Buck versus Bell Essay example -- Supreme Court Sterilization Essays

Buck versus Bell During the early twentieth century, the United States was enduring significant social and economic changes due to its renewal into a commercial and industrial world power. As the need for crunch escalated within many urban areas, millions of Europeans emigrated from Southern and Eastern Europe with the hopes of capitalizing upon these commerce opportunities and attaining a better life. Simultaneously, many African-Americans migrated from the rural South into major cities, head the same intentions as those of the European immigrants. The presence of these minority groups generated both racial and class fears within white middle and upper class Americans. The fiery ethnocentrism resulting from these fears, coupled with the Social Darwinist concepts of Herbert Spencer, would ultimately spur the American eugenics movement. Originating from the theories of Sir Francis Galton, the cousin of Charles Darwin, eugenics is the lease of human heredity and genetic principle s for the purposes of improving the human race by limiting the proliferation of defective gene pools. Charles Davenport, the founding father of the American eugenics movement, was matchless of many elite Americans advocating for the incorporation of the ideals of this new science into society. The work of Davenport, which became know as eugenic principles, would not only have an impact on public education, but a legal impact as well. By 1931, thirty state legislatures had passed involuntary sterilization laws that targeted defective strains within the world-wide population, such as the blind, the deaf, the poor, and the feebleminded. Virginia, one of these states, held the position that involuntary sterilization would not only benefit the overal... ... People With noetic Disabilities Issues, Perspectives, and Cases (Westport CT Auburn House, 1995) 22. whole works CitedBuck v. Bell. 274 U.S. 200, 205. No. 292 US Supreme Ct. 1927.Brantlinger, Ellen. Sterilization of People Wit h Mental Disabilities Issues, Perspectives, and Cases. Westport CT Auburn House, 1995.Larson, Edward. Sex, Race, and Science Eugenics in the Deep South. Baltimore The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.Macklin, Ruth. Mental stave and Sterilization A Problem of Competency and Paternalism. New York Plenum Press, 1981.Reilly, Phillip. The Surgical solving A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States. Baltimore The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.Shapiro, Thomas. creation Control Politics Women, Sterilization, and Reproductive Choice. Philadelphia Temple University Press, 1985.