Picture of Carrie Buck and her mother
The United States sterilized males and females who were "imbeciles" or "insane" and believed that if they didn't sterilize these people, they would become a "menace" in society. After these people were sterilized, it was believed that they would eventually become self-sufficient and the procedure would improve the individual, and their contribution to society. In addition, they thought stupidity, insanity, and other mental defects were hereditary, and thus the government needed to sterilize people in order to prevent an individual from passing along the defect. The act of sterilization was permitted for inmates of specific, state supported, institutions, such as the State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble Minded: the institution where Carrie Buck resided. If the individual in charge of the institution or colony believed an inmate should be sterilized because of their negative contribution to society and the lives of the inmates around them, he or she could petition it to the board of the institution. Following this, a hearing would be held with the inmate and their guardian (optional) present. The court would present the evidence and then the board would make a decision whether they were in support of the operation or not. After they have made their decision, the guardian, inmate, or the overseer of the institution could appeal to the Circuit Court of the County. The court could then change the decision after carefully looking over evidence and other information because, "the rights of the patient are most carefully considered", and they wouldn't want to wrongfully sterilize someone.
During this time, the government's thoughts about the process of sterilization can be summed up in this quote: "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 addition, the government believed this process was "restricted" to those in institutions, almost as if they were sad they couldn't sterilize all dumb citizens in the United States....
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/200
Thanks for the post Kaya! I was kind of horrified by the idea that the United States would do something like this, so I looked up forced sterilization and its role in modern society.
ReplyDeleteCalifornia actually had a huge amount of sterilization procedures, accounting for over a third of the total procedures carried out in the US in the 1900s. In September of this year, the state passed a law banning sterilization in correctional facilities unless it would be necessary to save an inmate's life. While Buck v. Bell has never been overturned, systematic or widespread forced sterilization is now considered a Crime against Humanity by the International Criminal Court Statute. In May of this year, a report was released by the World Health Organization and UNICEF, among others, focusing on the elimination of involuntary sterilization.
Thanks for this information Kaya! I was actually planning on looking up this case because I was also interested when it was mentioned in class, but thanks to your post I didn't have too!
ReplyDeleteI was wondering how the extent of these forced sterilizations in the United States compared to those in Nazi Germany. Believe it or not, before Hitler rose to power the United States had the most forced sterilizations in the world. However, Hitler took forced sterilizations to a measure that seriously exceeded those implemented in the United States. Starting in January of 1934, an approximated 300,000 to 400,000 were castrated under the "Sterilization Law." The majority of sterilizations were due to "feeblemindedness," with schizophrenia and epilepsy also resulting in a sizable amount. Of course it's no shock that Nazi Germany had a policy for forced sterilizations; after all Hitler's main goal was to "purify the human race." Does anyone know if Mussolini or Stalin, the other main dictators at this time period, enforced involuntary sterilizations in Italy or Russia? Let me know!
I've looked for awhile now, and I can't find anything about Mussolini or Stalin's sterilization programs. The only thing I can find about forced sterilization in Russia was in 2008, which was obviously nowhere near Stalin's time.
DeleteSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization#Russia
I just found a source that says Mussolini was never committed to eugenics or selective breeding because he believed in the value of every Italian. He believed that he just needed to "wake them up" and their natural talents as "poets, artists, heroes, saints, thinkers, scientists, explorers, and transmigrants" would show itself.
DeleteSource: http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/10/mussolinis-new-fascist-man/
Yeah same as Daniel said, but I guess we could possibly relate it to the one-child policy that is currently still occurring in child. Both of these restrict people from making the decision of whether or not they can have a child, although I suppose in this case China at least gives you the option of having one (how generous). Although recently a province in eastern china has decided to ease the policy and allow for people to have two children, if one parent is an only child.
Deletehttp://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/17/us-china-onechild-idUSBREA0G0J220140117
possibly an interesting topic that correlates with this would be to see if during the times of legal sterilization, how rapidly this caused the U.S. population to age and what effect it had on the population and economy. I assume it didn't harm the population and productivity too badly, since it was limited to individuals who were incompetent/insane, but maybe there were more idiotic people in the U.S. than I'm thinking. It's crazy to think what the U.S. would have been like if they had allowed for the expansion of sterilization, rather than just the incompetent...
DeleteDid this have anything to do with the idea of Social Darwinism at the time? If so, how far were the government and the people of America willing to go to uphold the ideas of Social Darwinism? Everyone makes mistakes in life and the idea of getting rid of them because they made a mistake is just awful. Also, the fact that people would label people as "imbeciles" and "feeble minded" and "in need of sterilization" is just sickening. I read in another article that Dr. Albert Sidney petitioned to sterilize Carrie Buck, age 18, September 10, 1924, on account that she had the mental capacity of an 8 year old. Her mother, age 52, was also accused of possessing the mental capacity of an 8 year old and had a record of prostitution and "immorality." She had 3 children without good knowledge of who fathered them, and one of these children was Carrie Buck. Carrie was adopted, but eventually her adoptive family deemed her "feeble minded" and handed her over to State Colony. Carrie Buck became pregnant after her adoptive mother's nephew had raped her, but he escaped sterilization. Later, in the Nuremberg Trials after WWII, Nazi doctors used the Buck vs. Belle case as part of their defense. This is so messed up on so many levels. I wonder how this incident affected Carrie Buck and whether she was able to live a normal-ish life afterwards.
ReplyDeleteGreat look at the legislative process behind the Buck vs. Bell trial! The main thing I have taken away from this incident is the extremity that the idea of Social Darwinism had reached (to kind of answer Katherine up there ^). The capitalistic ideals of the 1920s (creating prosperity for oneself, allowing the weak to be eliminated naturally through their inability to succeed in business, letting business run unfettered trusting it to become the most pure and prosperous it could be over time), didn't just disappear with the Depression. If anything they seemed to spread into different aspects of life. Now institutions saw it as their right, even duty, to sterilize those they deemed of having undesirable qualities, to prevent them from passing these qualities on. Essentially these institutions began the practice of breeding humans. This gives an almost literal sense to the idea of Social Darwinism, except the selection here is not natural at all. Like qualities of viciousness were bred out of dogs, they wished to breed flaws out of humanity. These practices were frighteningly not far from the concepts driving many genocides, kill the "weak" so that they don't continue to "taint" the human race.
ReplyDelete