better for all the world if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. In a reference to Carries mother and daughter, Holmes opined, Three generations of imbeciles are enough.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/buck-v-bell-the-supreme-court-case-that-fueled-the-eugenics-movement/ar-AAOFbaQ?li=BBnb7Kz
Interesting read. Horrific premise and outcome.
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