Synopses & Reviews
Three generations of imbeciles are enough. Few lines from Supreme Court opinions are as memorable as this declaration by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in the landmark 1927 case Buck v. Bell. The ruling allowed states to forcibly sterilize residents in order to prevent feebleminded and socially inadequate people from having children. It is the only time the Supreme Court endorsed surgery as a tool of government policy. Paul Lombardo's startling narrative exposes the Buck case's fraudulent roots.
In 1924 Carrie Buck -- involuntarily institutionalized by the State of Virginia after she was raped and impregnated -- challenged the state's plan to sterilize her. Having already judged her mother and daughter mentally deficient, Virginia wanted to make Buck the first person sterilized under a new law designed to prevent hereditarily defective people from reproducing. Lombardo's more than twenty-five years of research and his own interview with Buck before she died demonstrate conclusively that she was destined to lose the case before it had even begun. Neither Carrie Buck nor her mother and daughter were the imbeciles condemned in the Holmes opinion. Her lawyer -- a founder of the institution where she was held -- never challenged Virginia's arguments and called no witnesses on Buck's behalf. And judges who heard her case, from state courts up to the U.S. Supreme Court, sympathized with the eugenics movement. Virginia had Carrie Buck sterilized shortly after the 1927 decision.
Though Buck set the stage for more than sixty thousand involuntary sterilizations in the United States and was cited at the Nuremberg trials in defense of Nazi sterilization experiments, it has never been overturned. Three Generations, No Imbeciles tracks the notorious case through its history, revealing that it remains a potent symbol of government control of reproduction and a troubling precedent for the human genome era.
Synopsis
Three Generations, No Imbeciles is a chronicle of the 1927 Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell, which approved laws allowing states to perform surgery in order to prevent feebleminded and socially inadequate people from having children.
The Buck case was the first and only time in Supreme Court history that an intrusive medical procedure -- involuntary sterilization -- was endorsed as a tool of government eugenic policy. It is doubly notorious for the court's decision, written by renowned Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Holmes' declaration that Three generations of imbeciles are enough led to lifelong infamy for Carrie Buck and her family.
Paul A. Lombardo's startling narrative is the only fully documented account of the Buck case ever written. He was the last person to interview Carrie Buck before she died, and the book incorporates material he discovered over more than twenty-five years of research. Items such as Carrie Buck's medical records, the honor roll grade book of her daughter, Vivian, private correspondence of the lawyer who was named to represent her, and the only existing photos of all three generations of the Buck family support the conclusion that the Buck case was a fraud, initiated to hide the shame of a poor girl, pregnant after she had been raped.
Although the Buck decision set the stage for more than sixty thousand operations in the United States and was cited at the Nuremberg trials in defense of Nazi sterilization experiments, it has never been overturned. This book tracks the career of Buck in American memory, as a potent symbol of government control of reproduction and a troubling precedent in the human genome era.
Synopsis
Winner, 2009 Georgia Author of the Year Award for Creative Nonfiction HistoryHonorable Mention, Nonfiction. Library of Virginia Literary Awards
"Three generations of imbeciles are enough." Few lines from Supreme Court opinions are as memorable as this declaration by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in the landmark 1927 case Buck v. Bell. The ruling allowed states to forcibly sterilize residents in order to prevent "feebleminded and socially inadequate" people from having children. It is the only time the Supreme Court endorsed surgery as a tool of government policy. Paul Lombardo's startling narrative exposes the Buck case's fraudulent roots.
In 1924 Carrie Buck--involuntarily institutionalized by the State of Virginia after she was raped and impregnated--challenged the state's plan to sterilize her. Having already judged her mother and daughter mentally deficient, Virginia wanted to make Buck the first person sterilized under a new law designed to prevent hereditarily "defective" people from reproducing. Lombardo's more than twenty-five years of research and his own interview with Buck before she died demonstrate conclusively that she was destined to lose the case before it had even begun. Neither Carrie Buck nor her mother and daughter were the imbeciles condemned in the Holmes opinion. Her lawyer--a founder of the institution where she was held--never challenged Virginia's arguments and called no witnesses on Buck's behalf. And judges who heard her case, from state courts up to the U.S. Supreme Court, sympathized with the eugenics movement. Virginia had Carrie Buck sterilized shortly after the 1927 decision.
Though Buck set the stage for more than sixty thousand involuntary sterilizations in the United States and was cited at the Nuremberg trials in defense of Nazi sterilization experiments, it has never been overturned. Three Generations, No Imbeciles tracks the notorious case through its history, revealing that it remains a potent symbol of government control of reproduction and a troubling precedent for the human genome era.