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moments in history
‘Three generations of imbeciles are enough …’

A judge’s decision in the 1920s to prevent the US from ‘being swamped with incompetence’
had far-reaching consequences, leading to tens of thousands of people being surgically
sterilised without their consent over the following decades, writes Simon Jarrett

owards the end of the 19th century “We have seen more than once that
in the Us, the costs of the huge the public welfare will call upon the
Tinstitutionalisation programme for best citizens for their lives. It would be
the so-called “feebleminded” and strange if it could not call upon those
“moron” population began to be who already sap the strength of the
questioned. So too did its effectiveness. state for these lesser sacrifices, often
The estimated number of “mentally not to be felt to be such by those
retarded” children in every state never concerned, in order to prevent our
seemed to stop growing and, despite a being swamped with incompetence.
huge building programme, there were “It is better for all the world, if instead
not enough places in institutions for all of wanting to execute degenerate
of them. offspring for crime, or to let them starve
Furthermore, the early ideal that these for their imbecility, society can prevent
institutions would become self- those who are manifestly unfit from
supporting through the produce of their continuing their kind.
farms and workshops proved to be a “The principle that sustains
fiction. The cost of this mass incarceration compulsory vaccination is broad
to the American state began to be enough to start cutting the fallopian
questioned. Oliver Wendell Holmes: “It is better for all the tubes … three generations of imbeciles
The eugenics movement, which world … if, society can prevent those who are are enough.”
believed that populations needed to be manifestly unfit from continuing their kind”
controlled to prevent “inferior” types, Holmes’s judgment in Buck v Bell, and
such as criminals and the “mentally “confirmed criminals, idiots, rapists and his words “three generations of imbeciles
retarded” from “polluting the race”, began imbeciles”. Fifteen other states passed are enough” echoed down the ensuing
to advocate another solution – castration. similar laws over the next decade. decades. Programmes of involuntary
“Morons” would no longer have to be However, despite their claims that his sterilisation grew rapidly.
confined in expensive institutions if a was a humanitarian and harmless Between 1909 and 1928, an average of
cheap sterilisation operation could intervention, the early sterilisation laws 448 people nationwide were surgically
prevent them from producing children. were consistently struck down by the sterilised each year. By 1935, the annual
They could then be allowed back into courts on the grounds of individual rights, figure had exceeded 3,000.
the community. or freedom from cruel and unusual Ultimately, more than 20,000 people
However, an early experiment with punishment. Sterilisation programmes were sterilised in California alone. By the
eugenic sterilisation, including castration, ground to a halt. 1960s, when the practice was effectively
at the Kansas State Home for the This all changed in 1927, when the (but not totally) ended, around 60,000
Feebleminded in the 1890s caused a United States Supreme Court upheld the American citizens had been sterilised
public outcry when 44 boys and 14 girls state of virginia’s eugenic sterilisation without their consent. n
were mutilated. statute in a landmark case known as
There was no public desire to punish Buck v Bell. Further reading
the feebleminded – most simply wanted In 1924, Carrie Buck, aged 17, had been James W Trent Jr (1994) Inventing the Feeble
them to disappear. committed by a court in Charlottesville, at mind: a History of Mental Retardation in the
the request of her foster parents, to the United States. Berkeley: University of California
a boost for eugenics virginia Colony for Epileptics and the Press
Edward J Larson (1995) Sex, Race and Science:
When new surgical techniques for sexual Feebleminded. Three years earlier the Eugenics in the Deep South. Baltimore: Johns
sterilisation were developed at the end of same court had committed her mother, Hopkins University Press
the 19th century, this gave the eugenics Emma Buck, to the same institution. Philip R Reilly (1991) The Surgical Solution: a
movement a boost. Shortly after arriving, Carrie, who was History of Involuntary Sterilization in the
Vasectomy for men and salpingectomy pregnant and unmarried, gave birth to a United States. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
(removal of fallopian tubes) for women daughter, vivian. Officials sought to have University Press
seemed to offer relatively safe and Carrie sterilised. For an account of the lives of Carrie Buck,
painless methods of preventing the The case worked its way through her mother Emma and her daughter Vivian,
feebleminded and other “degenerates” the lower courts and eventually reached read Carrie Buck’s Daughter by Stephen Jay
from having offspring. the United States Supreme Court in Gould, first published in Natural History
The movement took off. In 1907, the April 1927. Here, Lord Justice Oliver magazine in July 1984. It is available at: Wikimedia Commons
state of Indiana enacted the first Wendell Holmes delivered his famous – or https://faculty.uca.edu/benw/biol4415/
compulsory sterilisation statute, aimed at notorious – verdict: papers/carriebuck.pdf

30 Vol 32 No 2 | Winter 2018 Community Living www.cl-initiatives.co.uk