Buck Vs Bell

The Queen vs. Davis case concerns the murder trial of Arthur Paul Davis and Alice Davis that occurred in 1875. In it, they were tried and convicted of murder for conducting an abortion; the killing of a fetus and subsequently causing death of the victims, Catherine Laing and Jane Vaughn Gilmour. This essay will examine the historical context of the case, what the trial reveals about the nature of women’s lives in Toronto during the 1870s as subordinate women who are deemed as caretakers and how women managed to end unwanted pregnancies. During the late 19th century ending an unwanted pregnancy was an illegal offence because it was considered unethical to kill a fetus. Women were not able to access safer alternatives such as

In the news article “Abortion: Every Woman’s Rights” Sharon Smith wrote an article about women’s rights to get abortions prior to the hearing of the Planned Parenthood v. Casey court case, “which threatened to severely restrict women access to abortion” (Smith). Women wanted reproductive control over their lives and felt that they were not equal to men no matter what advances they got at work and how high their level of education was. The women’s right movement wanted women to have the choice of abortion for all women, the rich and the poor. In the US, thirty- seven states did not provide

Professor James Mohr argues that the purpose of statutes like Kansas was to protect women. Abortions during this period were extremely dangerous. This was especially true with intrusive abortions like the one used in the Wilcox case. The large number of prosecutions brought because of the woman’s death seems to suggest that one of the goals was to protect women from the very deadly procedure. Furthermore, during this time, feminists believed that abortion was a crime done by men against woman and were generally opposed to the practice. An 1867 Kansas op-ed in favor of woman’s suffrage, said that when it came to the offense of abortion, “the victims are also women.” Which is supported by the fact that women were often pressured or coerced into abortions by their husbands or

In contrast to the "negative" eugenics position of the state of Virginia, involuntary sterilization laws emphasizing breeding restrictions for society's "unfit" neither benefit the welfare of the individual nor that of society for several moral and legal reasons. The legal validity of these involuntary sterilization laws would be challenged within the Supreme Court case of Buck v. Bell. In September of 1924, at the age of eighteen, Carrie Buck, an illegitimate daughter of an allegedly feebleminded woman, was admitted to the Virginia's State Colony for Epileptics and the Feebleminded. Six months earlier, the Virginia State Legislature decisively passed their involuntary sterilization bill authorizing the Superintendents of five state institutions to petition for the permission to sterilize inmates. Buck, who had a mental age of nine and an I.Q. of about fifty, had already given birth to an illegitimate child herself, who was allegedly feebleminded as well. At the time, the Superintendent of the State Colony, Dr. A. S. Priddy, petitioned for permission to sterilize this woman for fear that Buck would have more mentally defective children. The statute had provided that each Superintendent needed to receive permission from a special Board of Directors of that institution, who would hear the grounds for sterilization and determine whether or not to follow through on the operation. Priddy faced immense pressure from state officials to petition for sterilization, as

Later the Circuit Court had supported the law and filed for the sterilization of Carrie. In 1925 Carrie’s lawyer Irving Whitehead supported the decision of the Circuit Court at the Supreme Court of Appeals of the State of Virginia. So after all of this Dr. Priddy had passed away in which Dr. J.H. Bell had replaced him at the Colony. The case now became Buck v. Bell; Dr. Bell had sterilized Carrie in 1927 which then was released from the Colony (Buck v. Bell, 2006).

The early twentieth century was a turning point in American history-especially in regards to the acquisition of women's rights. While the era was considered to be prosperous and later thought to be a happy-go-lucky time, in actuality, it was a time of grave social conflict and human suffering (Parish, 110). Among those who endured much suffering were women. As Margaret Sanger found out, women, especially those who were poor, had no choice regarding pregnancy. The only way not to get pregnant was by not having sex- a choice that was almost always the husband's. This was even more true in the case of lower-class men for whom, 'sex was the poor man's only luxury' (Douglas, 31). As a nurse who assisted in delivering

The Mississippi Appendectomy study started taking place in the 1920’s. The experiment consisted of excessive hysterectomies on many women mainly in the Deep South. Poor Black women were the main focus of the experiments as well as disabled women and women that the physicians thought were not worthy of reproducing. Young, less experienced doctors were told to perform the sterilization process so that they had “a chance to practice the procedure” (50). The experiment was unnecessary and served no true, ethical purpose. The doctors believed it was in order to perform the hysterectomies because the women seemed unfit to have children and to give the younger surgeons practice. In detail, while the women were having an appendectomy (removal of the appendix), the doctors would perform the hysterectomies which were unrelated to the problem with the patients appendix. Therefore, the hysterectomies were uncalled for since the women had no knowledge of the additional procedure and didn’t give consent (University of Maryland, “Mississippi Appendectomy”, par. 1). These procedures resulted in the women deprived of their right to reproduce and no significant benefits to science. The Mississippi Appendectomy had no significant effect on medical history either since no major laws

The case was filed anyway with the agreement that the 1859 Texas abortion law violated a women’s constitutional right to have an abortion. The attorneys in the case were Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee who represented the plaintiff and John Tolle and Jay Floyd were chosen to represent the defendant; Tolle was selected to defend the enforcement of the Texas abortion law and

Sterilization legislature was enacted on the state level with the goal of physically preventing the procreation of individuals deemed to be unfit, mainly handicapped persons or criminals. Though the nature of these laws did not outright target certain races or social classes, a disproportionate amount of the individuals sterilized were non-white or of immigrant background. Prominent eugenicists and eugenic organizations in the U.S. played a key role in lobbying for state sterilization laws. Harry H. Laughlin, superintendent of the Eugenics Record Office, drafted the American Model Eugenical Sterilization Law in 1922, which served as a model for many sterilizations laws in the states (Berenbaum, 1998). By 1926, 23 states had passed sterilization laws that were voluntary and/or involuntary in nature (Sofair, 2000). Laughlin and other eugenicists called for the sterilization of institutionalized individuals under the assertion that their “genetically inferior” traits would be passed to their progeny and be an economic drain on the state. Many states complied, and by 1935 over 30 states had some form of sterilization law with over 21,000 compulsory sterilizations performed (Allen 1997). Though the eugenic nature of these laws was stressed by eugenicists, it was acknowledged that the political support of such laws were greatly financially motivated. Another important legislation passed by the U.S. was the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, which was the first immigration quota

     In 1970, Norma McCorvey, a single and pregnant woman in Texas wanted to get an abortion. The state laws of Texas at that time stated that it was illegal to have an abortion in Texas. Even though the state told her that she could go to one of the four states in which abortion was legal to have the procedure done, she decided that she could not afford to travel to another state to receive the procedure. Norma McCorvey decided that she would sue the state of Texas, claiming that her

In the state of Kansas between 1913 and 1961, Kansas practiced forced sterilization on mentally unstable women.” In addition to laws regarding sterilization, several marriage restriction bills were proposed in Kansas as part of the eugenics movement. Although they were never enacted as state law, marriage bills were proposed in 1915, 1917, and 1927, demonstrating the popularity of eugenic ideals.” (University of Vermont…Kansas). Dr. F. Hoyt Pilcher performed 150 sterilization in the Kansas State Home of the Feebleminded. Between the years 1913 and 1916 there were 1,274 women sterilized in Kansas. In the year 1921, sterilization in Kansas was at its all-time lowest. Between the years 1950 and 1963, sterilization in Kansas was at its peak. It is

Abortions were looked down upon in the 1920s. The short story “Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway is based on code hero. The hero who follows this code must show displays of courage, pride, endurance, and not complaining about an issue. After Ernest Hemingway’s mother dominated his father, he killed himself, Hemingway developed an issue with women making them the cruel people of his stories and the men the heroes. Most of the short stories that Hemingway wrote were based off men following the code, but in this short story, the woman named Jig follows the code. The girl, Jig, follows the hero code “grace under pressure” by not having an abortion, which is evidenced in the symbols of train tracks, beaded

Buck has many problems on his journey. In The Call Of The Wild Buck had to deal with being sold by Judge Miller. He was sold into a harsh life and overcame that. My dad was a very helpful person when he was younger, because his family was poor and he overcame being poor by working to put food on the table. From time to time Buck and my dad are similar in many ways because my dad was in a poor family and he had to help put food on the table, in the same way as Buck was pressured to pull the 1000 pounds, to help John with winning the money. There are many situations in life that you have to persevere through and like I showed you my dad and Buck persevered through many tough situations.

Sterilization "on eugenic grounds" (Lombardo 1) was not legalized until 1907 in Indiana, but doctors across the nation practiced the procedure illegally before even then. Generally, the patient didn't know about the sterilization until after the act was done, at which point they were informed of their "feeblemindedness" or other social disorder. Within 17 years of the law being instated, a recorded 3000 people were sterilized, and thousands more suspected off the record. The range of reasons for being sterilized was infinite, ranging from genuine mental disorders such as schizophrenia, to things as pointless as "excessive masturbation" (Selden

President Theodore Roosevelt wrote, “it is obvious that if in the future racial qualities are to be improved, the improving must be wrought mainly by favoring the fecundity of the worthy types” (Chase, p.15). In 1907 Indiana was the first state to establish such law. Within the next thirty years about 27 other states also had laws. Over 60,000 sterilizations were preformed in America by 1964. In 1896, Connecticut passed the first law prohibiting marriage on eugenic grounds. Funds from Carnegie and Rockefeller prompted Davenport to promote eugenics nation wide. In 1914 his partner, Harry Laughlin, published a model eugenics law. This model law called for legalized sterilization for the "socially inadequate" (those supported in part or entirely at