The Eugenics Specter

Do governments have the right to forcibly sterilize people, including citizens of the state? The answer is yes, or so the federal courts have ruled. Currently, forced sterilization is unpopular. In the United States, most states have stopped ordering forced sterilizations and at least one has recognized it as a human rights violation, has apologized for its historical complicity, and has offered a handful of living survivors some monetary compensation as reconciliation. But the old bugbear endures, as federal courts have not ruled state-sponsored sterilization unconstitutional, per se.

A few state and local governments thus continue the experiment with this historically nefarious policy. Since 2006, judges and prison authorities in California and Tennessee have forcibly sterilized or offered sterilizations as a condition of parole or reduced sentence by casting it as a so-called "choice." In California, 150 female prisoners were sterilized from 2006–2010; some had not granted consent. Recently, a Tennessee judge offered county jail inmates reduced sentences if they agreed to undergo a free vasectomy or insertion of birth control. As of 2017, six dozen men and women have undergone or await the procedure. According to the judge, the "program" is aimed at cutting the number of children born drug-dependent or in foster care. "It is in no way a eugenic program," the judge contends, as the procedures are "reversible." In presuming that anyone who has done time in a county jail is prima facie unfit for parenthood, this Tennessee judge articulates a modern argument for sterilization deeply rooted in eugenics. The old pseudo-science posits that humans inherit certain physical and social traits, such as epilepsy, feeblemindedness, poverty, criminality and mental disease. More importantly, eugenicists advocate that these characteristics are not only insalubrious but also deleterious to the human race.

Two new books remind us not to ignore the lurking eugenics specter. Both examine American eugenicist thought from the 1880s into the mid-twentieth century and the major social and political impact it had on shaping U.S. policy. Both books move forward the remarkable work of the secondary literature. Previously, historians have focused on defining eugenics and measuring its broader cultural impact in three distinct ways. Some scholars have examined the origins of American eugenics and its incestuous relationship with Nazi Germany. Others have begun to examine the role of eugenics in shaping popular culture (and vice versa). Most scholars adopt a local, state or regional approach, particularly in documenting state public health, institutional and corrections practices especially in race and gender terms. These two books contribute to our understanding in this latter category by examining very specific areas of policy, except on a national scale. Adam Cohen's book examines the enormity of one disastrous U.S. Supreme Court case, Buck v. Bell, and its unchallenged precedent. The other, by Douglas Baynton, makes the case that the eugenics era contributed to fundamental changes in U.S. immigration law and enforcement. Both authors caution us to question progressive-sounding policies that promise social perfection in the form of eradicating perceived imperfections in what some might have called the "human stock."

Adam Cohen is a journalist and lawyer, not a historian, by training. In Im*be*ciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck, Cohen employs best practices in law and journalism intertwined with some impressive historical research: He hit primary source pay dirt at the Amherst County Courthouse in Virginia. Buried in a box under a desk he found the "Carrie Buck Trial Transcript," and other documents central to the original case, Buck v. Priddy. This document not only revealed the key players in the case, but it also unveiled the strategy of a small-town lawyer, Aubrey Strode, who ended up arguing the case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The resulting book is...