Laughlin's Sterilization Law Analysis

It is almost impossible to think that there was a time in American history where eugenics was something that a large mass of the public thought was actually a great idea. But, when it comes time to face reality, one must realize that this was not just a fabled tale of time of the past and that it actually happened. When researching historical events or movements, nothing is more beneficial to find evidence than through popular literature of the specific time period. The novel that sums up what this entire movement is about the best would be Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road.

The Oxford University Press defines eugenics as “the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics” with a further—and rather illuminating—explanation which states, “Developed largely by Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, it fell into disfavor only after the perversion of its doctrines by the Nazis”.

History throughout the United States has multiple positive and negative attributions that reflect onto today’s society. One circumstance that has been partially neglected was the eugenics movement in America; the notion of eugenics occurring in the United States is infrequently brought up today. According to Dr. Laura Rivard, the average person most likely does not even know what eugenics is. An English intellectual named of Francis Galton is responsible for starting this movement. Eugenics can briefly be defined as exploiting the fundamentals of genetics and heredity for the benefit of superiorizing the human race.

Future eugenicists can extort their knowledge and use it to their advantage. Eugenics is an interesting subject that is co-dependent on society; the future holds great possibilities for acknowledgment in this field of science.

Part Two covers the years 1900-1950. It describes the rise in popularity of eugenics, and the resurgence of physical therapies and remedies for mental disorders. Whitaker stated that the rise of eugenics caused a degradation in moral treatment of mentally ill patients, and eventually gave way to forced sterilization of patients deemed to be mentally incapacitated to prevent the spreading of the genetic disorder of insanity. The American public as a whole seemed to embrace forced sterilization by the 1920’s.

In this paper I will be analyzing the social construct of deviance and the topic of Eugenics theoretically, and how this practice transitioned from being deviant back in the early 20th century to a modern technology that can be used to help parents have healthy children. I will use different scholarly sources to compare and review different positions in the theories used as they relate to the topic at hand.

In the early 20th century, Eugenics grew popular among mainstream scientists, physicians and the general American public. These Eugenicists often believed blacks and other minorities were ‘unfit’ to reproduce. And as a result many privately supported practices such as euthanasia and ultimately genocide.

There is always a binary opposition to living beings’ existence. Binary opposition is the principle of contrast between two mutually exclusive terms: on/off, up/down, left/right, and strong/weak. To be born as an epileptic and to be labeled as feebleminded is not the child’s fault. Such a child has his/her own right to live on earth. Where there is birth, there is death no matter whether the person is rich or poor. Eugenics-the theory as well as the word (which means “wellborn”) -originated with Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin who is inspired by Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Eugenics movement started sterilization

In the Name of Eugenics by Daniel J. Kevles explores the history of the eugenics movement and several of the most influential eugenicists who impacted the field. The book focuses on the earliest years of the movement when it was used primarily as a way to try and determine who was and was not fit to marry and reproduce, as well as the later years of the movement where it was used to help understand and diagnose various medical problems passed down from parents to their children. Eugenics was primarily used as a way to classify different segments of society and was often used as an excuse to infringe upon the rights of different groups of people who did not fit the societal standard. The first eugenicist Kevles mentions is Francis Galton.

Eugenics, derived from the Greek word eugenes meaning well born, is defined as the study or belief that by encouraging people with good genetic traits to reproduce and discourage those people with less desirable traits the human race can benefit. There were certain groups of people who were affected by these sterilization laws, including people that were mentally disabled or ill and those from socially unacceptable areas of life, that were adopted in 32 states starting in the 1930’s. These sterilizations were done on over 350,000 people in the span eleven years between 1934 and 1945 (Kaelber), leading the United States into one of the darkest parts of our history.

There is a period of time in American History that is usually skipped over when it comes down to the history books. It was the time of selective breeding and genotype selection of humans. During this era, Eugenics was seen as a great potential solution to every defect humans had and to possibly change the future human race permanently. Analyzing it back today, the American Eugenics theories were flawed, corrupting, and morally wrong.

a need is being creating where no problem existed before, namely the desirability of a

Cousin of Charles Darwin and a respected British scholar, Sir Francis Galton, first used the term eugenics, meaning “well-born” or “good genes” around 1883 (Berson & Cruz, 1998). Building off of Darwin’s theory of natural selection, he believed that the human race could positively direct its future by either breeding or sterilizing select individuals who had specific traits. Galton was convinced that an upper class position in society was largely due to good genes. The actual practice of eugenics, the act of involuntary sterilization, began in the United States as a means of population control with the goal to reduce the transmission of undesirable traits. Initially, sterilizations were targeted towards the mentally ill or disabled, criminals,

This lead to the government and others funding the further research of eugenics, the scientists spent time tracking family histories and concluded that people deemed to be unfit more often came from families that were poor, low in social standing, immigrants, and/or a minority. Other conclusions such as families that demonstrate pauperism are genetically linked rather not of a lack of resources. In coming to this conclusion the solution was to tighten the security for immigrants but the most ominous solution being the sterilisation of people with the undesired genes. This resulted in 33 states adopting the new sterilisation laws, at first the programs targeted patients that were deemed mentally unwell exclusively and later spread to patients that were deemed to be alcoholics, criminal poverty sufferers, and have blindness, deafness and are sexual promiscuous. This program also targeted African American women being sterilised without consent during other medical procedures.

The definition of eugenics is to breed out undesirable traits. Based off of Austrian scientist Gregor Mendel’s studies, eugenics is accomplished through selective breeding. Dominant traits would replace recessive traits and the law of dominance would be ineffective. Originally, the idea behind eugenics was not completely bad. Over time though, problems surrounding it have been found. Dealing with positive and negative traits, questions have been asked about what constitutes as a negative trait and who decides which traits are