So…Just what is a eugenic? The dictionary defines it as “The Science for the improvement of hereditary qualities.” The U.S. Supreme Court said it was necessary for a “…society to prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.” Individuals were labeled 'degenerate’, ‘feeble-minded’ based on dirty clothing, or unkempt appearances, then they were sterilized.
By de Andréa
This is an example of a government program run amuck. This story not only exposes just how perverted government programs can get, but how governments skew and pervert the words that identify them, making them deceptively reasonable, throwing all moral values and humanity to the four winds.
Performing ‘any’ surgical procedure without the patient's consent in itself, should raise serious legal questions. But the U.S. Supreme Court, the Judicial branch of the Federal government that is charged with (would you believe) upholding the U.S. Constitution, illegally upheld forced sterilization in the 1927 case of Buck vs. Bell, which challenged Virginia's "race betterment" law.
Where perversion leads
The Nazi program of "race hygiene", under which some 2 million Germans were sterilized, came out of that very ruling the U.S. Supreme Court made upholding the eugenic serialization laws in the 1927.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, noted for his free-speech decisions, wrote a callous brain-dead opinion that approved the sterilization of Carrie Buck, a 17-year-old girl who was labeled as feeble-minded. Carrie Buck was not mentally retarded or abnormal in any way but was sterilized because she had a child out of wedlock, and was considered "morally delinquent.” Well she may have been delinquent, but is that a good reason to cause entire nations to become morally corrupt?
Holmes wrote that "instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for a crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind."
Encouraged by this ruling, sterilization advocates took their campaign abroad. The leading American eugenicist, Harry Laughlin, who never met Buck but testified at her court hearing that she was a "low-grade moron," helped to draft Hitler’s Nazi regime's "race hygiene" law, under which some 2 million Germans were sterilized.
It's time for California to make amends for one of the most horrific and shameful episodes in the state's history. Between 1909 and 1979, more than 20,000 people in California were robbed of their reproductive abilities through a state program of forced sterilization. Under the misleading guise of "race betterment," doctors at California's state hospitals sterilized those who were considered "unfit to propagate." I personally remember a sister-in-law of mine who had Downs Syndrome, and was serialized under the program. I remember at the time the family said it seemed like a good idea.
The origins of California's forced-sterilization program lie in the misnamed eugenics movement of the early 20th century. The term fundamentally means, "Good breeding", and stemmed from efforts to improve plant and livestock breeds. But those who believed that "degenerates" (anyone who was not quite as equal as they were, and the "feeble-minded" (one should take a closer look at just who was feeble minded here) should be prevented from having child[ren], the elite politicians launched campaigns for state laws to force the sterilization of people with such deficiencies.
By de Andréa
This is an example of a government program run amuck. This story not only exposes just how perverted government programs can get, but how governments skew and pervert the words that identify them, making them deceptively reasonable, throwing all moral values and humanity to the four winds.
Performing ‘any’ surgical procedure without the patient's consent in itself, should raise serious legal questions. But the U.S. Supreme Court, the Judicial branch of the Federal government that is charged with (would you believe) upholding the U.S. Constitution, illegally upheld forced sterilization in the 1927 case of Buck vs. Bell, which challenged Virginia's "race betterment" law.
Where perversion leads
The Nazi program of "race hygiene", under which some 2 million Germans were sterilized, came out of that very ruling the U.S. Supreme Court made upholding the eugenic serialization laws in the 1927.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, noted for his free-speech decisions, wrote a callous brain-dead opinion that approved the sterilization of Carrie Buck, a 17-year-old girl who was labeled as feeble-minded. Carrie Buck was not mentally retarded or abnormal in any way but was sterilized because she had a child out of wedlock, and was considered "morally delinquent.” Well she may have been delinquent, but is that a good reason to cause entire nations to become morally corrupt?
Holmes wrote that "instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for a crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind."
Encouraged by this ruling, sterilization advocates took their campaign abroad. The leading American eugenicist, Harry Laughlin, who never met Buck but testified at her court hearing that she was a "low-grade moron," helped to draft Hitler’s Nazi regime's "race hygiene" law, under which some 2 million Germans were sterilized.
It's time for California to make amends for one of the most horrific and shameful episodes in the state's history. Between 1909 and 1979, more than 20,000 people in California were robbed of their reproductive abilities through a state program of forced sterilization. Under the misleading guise of "race betterment," doctors at California's state hospitals sterilized those who were considered "unfit to propagate." I personally remember a sister-in-law of mine who had Downs Syndrome, and was serialized under the program. I remember at the time the family said it seemed like a good idea.
