Sterilization

such as this one would never happen. This story is also similar to those of women who received back alley abortions or even tried to abort fetuses themselves. Compulsive sterilization also falls into this category of abuse of personal space. In the book, Reproductive Politics, Rickie Solinger discusses how the procedure of sterilization was used as a punishment for criminals, and to “reduce the welfare burden” that poor women posed on the government. We spoke in class about how the reproductive…

institutionalized patient at the State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble Minded. The superintendent of her mental institution was ordered to perform a salpingectomy in her in order to make her sterile. Carrie challenged the local statute that allowed for the sterilization of the feeble minded and filed a suit against her superintendent. Buck argued that her rights as a U.S. citizen were being infringed upon, specifically her Fourteenth Amendment rights. The local statue was upheld in the county…

and the use of sterilization would save money. They believed that charity and welfare only treated the symptoms; eugenics sought to eliminate the disease. The following traits were seen as deteriorating to the gene pool to which the eugenicists were determined to eradicate: poverty, feeble-mindedness,…

Charles Darwin. Galton characterized the expression "eugenics” as the theory of hereditary improvement of the human race by selective breeding. The first state to present the sterilization bill was Michigan, in 1897, however the proposed law failed to pass. After eight years Pennsylvania's state legislators passed a sterilization bill that was vetoed by the governor. During the year of 1907 Indiana…

(Wikler, 1999). However, in Europe the word eugenics started to associate with the idea of racial hygiene. This concept was most likely to be found in the Nordic states of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden that started instituting compulsory sterilization programme from 1926 (Barnett, 2004). Francis Dalton a cousin of Darwin invented the term eugenics and the theories of human improvement. He launched a movement to improve the human race or at least try and stop its recognizable decline…

“Crimes against humanity” In Abby Mann’s play, Judgment at Nuremberg readers ask themselves if Janning really should be charged with crimes against humanity. Was he in fact the most cruel and devastating murderer and torturer, this world has ever seen? Or was he just doing his job for the love of his country? Jannings may have done what he thought was for the love of his country, but he most certainly committed crimes against humanity. Tragedies like the one that happened in Germany has…

Ethical treatment was a commodity of insight in the 1800’s. In the past, those who had mental conditions were naturally taken care of in harsh conducts. In the United States and Western Europe, doctors who treated the mentally insane began to promote better conduct for mental care. During the late nineteenth century, the confidence around moral conduct for mental health started to diminish. With the beginning of development in industry along with the rise of migration to the U.S., burdens were…

“experts” started to cultivate new ideas on how to restrict the ability to breed in people that had inferior traits (Introduction to Eugenics). Many ideas were imposed, but the most popular option became sterilizing, and soon over 30 states had sterilization programs online (Introduction to…

Why did the Law for Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Mental Illnesses become a law? What type of treatments did the people go through? What effects did it have on the patients, the people who performed the sterilizations/ surgeries, and local citizens? The Law for Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Mental Illnesses became a law because the Germans wanted a pure race. The treatments were brutal and the effects differed from the person’s view of the German race and what a part they…

since the eugenics movement of the early 20th century. This movement seeked to create a “master race” by improving genetic traits of humans through sterilization and selective breeding. There were laws set in place which forced people that were deemed “feeble minded” to be sterilized. These laws are long gone now as a result of a ban on sterilization laws from the United Nations in 1948 (Greenblatt). However, the thought of trying to control intelligence in people, whether to increase or prevent…