On this date in History ... March 9, 1907:
Indiana becomes the first state to pass
sterilization legislation for the purpose of eugenics (the practice of “improving the genetic population”).
The law targeted “confirmed
criminals, idiots, imbeciles, and rapists”.
When this law was struck down in
1921 by the Indiana State Supreme Court, a second law was passed in 1927 which
limited the procedure to “Insane, feeble minded or epileptic”, indicating a
move from sterilizing the mentally ill and criminals to only the mentally ill.
The laws were designed to target those in state institutions, not the general
public. They were repealed in 1974. Between 1907 and 1974, about 2500 of these
procedures were carried out.
(See also May 2, 2013 and May 9, 2013 postings for additional eugenics history in Indiana.)
On this date in History .... 1927:
“Three generations of imbeciles are enough!”
Those
were the famous words of Justice
Oliver Wendall Holmes when the Supreme Court decided the case of Buck v. Bell,
ruling that eugenics laws (laws permitting sterilization) of the unfit,
“including the mentally retarded” did not violate the Due Process clause of the
14th amendment, upholding as constitutional Virginia’s compulsory sterilization of young women
considered “unfit to continue their kind.” The decision has been viewed as “the attempt to improve the human race by
eliminating ‘defectives’ from the gene pool.”
The mother, daughter and granddaughter in this case were considered
“feeble-minded and promiscuous” and the court accepted that as reason for
sterilization. It has been since argued
that Carrie Buck was not “feeble-minded” but was put away to hide the scandal
of having been raped by her adoptive mother’s nephew and was instead labeled as
promiscuous when she ended up pregnant.
(Watch for my May 9th post with more background on the eugenics topic.)