The origins of California's forced-sterilization program lie in the misnamed eugenics movement of the early 20th century. The term fundamentally means, "Good breeding", and stemmed from efforts to improve plant and livestock breeds. But those who believed that "degenerates" (anyone who was not quite as equal as they were, and the "feeble-minded" (one should take a closer look at just who was feeble minded here) should be prevented from having child[ren], the elite politicians launched campaigns for state laws to force the sterilization of people with such deficiencies.
In 1907, Indiana became the first state to pass a forced-sterilization law, and California followed suit in 1909. Thirty states ultimately enacted such laws, and some 64,000 people -- most of them poor, young women -- were subjected to the surgeon's knife without their consent.
In California, most involuntary sterilizations were performed on patients in state mental hospitals. More than half were diagnosed as manic- depressive or schizophrenic, when in truth most were simply "burdens" on state institutions.
In 1921, the director of the California Agnew State Hospital urged the sterilization of a female patient because she was "depressed" and "further pregnancies would be a hindrance for her remaining stable.” The state director of hospitals in the early 1920s, Dr. Frederick Hatch, sent dozens of "eugenics field workers" into poor neighborhoods, looking for sterilization candidates. One historian wrote of this program: "Individuals were labeled 'degenerate' or 'feeble-minded' based on dirty clothing or an unkempt appearance. Children were labeled 'imbecile' based on a glance from across the room."
California's longtime attorney general, U.S. Webb, urged sterilization for "inebriates, prostitutes, tramps, and habitual paupers found in our county poor-asylums.” The eugenics movement gradually lost influence, through scientific debunking of claims that "moral delinquency" was inherited and through revulsion at its Nazi connections. But the last forced-sterilization law was not repealed until 1979. In recent years, advocates for the mentally and physically disabled have begun redress campaigns for the victims of these laws.
During the last year, four governors have responded with apologies on their states' behalf. Last May, Virginia's governor, Mark Warner, expressed his "sincere apology" to the 8,000 victims of his states law and said, "the eugenics movement was a shameful effort in which state government never should have been involved." In December, then-Gov. John Kitzhaber of Oregon acknowledged the "great wrong" done in the name of eugenics to 2,600 "vulnerable, helpless citizens" of his state. The same month, Gov. Mike Easley of North Carolina said, "I deeply apologize to the victims and their families for this past injustice, and for the pain and suffering they had to endure over the years." Then-Gov. Jim Hodges of South Carolina issued the most recent state apology, on Jan. 8.
California sterilized more of its residents than these four states combined -- close to a third of the national total.
THE BOTTOM LINE: So what does one say about this early form of contraception? What, if any moral lesson could we gleen from this perverted Government program? Just how many brain-dead, warped minded, do-gooder programs are now in effect in our society with no attention paid to the long term effects of some of these perverted agendas?
Should we take a long look at abortion for example? The results being the murder of more than 50 million innocent Americans, and the resulting demise of yet another social program called Social Security because we are short 50 million workers to support the program. And then there are same sex marriage laws that will end reproduction altogether. How about the enforcement of Sharia law in U.S. courts… will we have the stoning of women in the street because they went to the supermarket without wearing their Hijaab, or because they were raped, or drove a car?
It seems that we will always find more ways to shoot ourselves in the foot than existed in the previous millennium.
Could it be that we don’t learn from history or maybe we don’t even know or care about our history? Maybe we just want to sweep it under the carpet like this ugly little part of history was.
Sweeping history under the carpet or outright covering it up doesn’t make it go away. It will always resurface years later as just another tragic, ignorant, stupid Government program.
And people become more and more caulis and blind until they lose their ability to see down the road…
de Andréa
California sterilized more of its residents than these four states combined -- close to a third of the national total.
THE BOTTOM LINE: So what does one say about this early form of contraception? What, if any moral lesson could we gleen from this perverted Government program? Just how many brain-dead, warped minded, do-gooder programs are now in effect in our society with no attention paid to the long term effects of some of these perverted agendas?
Should we take a long look at abortion for example? The results being the murder of more than 50 million innocent Americans, and the resulting demise of yet another social program called Social Security because we are short 50 million workers to support the program. And then there are same sex marriage laws that will end reproduction altogether. How about the enforcement of Sharia law in U.S. courts… will we have the stoning of women in the street because they went to the supermarket without wearing their Hijaab, or because they were raped, or drove a car?
It seems that we will always find more ways to shoot ourselves in the foot than existed in the previous millennium.
Could it be that we don’t learn from history or maybe we don’t even know or care about our history? Maybe we just want to sweep it under the carpet like this ugly little part of history was.
Sweeping history under the carpet or outright covering it up doesn’t make it go away. It will always resurface years later as just another tragic, ignorant, stupid Government program.
And people become more and more caulis and blind until they lose their ability to see down the road…
de Andréa
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment