Eugenics Pros And Cons

Eugenics is “the study of human heredity and genetic principles for the purposes of improving the human race by limiting the proliferation of defective gene pools” (Polirstok, 2011). In other words, Davenport wanted the law to be passed to be able to sterilize the mentally ill so that they were unable to continue populating the world with other mentally ill people. Charles Davenport, the founder of the American eugenics movement, was one of many Americans that were really pushing for this new form of “science" to take over and become a popular trend among our government. Davenport believed by using eugenics that he could help rid the world of the mentally ill people so our world would be less full of crime and poor people. He believed that
if the mentally challenged people reproduced that they would have mentally challenged children and if you are mentally ill that you were unable to lead a normal and fulfilling life or that those people were unable to contribute to society in a way that normal people could. In September of 1924 the involuntary sterilization of certain “type” of people would be challenged with the popular Supreme Court case known as Buck v.
Bell. Carrie Buck was 18 years old when she was in Foster care and her foster mother’s nephew had rapped her and she had become pregnant. Buck had an I.Q. of about fifty and a mental age of only nine years old so when she became pregnant she was admitted into an institution for people that were considered feebleminded, or mentally retarded. While in the institution the State of Virginia had passed a law to sterilize any person that entered their facility in fear that they would continue on the family trait of having mentally defective children. Bucks child was considered mentally retarded after only one month of living and this decision was based only on her mother having mental problems. Buck of course wanted to fight this decision and got an attorney which argued that by sterilizing Buck and taking away her right to bear children was a violation of her fourteenth amendment right and that the cutting of her Fallopian tubes was a violation of the constitutional right of bodily integrity. They also argued that by doing this procedure it was not going to benefit Miss Buck or anyone in society for that matter and was also taking away her right to her own
privacy. The argument on the other side of this issue was that by sterilizing the mentally retarded people that they would not produce more children that would have the same mental ability of their parents.
They believed that by sterilizing people that they were saving unborn children from a life of crime and torment. People believed that our society would be much better off and we would be helping our government by getting rid of potentially dangerous and cruel people that they believed would become future criminals because of their mental status. They also argued that they were saving these feebleminded people not only leading a life of crime but also saving them from the troubles and suffering of having to try to take care of themselves or a child of their own, they believed that they were saving them from having to endure these troubles throughout their life. In 1927 the court had ruled in favor of the courts and in 1928 Carrie Buck was sterilized. This decision would eventually be overturned but it took fifteen years to get the law changed. The law was overturned because of the case Skinner v. Oklahoma. This case was overturned on the grounds that the latter violated the basic civil rights of Carrie Buck to procreate if she chose to do so. Even though this decision was eventually overturned, Carrie Buck along with thousands of other feebleminded Americans was victims of this senseless crime that was brought on by our own society and our own court
system. Today eugenics in the United States is still officially permitted but in 2006 and 2010 close to 150 women were sterilized in Californian prisons without the states approval, even though sterilization for formally outlawed in 1979. The study of genetics, in my opinion, is more a person’s opinion on what they think, and not more of the science aspect of it. Genetics should never be used to predict how a person’s offspring is going to act or what crimes a persons offspring could possible commit in the future because of a mental problem that one or both or the parents might have. It is possible for two mentally retarded people to have a child that is perfectly healthy as well as it being possible for two healthy people to have a mentally retarded child. So, just because one parent might be feebleminded does not necessarily mean that their child will have the same problems mentally that their parent or parents have. It is interesting to see how people’s attitudes toward individuals with mental handicaps have changed over the years. “Since the late 1950's in this country, the movement toward civil rights and later the movement for women's rights have contributed greatly to the thinking and legislation governing the rights of the handicapped including their reproductive rights”(Campos, 2013). A lot of innocent people could have been helped and their lives could have been changed for the better if there would have been more research and more proof that taking away a person’s right to bear children if they were mentally handicapped was helping our society for the better, but there wasn’t enough proof to keep this law in effect.