Adam Cohen has written a remarkable book that exposes a dark vein that has run through our society since our country’s inception and is still prevalent in some quarters today: that America is “special” and must take steps to ensure that its people are not degraded by outsiders or undesirable elements from within.
As the title suggests, the book covers the rise of the pseudo-science of eugenics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and how it was used to justify the forcible sterilization of unfortunate members of society deemed “unfit” to procreate lest they “sap the strength of the State” (a direct quote from the majority opinion written by Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1927). Mr. Cohen expertly weaves a compelling tale by chronicling the backgrounds of the protagonists involved in bringing the case before the court. Dr. Albert Priddy, Superintendent for Virginia’s Colony for Epileptics and Feeble Minded; Harry Laughlin, Director of the Eugenics Record Office of the Carnegie Institute in New York; Aubrey Strode, author of the Virginia sterilization statute and legal representative for the state before the court; Oliver Wendell Holmes, the justice who authored the 8-1 majority opinion upholding the Virginia law; and Carrie Buck, the unfortunate victim chosen to be the test case before the court. Miss Buck had been detained in Dr. Priddy’s institution for being “feeble-minded,” but was in truth merely poor with limited 6th grade education and was an unwed mother as result of being raped by her foster parents’ nephew.
This book sheds light on a subject that has largely been forgotten – the role that the movers and shakers in American society had in promoting eugenics to “upgrade” society. Progressive thinkers like Theodore Roosevelt, Margaret Sanger and Alexander Graham Bell lent their names to the movement. John D. Rockefeller financed eugenics “research”, popular magazines published articles by eugenics proponents, clergy promoted it, and eugenics courses were taught at major universities across the U.S. The “science” of eugenics was used to justify drastic limitations on immigration from Southern European countries in the mid-1920’s which later prevented large numbers of refugees fleeing Nazi Germany from entry. The fact that the Nazi’s used U.S. sterilization laws as their model for their “final solution” should be an ongoing embarrassment to every U.S. citizen.
A second lesson from Mr. Cohen’s book was the abject failure of the court system to protect one of its most vulnerable citizens. The court case was specifically designed to have the U.S. Supreme Court validate the Virginia law and in so doing remove any further challenges to state-sponsored sterilization. Priddy, Laughlin and Strode selected Miss Buck as their “ideal” subject, and manufactured evidence where necessary to support their case. Miss Buck’s attorney, instead of aggressively defending her, conspired with the others to ensure the record from lower courts supported a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, led by Justice Holmes, eagerly endorsed the practice with no qualms about its consequences to lesser members of society.
The scariest realization from Mr. Cohen’s book is that forced sterilization, though now out of favor, is still the law of the land. Sterilizations continued on a routine basis through the late 1950’s and the last procedure was performed in 1983. However, recent advances in gene mapping could conceivably lead to DNA editing, “to remove genes associated with disease or other disfavored traits - and perhaps edited to add more desirable traits.” Based on the precedent established in the Buck v. Bell ruling, states could once again institute mandatory procedures to “upgrade” their citizens.
Anyone who thinks that such a scenario is impossible in our enlightened progressive society or would not be permitted by our courts will do well to read this book and heed the lessons contained in it.
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About the author
Sterilization and the Vaccine
This book is more relevant today than can be imagined - it is not just historical interest about a time of great intolerance and ignorance. Today the eugenicists have gone underground in the sense they call themselves something else, but they are as active as ever. While 70,000 undesirables may have been surgically sterilized in the USA, millions of women around the world have been sterilized using HCG hormone laced vaccines. This is an ongoing depopulation project carried out without the consent of its victims. The latest episode documented took place in Kenya (2014). So, the depopulation lobby, so to speak, has impacted the lives of millions of women now in an illegal and unethical quest to decrease the world's population and appears to be focused on those with skin of color (assuming the third world is the only place this program is carried out and there is no guarantee it has been restricted to the third world). Still, no surprise that eugenicists are racists as well.But there are other issues at stake as all the children with autism age into adulthood.... where are they going to live?... colonies out in the country just like the feeble minded were in the early 20th century only to be released if they are sterilized... I am not saying this will happen, but we have been creating a massive population of individuals who really are often cognitively and emotionally impaired and who will outlive their parents... and just what is our society going to do with them?I know what the answer is if I ask a eugenicist, but they should not be allowed to determine the fate of these individuals. This is something we need to start talking about in the open. [...]Thanks to the overuse and abuse of pesticides, vaccines and other toxic exposures "we" have created an epidemic of impaired individuals and since "we" are already sterilizing millions of women around the world with vaccines, is it that difficult to consider what might be the fate of all the autistic children, many of whom find themselves in their situation due to a vaccine encephalopathy.
Top reviews from other countries
Marc Lemaire
A part of judicial history that cannot be denied
Reviewed in Canada on January 29, 2020