Sterilization

Social Darwinism and the Eugenics Movement Social Darwinism is the belief of natural selection that applies to social organizations and to individuals in society. The ones who were better suited would be well developed while those that were poorly adapted would suffer, this was Social Darwinism. Social Darwinism was created in the late nineteenth century. It was a highly developed movement that was involved with the theory of evolution. However, the theory was mainly based from the work of…

case during 1920's, is concreted to be one of the worst rulings of the Supreme Court in the history of American law. During the 1920’s court case in Virginia, the Supreme Court supported sterilization of so-called mental defectives or imbeciles American’s. The First person who was reported to undergo sterilization was a young poor woman by the name of Carrie Buck. According to the Buck v. Bail video Carrie Buck was confined in the Virginia State colony for the epileptics and the feeble-minded…

Mental health is coming to awareness in recent years around the United States; however, mental health diagnoses have been present throughout human existence. Not only has mental health been in existence since human beings, but also racism has haunted minorities in negative ways. This short essay will trace the history of mental health, since 1900’s in the United States to some of the recent studies addressing minorities in mental health. Tracing the history of mental health there is an…

In 1985, Brazil had an estimated population of women, at reproductive age, of 40 million . Of that 40 million, an estimated 11 million women had undergone a sterilization procedure, leaving them unable to bear children. A rapid rise in sterilization occurred in the early 1970s and has maintained popularity to modern day. Many women undergoing the procedure were victims of the educational and political system’s failures. Education surrounding contraceptive methods was rare and the Brazilian…

sexual reproduction and sterilization. The IQ Test became the chief measurement psychologists used to deem blacks and other minority groups as less-desired and intellectually inferior. It was the fear that the inferior groups were reproducing too fast that prompted the Eugenics based practice of compulsory sterilization with the aim to improve society by eliminating its socially inadequate members. A plan to remedy race degeneration of the superior stock by sterilization of the inferior groups…

Washington State had a sterilization program that started in the 1900s. In 1909, a sterilization law was passed that allowed a person to be sterilized if they were involved in pedophilia with a female under age ten, or were guilty of rape. Under this law, sterilization was rare. However, this changed with a new and more general law passed in 1921. This law allowed sterilizations to be performed on people who were considered “feeble minded, insane, epileptic, habitual criminals, moral degenerates…

She was not married, but did have a child. Her mother Emma, had been enrolled into an Asylum, The Virginia Colony, for the epileptic and feebleminded. State laws of sterilization in virginia lasted between 1924 and 1979, and over 7000 people had been sterilized. Officials at the Virginia Colony said that Carrie inherited the same traits her mother had of feeblemindedness and promiscuity. To people who believed those traits…

attention when reading through the articles were the eugenic sterilization laws. You can really generate an idea of how harsh these laws were by the statement Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes dispensed of how “three generations of imbeciles were enough” (Kevles, 10) during the Buck v. Bell Supreme Court case in 1927. What is even more shocking was learning that two-dozen states during this time period had endorsed laws that permitted the sterilization of such peoples. We look down on Germany for…

It is undeniable that Psychology’s involvement in Eugenics is not considered one of its high points. The exact definition has been debated upon since the term was coined by Francis Galton. The core of the term deals with the idea that “eminent men have eminent sons” and that “individual greatness or genius occurred within families far too often to be explained solely by environmental influences”(115). Ethically speaking, Eugenics should have been quickly defamed; however, its long term impact…

forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in” (Psalms). Isaiah 1:17, “Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow” (Isaiah). I, Emily Kennedy, will prove to my fellow classmates that mandatory sterilization of unfit mothers should be legal for Mrs. Steffey’s English Language and Composition final. After personally witnessing three innocent children being abandoned by their mother, I was compelled to fight for all children and to learn more…