Case Study: Buck V. Bell

Should the United States Supreme Court have the right to decide who is considered socially unfit to participate in the life cycle of reproduction? On May 2nd, 1927, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the majority opinion that did just that. He stated that people with mental disabilities pose a threat to society due to the fact that mental challenges are genetically passed on to offspring. (Cynkar 1981). In the legal case Buck vs. Bell, the United States Supreme Court mandated a sterilization act for all “imbeciles” in society to help decrease the numbers that were already prevalent (Cynkar 1981). Sterilization acts affected not only the United States, but also many countries around the world. This single iconic court case, Buck vs. Bell, incorporated a group of difficult legal and social dilemmas that America still struggles with today. Bell and his lawyer supported the disenfranchisement of the mentally disabled as a strategy to support the greater public good, while Buck and her lawyer fought for the right to due

As previously mentioned, the Supreme Court case of Buck vs. Bell in 1927 was a lawsuit that entailed state-enforced eugenic sterilization for individuals regarded feebleminded or somehow genetically substandard. Carrie Buck, the plaintiff, together with her mother had been devoted to the Virginia Colony of Epileptics and Feeble Minded in Virginia (Eugenics Archive, n.d.). The two were judged to be genetically inferior or feebleminded and immoral since they had children out of wedlock. Moreover, Carrie Buck’s child

The Oxford University Press defines eugenics as “the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics” with a further—and rather illuminating—explanation which states, “Developed largely by Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, it fell into disfavor only after the perversion of its doctrines by the Nazis”.

Eugenics came from an era where Social Darwinism was used to explain many social inequalities. Social Darwinism was created by Herbert Spencer and was based off of the work by Charles Darwin. Darwinism contains the ideas of survival of the fittest and the capability of an individual to survive in an environment. Spencer took Darwin’s idea and applied it to society, and explained that social inequalities came from the fact that the wealthy are genetically wired to be better off. Eugenicists noticed that government money was being funded towards the poor and degenerates. They didn’t understand this and they believed it was a waste of money because those people were destined to be impoverished. Eugenicists believed sterilization was the solution. Eugenicists believed anyone with the traits of poverty, feeble-mindedness-including manic depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism, rebelliousness, criminality, nomadness, and prostitution in their lives should be sterilized. Before WWII, eugenics was very popular in the United States. People such as Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were in support of eugenics. They both supported the sterilization of the feeble minded and insane, but did not support the killing of these people. Once Hitler’s atrocities had been discovered, the eugenics movement had a large decrease in popularity

The Buck v. Bell case began when Carrie Buck was seventeen and claimed that she was raped by J.T. and Alice Dobbs son and turn out to be pregnant. So when that happened a test revealed that Carrie had da mind of a nine year old which was consider being feeblemindedness. Her mother was also tested and considered to be feeblemindedness because her test revealed that she had the mind of an eight year old. Carrie and her mother were sent to the Colony for the Epileptic and Feebleminded (Buck v. Bell, 2006).

Beginning in the late 19th century, eugenics was a social and health reform movement aimed at refining the genetic quality of the human population. Although the apparent goal of the movement was improving the human race, a desire to preserve white middle and upper class power also existed. This is evident in the policies implemented, as the unfit were confined to institutions and stringent marriage laws were established. Even more aggressive measures were applied in the Progressive Era. As immigration increased and the birthrate of Anglo-Americans declined in the 20th century, compulsory sterilization of the unfit was constructed to combat the threatened merit of society.

Although now considered illegal in the United States, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting, “Nearly 150 female inmates were sterilized between 2006 and 2010” (Schwarz) by force in a California prison. Also, now a days, with the advancements in technology, parents are not only able to get a full DNA testing on themselves to see if they carry a mutation that their child could have, but doctors are able to examine the babies that are in the womb, and check for abnormalities. The idea that the “second age of eugenics” (Entine) is occurring, is being debated. If parents knew they would have a child with an abnormality, would they still have one? Would it help decrease the population of people with mental or physical issues?

Eugenics is the social construction of the human race by controlling reproduction. “Reducing the number of unfit people the term refers to the effort to improve a human population by either encouraging the reproduction of desired traits or preventing the reproduction of undesirable one” (Bethel University). The eugenics movement in America support laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage, family planning, sterilization of the poor, disabled and education about human reproduction. They are in favor of reproduction among those thought to be the most genetically fit with characteristics such as hardworking, intelligent and physically fit. On the other had the movement discourage reproduction of the unfit considered to have

The Idea of eugenics became popular and moved forward in the United Sates during the 1920 for several reasons. The first being the disconnection to Europe; the United States did not have a connection to what was occurring in Europe with Nazi concentration camps. The idea and popularity of eugenics also pre dates those events. It wasn’t till World War II that the United States then lost some of its belief in eugenics.

There are many things that have happened behind closed doors in our great nation. In fact, even today with all the technology and possibilities to learn, the people of this nation still fall ignorant. We don’t know the evils that occur in our nation, not to mention the ideas and blueprints that caused them to come to action. There are many great sins that have been committed, and currently in the process of committing, of these I believe Eugenics to be one of the most abominable. How did eugenics start, where does it come from and who authored and supported it? I hope to delve into this during this essay.

Future eugenicists can extort their knowledge and use it to their advantage. Eugenics is an interesting subject that is co-dependent on society; the future holds great possibilities for acknowledgment in this field of science.

Eugenics is a taboo science, but back in 1883 it was a modern advancement, discovered by Francis Galton (Carlson). Galton’s original mission was to improve humanity by encouraging the best and healthiest couples to simply have more children; Galton created positive eugenics (Carlson). However, with the positive comes the inevitable negative. Negative Eugenics was more set on preventing the least able from reproducing, in order to preserve the fitness of the

The idea of eugenics was first introduced by Sir Francis Galton, who believed that the breeding of two wealthy and successful members of society would produce a child superior to that of two members of the lower class. This assumption was based on the idea that genes for success or particular excellence were present in our DNA, which is passed from parent to child. Despite the blatant lack of research, two men, Georges Vacher de Lapouge and Jon Alfred Mjoen, played to the white supremacists' desires and claimed that white genes were inherently superior to other races, and with this base formed the first eugenics society. The American Eugenics Movement attempted to unethically obliterate the rising tide of lower classes by immorally

Just think about a human race free of genetic disease where everyone is intelligent and where society and technology advance at staggering rates. This is the future that is envisioned by those who advocate eugenics. Eugenics is the study of methods to improve the human race by selection of parents based on their inherited characteristics (Hartl). The idea was first discussed by Sir Francis Galton in the 1880’s, but was widely unaccepted by people at first due to fear that it would take away their basic human rights and be misused (Hartl). In the early 20th century, eugenics was a very popular and widespread idea in the United States and there were laws created to encourage certain people to have children, while discouraging others from procreating (Morris 66). The main reason eugenics has fell into such disfavor is because the Nazis cited it as the reason for the Holocaust (Morris 66). The use of eugenics by the Nazis can be compared to the use Islam by ISIS, or the use of Christianity by the Westboro Baptist Church. It is a concept that can be misused based on interpretation and extremism. Eugenics itself is just an idea to improve the human race by selective breeding, not by killing millions. Forms of eugenics should be implemented in society because they eliminate genetic diseases and problems, spread favorable traits and attributes, create a more intelligent and less flawed society, and help advance the human race as a whole.

The roots of eugenics can be traced back to Britain in the early 1880’s when Sir Francis Galton generated the term from the Greek word for “well-born”. He defined eugenics as the science of improving stock, whether human or animal. According to the American Eugenics Movement, today’s study of eugenics has many similarities to studies done in the early 20th century. Back then, “Eugenics was, quite literally, an effort to breed better human beings – by encouraging the reproduction of people with "good" genes and discouraging those with "bad" genes.” (www.eugenicsarchive.org) According to Merriam-Webster, the modern day definition of eugenics is, a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of