Compulsory sterilization Essays

“Eugenics and Compulsory Sterilization Laws: Providing Redress for the Victims of a Shameful Era in United States History,” is an article by, Michael Silver, that addresses the issue of eugenics and involuntary sterilization laws. He specifically looked at the sterilization laws that were practiced in the 20th Century in the United States. Silver brings forth the argument that sterilization laws violate the constitutional rights of Americans of procreation and childrearing. Throughout the article

of undesirable traits became especially prevalent after the advent of prenatal testing that allowed genetic abnormalities to be spotted before they became a problem in society (McChesney, 2006). The practice of eugenics allowed abuse of various sterilization methods in both men and women that provided the United States a unique and legal opportunity to target those that did not fit the image of a typical

The main arguments that Davis Lennard has placed out for this introduction are the constructive views of normality versus disability. To summarize Lennard’s argument, he states that the majority of a population and/or society must be similar, to be recognized as “normal.” What is then “normal” is now seen as average, thus, creating a false illusion for one to “idealize” for something that is considered better than what is known as the average. And because we are constructed to have an ideal type

The documentary War on the Weak: Eugenics in America discussed the eugenics movement in the United States. The movement pushed positive and negative eugenics in our society. “Positive eugenics” encouraged healthy people to reproduce in order to create a healthier population. “Negative eugenics” encouraged or forced people labeled as unhealthy to become sterilized. Although this movement happened quite some time ago, the beliefs of the movement can still be found in our scientific community and our

The world has tried to continually, and in some instances, successfully fight injustice, inequality and discrimination brought about by slavery, colonization, and racism. The human race seems to still labor from yet another form of injustice and discrimination being championed by eugenics. Eugenics is defined by many scholars in similarly many ways, but for purposes of this paper, one definition shall suffice. Eugenics is “the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the

1983 the law was abolished. Sterilizing people does not stop the following generation from having physical or mental abnormalities nor does it prevent crime, using genetics to predict the mental state of future generations is not logical, and the sterilizations were unfair and inhumane. Based on the evidence, it was the correct decision to terminate the Oregon State Board of Eugenics. Arguments in Favor of the Oregon

It was made possible through the implementation of positive and negative eugenics. Positive eugenics encouraged races that were seen to have good mental, physical and moral health to procreate by refusing contraception to women, denying men sterilization and giving families’ money to support their growing families. Negative eugenics works in the complete opposite, where it encouraged men and women who were seen to have ‘unfit’ traits to use contraception and be sterilized. Negative eugenics went

Eugenics seemed to be against marginalized social categories. This was just the iceberg’s tip, as these laws and practices kept going by forcing the sterilization widely. National Socialist program aimed it and therefore between 1934-1945 more than 350000 sterilizations were made (uvm). This is closely to a holocaust program. The distribution of sterilization until January 1933 had collected a number around 16066 of sterilized individuals, where California has reached its peak with exactly 8504 sterilizitations

Many of us would think that progress is the best thing that it can happen because as the word says we are progressing to something better. But that’s not the case in the progressive Era yes it was good but it was happening too fast for the people. There were inventions that people have never Seen before, new ideas were emerging from science. People were being exposed to ideas that were very different to what they being raised. The relationship between science and progress in the progressive Era is

if they had any of disorders or disabilities, but the thing he did different was he would send some of the sterilized people he saw as “lesser” to gas chambers to be killed. In 1940’s is when eugenics got bad in Germany. There was roughly 5,000 sterilizations a month. Germans were taken from elderly homes mental institutions, or other any other institutions in the state. All of these Germans were put in gas chambers to die. The concentration camps were not set up in Germany, but in other countries

Chapter 3: Eugenics redeemed? "After Hitler eugenics did not disappear. It renamed itself. What has thrived loudly for decades quietly took post-war refuge under the labels human genetics and genetic counselling."-Edwin Black, War against the weak After the war the benevolent practice of eugenics had been shown to the world as the cruel, malevolent procedure that it was. The popularity of eugenics was falling as the “data, the motives, and the 'science' behind eugenics all came under scrutiny and

Chapter 1: How and why eugenics became popular before Nazism "Science would provide an even firmer foundation for morality than religion had"-Ernst Haeckel- Uber die heutige Entwickelungslehre im verhaltnisse zur Gesamtwissenschaft Eugenics is one of the oldest practices our world has, from Pre-Galtonian philosophies famously presented by Plato, to the Nazi regime. The book "The Origin of Species" shock the world with it publication in November 1859 with the famous doctrine of evolution- though

and Puerto Rico agreed with this and enacted sterilization laws. Almost 28,000 people were sterilized in the years following the Buck case, 8,000 of those were from Virginia. When sterilization because of eugenics reached England it did not take hold because doctors did not feel that our knowledge of mental illness was that in depth. During the Nuremberg trials, Nazi defendants used Holmes decision in the Buck v Bell case to their defense of sterilization of Jews, gypsies, and the handicapped. Thankfully

couple cannot pay for it. In a business perspective this makes sense. However, if infertility rates are declining around the United States only offering a solution to the upper-class promotes the genes of the wealthy. It could be comparable to the sterilization laws in the United States in the 1900s. People with so called “inferior” traits such as disabilities or pauperism were sterilized to remove their genes from the gene pool. However, rather than sterilizing citizens, America is only offering a solution

One such argument found throughout many of Vonnegut’s works is the belief in the perversion of the advancements of science to benefit one specific group instead of humanity as a whole. Vonnegut specifically uses the invention of “ice-nine” as his method for delving into the topic. Ice-nine, an ice crystal that can cause all other types of water to immediately turn into ice-nine, was created by Felix Hoenikker for the purpose of clearing out mud for the Marines. A colleague of Dr. Hoenikker, Dr. Breed

History is really amazing, but it can be horrifying to, the incident that occurred between the years 1877 and 1945 shows how horrifying and judgmental we can be towards each other. America is a place where people like immigrants seek for a better lifestyle away from their home countries, but when they get here it is far from better. In some incidents, you can say justice had been served, but with some justice were treated unfairly by others. People losing their life’s because of the judging of other

feeblemindedness (Radford 1991). Another 22,000 sterilizations were performed in 27 states to prevent ID and other conditions thought to be heritable between the years of 1943 and 1963 (Reilly, 1987) In 1928, research by Penrose and contemporaries revealed multiple etiologies for mental illness including individual with disabilities the explanation causes not only heredity but include environmental factors, such as infection, trauma, and endocrine disturbance. (Beirne-Smith et al. 2006). Throughout

The Perfect “Scientific” Impulse Nathaniel Comfort portrays the evolution of genetic medicine from the 19th century to the present. Scientists, statisticians and other distinguished individuals contributed to the idea of eugenics and its relation to genetic medicine. Three central concepts that support the central idea of the story include: positive and negative eugenics, genetic medicine and the eugenic impulse. Comfort’s argument focuses on the idea that medical genetics and eugenics

1920s and 1930s with immigration control, marriage laws, and sterilization of those who were considered dangerous to the society. Due to the Nazis, their rise to power, and the horrifying Holocaust, it had formed the movements in the United States. The book, Eugenic Nation, is based on Alexandra Minna Stern’s belief and her very lucid piece to the improving

through America and heavily influenced society. Eugenics was the reasoning for the coercive sterilization of men and women who seemed to have undesirable genetics. After the war, immigration laws were put in place to control the growth of the population and naturalization. The war and immigration played the largest role on the emergence of eugenics. In 1927, the supreme court ruled in favor of the sexual sterilization of a young woman named Carrie Buck. This paper discusses