Buck v. Bell

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[[File:Buck v. Bell.jpg|165px|thumb|right|''Buck v. Bell'' made simple.<ref>[https://x.com/SimpleSCOTUS/status/1543723457069912065 Buck v. Bell (1927)]</ref>]]
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{{caselaw|Buck v. Bell| 274 U.S. 200| May 2, 1927}}
{{cquote|We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.|||The majority opinion, written by Oliver Wendell Holmes<ref>[https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2020/10/14/why-buck-v-bell-still-matters/ Why Buck v. Bell Still Matters], Jasmine E. Harris, ''Harvard University'' 14 October 2020</ref>}}
'''''Buck v. Bell''''' was a 1927 [[Supreme Court]] case that ruled a "[[Virginia]] statute which authorized sterilization"<ref>[https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/274us200 Buck v. Bell]</ref> was totally [[United States Constitution|constitutional]].

==Facts of the case==
The case came about when Carrie Buck {{lived|1906|1983}}, a seventeen-year old girl who had recently become [[pregnant]] after being [[rape]]d by the nephew of her foster parents, was sent to the State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded and ordered to be sterilized under a recently passed Virginia law, primarily on the basis that her biological mother had received a similar diagnosis several years beforehand, therefore giving the doctors the impression this was a hereditary trait. The specific term that was used to describe Bell's condition was "feeblemindedness,"<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carrie-Buck Carrie Buck]</ref> which "was a term that first emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in the United States to describe individuals exhibiting a lack of productivity or other behaviors viewed as 'backward.'"<ref>[https://www.eugenicsarchive.ca/encyclopedia?id=535eebe87095aa0000000227 Feeble-mindedness]</ref> Essentially, Bell was picked because of "the belief that she had inherited her feeblemindedness from her mother and that her daughter showed signs of slow mental development as well."<ref name=encyclopediavirginia>[https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/buck-carrie-1906-1983/ Carrie Buck (1906–1983)]</ref>

The diagnosis of Buck's mother was "based less on a medical finding than on the doctors’ perception of her [[sexual]] behavior." Looking through Carrie's school records, "her records indicate normal progress each year."<ref name=encyclopediavirginia/> Similarly, Carrie's daughter Vivian, although by no means a genius, was believed by those observed her to be of perfectly average intelligence.<ref>[https://faculty.uca.edu/benw/biol4415/papers/carriebuck.pdf Carrie Buck’s Daughter]</ref>

Buck's lawyer was also a man named Irving Whitehead, "whose weak defense of Carrie Buck almost assured that the law [which allowed Buck to be sterilized] would stand" according to one source. Whitehead "called no witnesses to challenge the charges made about Carrie’s mental health or to question the [[science]] behind the [[Eugenics|eugenical theory]] espoused by the so-called [[expert witness]]es despite [[evidence]] and opportunities to do so." This is hardly surprising given that Whitehead was a fellow supporter of eugenics who "had served on the Board of Directors of the Virginia Colony and that Aubrey E. Strode, the author of the Virginia law, had previously acted as legal counsel to the Board."<ref>[https://exhibits.hsl.virginia.edu/eugenics/3-buckvbell/ Buck v. Bell: The Test Case for Virginia’s Eugenical Sterilization Act]</ref> "Whitehead failed because he intended to fail", wrote one scholar.<ref>[https://dsq-sds.org/index.php/dsq/article/view/927/1102 Paul Lombardo. ''Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, The Supreme Court, and Buck V. Bell''. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.]</ref>

===Things get worse===
The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, which was packed with forces who were against Buck from the start. As one article puts it:

{{quotebox|It would be hard to imagine a less sympathetic body. Chief Justice [[William Howard Taft]] had ties to the eugenics movement, and four of the associate justices constituted a [[reactionary]] clique later nicknamed the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. There is no formal portrait of the Supreme Court for the 1924 term because one of the members refused to sit next to Louis Brandeis, the court’s first [[Jewish]] member. Several years later, two of the justices would [[lobby]] against the nomination of Benjamin Cardozo so as not “to [[Antisemitism|afflict the court with another Jew]].”<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/books/review/imbeciles-and-illiberal-reformers.html Book Review: ‘Imbeciles’ and ‘Illiberal Reformers’] by David Oshinsky (March 14, 2016) ''The New York Times''.</ref><ref>''Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck'' by Adam Cohen (2016) Penguin Press. ISBN </ref>}}

Taft infamously wrote the foreword to the 1915 book ''How to Live: Rules For Healthful Living Based on Modern Science'', written by Irving Fisher and Eugene Lyman Fisk, which declared that "As the science of eugenics gather as greater wealth of evidence and subjects it to vigorous analysis, its ability to [[Racialism|guide the race]] to higher levels will become more positive and far-reaching."<ref>''How to Live: Rules For Healthful Living Based on Modern Science'' by Irving Fisher and Eugene Lyman Fisk</ref>{{rp|185}}

Oliver Wendell Holmes similarly had a reputation for supporting eugenics that went back "long before the ''Buck v. Bell'' case came to the Supreme Court."<ref>[https://www.npr.org/2017/03/24/521360544/the-supreme-court-ruling-that-led-to-70-000-forced-sterilizations The Supreme Court Ruling That Led To 70,000 Forced Sterilizations]</ref> Holmes was also the author of the majority opinion, which agreed with the notion that Carrie Buck, her mother, and her daughter, were what the doctors described them as, causing him to conclude that "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." This was after he declared "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute [[degenerate]] offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind."<ref>[https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/101076/buck-v-bell/ Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200]</ref>

==Legacy==
The ruling would result in over 70,000 people being forcibly sterilized in the United States, and [[Nazi]] Karl Brandt, who was involved with [[Aktion T4]] and was responsible for thousands of forced sterilizations himself, would cite the ruling in his defense at the [[Nuremberg trials]] (though he was nevertheless sentenced to death).<ref>[https://ballsandstrikes.org/newsletter/buck-v-bell-how-nazis-defended-themselves/ How Nazi War Criminals Defended Themselves With a U.S. Supreme Court Case], Jay Willis, ''Balls and Strikes'' 9 January 2023</ref> ''Buck v. Bell'' has still not been overturned to this day.<ref>[https://lawreview.syr.edu/could-forced-sterilization-still-be-legal-in-the-us/ Could Forced Sterilization Still be Legal in the US?], Leita Powers, ''Syracuse Law Review'' 15 October 2020</ref>

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Ableism]]
[[Category:Eugenics supporters]]
[[Category:Government incompetence]]
[[Category:United States history]]
[[Category:United States law]]
[[Category:United States politics]]
[[Category:United States Supreme Court cases]]

Categories: Ableism, Eugenics supporters, Government incompetence, United States history, United States law, United States politics, United States Supreme Court cases