Department of English Spring 2011 Edition  A Reign of Doctors:
Eugenics and the Pursuit of Perfection  Micah Baker
Argumentative 2010 Honorable Mention Professor: Dr. Bryce
Christensen  On May 2, 1927 the United States Supreme Court made
a decision concerning a 21-year-old girl. Carrie Buck was to be
surgically sterilized for the good of the state. Buck, being an
inmate of the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble
Minded, was not only considered feeble minded but had a mother
who was feeble minded as well. To make matters worse, Buck had
an illegitimate daughter who was considered to be not quite
normal. She was the epitome of what eugenicists had been
preaching for years – that not everyone was fit to procreate.
According to the science of eugenics, Buck was a danger to the
breed of man. The Supreme Court Case of Buck v. Bell would set
the stage for eugenics laws to be adapted throughout the
country. Eugenicists, in all their misguided attempts for the
salvation of man, neglected to consider the mo