User:Macrofishe/Carrie Buck

This was already there:

"Paul A. Lombardo, a Professor of Law at Georgia State University, spent almost 25 years researching the Buck v. Bell case. He searched through case records and the papers of the lawyers involved in the case. Lombardo eventually found Carrie Buck and was able to interview her shortly before her death. Lombardo has alleged that several people had manufactured evidence to make the state's case against Carrie Buck, and that Buck was actually of normal intelligence. Professor Lombardo was one of the few people who attended Carrie Buck's funeral≤.

''A historical marker was erected on May 2, 2002, in Charlottesville, Virginia, where Carrie Buck was born. At that time, Virginia Governor Mark R. Warner offered the "Commonwealth's sincere apology for Virginia's participation in eugenics.""''

Buck v Bell played a critical role in the eugenics movement in the United States. Since Carrie Buck was the first person forcibly sterilized under the 1924 Virginia Eugenical Sterilization Act (which allowed for the sexual sterilization of inmates in state institutions) her case set the precedent for sterilizing over 60,000 people. The Buck v Bell case added legitimacy to eugenic based sterilization and legal precedent under the argument of reducing genetic inferiority and looking out for the common welfare. This case also meant that future court cases now were affected by the precedent set by Buck v Bell. In fact, the case further inspired and spread the eugenics movement.

Prior to the ruling, there were no legally sanctioned eugenic based sterilizations in Virginia, yet a decade after Buck v Bell more than 1,000 sterilizations with eugenics as their driving reason were performed with little to no explanation. Meaning that after this case eugenics and sterilization establish a significant foothold socially, legally and in practice. It spread across the U.S., going so far as to have nine states introduce their first eugenic based statutes and sterilization laws in 1929, including Mississippi, Arizona, and Maine. By 1931, twenty eight states had authorized eugenic sterilization.

After 1927, the gender balance of the numbers of people being sterilized shifted from mostly men to a 67% majority of females being sterilized. Many of the women were only deemed inferior and then admitted for sterilization and then released post sterilization. A majority of the sterilizations were poverty or social class based. The majority of sterilized women were lower class and impoverished people like Carrie Buck, and as a result their sterilizations were referred to as "Mississippi appendectomies" because it was so common and often done without telling them.

This court decision not only influenced many of the U.S. states to adopt eugenics based sterilization but the idea spread to Europe in the 1930s -- going so far as to bring praise from Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany was inspired by the U.S.' practices and laws, leading them to develop their Hereditary Health Courts, which judged who should or shouldn't be sterilized, it also inspired their Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring, 1933. Nazi Germany was so inspired by the American eugenic laws that Otto Hofmann, who was charged with mass sterilization and tried in the Nuremberg Trials, cited both American eugenic laws and the Buck v Bell court case to defend of his actions.

In addition to inspiring Nazi Germany's sterilization practices, the eugenics laws and practices of the U.S. inspired anti-immigration sentiments and arguments. The Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 was intended to reduce and stop the immigration of immigrants who were determined to be genetically inferior, or considered feebleminded -- thus ensuring the eugenic principle of keeping American more pure and un-impacted from genetically inferior persons.