Sterilization of Carrie Buck

by J. David Smith

Book Overview

Inside story of America's first compulsory sterilization. Electrifying disclosures by Carrie herself. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0882820451
• ISBN13: 9780882820453
• Release Date: July 1989
• Publisher: New Horizon Press
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The Mad Scientists of Eugenics

The Sterilization of Carrie Buck, by J. David Smith and K. Ray Nelson The `Foreword' quotes Stephen Jay Gould as saying the forced sterilization of Carrie Buck was comparable to the Scopes Trial, but with a greater impact on people's lives that the belief in creationism (p.xv). Eugenics is the pure-bred descendant of Darwin's theory, an error compounded from a mistaken belief system. Chapter 1 tells of Carrie Buck's poverty-stricken childhood. She was adopted at age 3 and became a servant. She was a normal child during her 5 years of schooling (p.3). After a family member raped her, Carrie was turned out of the only home she knew by being classified as "feeble-minded" (p.5). Chapter 2 tells how Emma Buck, Carrie's mother, was committed to a state institution. It does not explain the cause. Carrie's child was adopted by the very family that claimed Carrie was "feeble-minded" (p.23)! The Superintendent of this "Colony" was a believer in eugenics (p.29). The hidden agenda of Dr. Albert Priddy was to use sterilization to provide servants or concubines to "good families" with the "normal functions of any woman" (p.33)! Dr. Priddy had been rebuked by the judge in an earlier case, Mallory v. Priddy for sterilizing a wife and daughter (p.36). Sterilization laws had been declared unconstitutional as being class legislation (patients in state institutions) when done without due process and depriving a person of their natural right to procreate (pp.49-50). Public sentiment was against this; but when it was changed a law was passed. Then a test case was needed. The "expert witness" never met Carrie Buck (p.59)! Carrie Buck's lawyer, Irving Whitehead, was a close friend to Strode (p.86). Chapter 7 has the testimony of neighbors at the Trial. In Chapter 8 Whitehead argued that sterilization and release could spread venereal disease (pp.120-122)! Estabrook testified from a fashion cloaked as a science (p.131). There was scant scientific evidence for Carrie's "feeble-mindedness" (p.141). Research was funded by a millionaire (p.146). The Dobbs would take Carrie back if only she was sterilized (p.165)! Carrie's daughter was a normal and average student (p.171); she later died of measles. The sterilization judgment was appealed: it deprived a citizen of the right to procreate without due process of law; it violated the Fourteenth Amendment of equal protection under the law for all; it violated the Eighth Amendment (p.175). The Trial Testimony was based on hearsay. Whitehead said upholding this law created the "worse kind of tyranny" where the state would have god-like power while the state is nothing more that a faction of politicians (p.176). Oliver Wendell Holmes took pleasure in deciding for the State of Virginia (p.178). [Senility?] This Virginia law was adopted by the Third Reich in 1933. Afterwards Carrie was placed as a domestic servant (p.187). She later married (twice), but her last years were spent in poverty. Statistics can manipulate any body of dat