Carrie Buck
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Carrie Buck (1906-1983) was a plaintiff in the United States Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell 274 U.S. 200 (1927) and was ordered to undergo compulsory sterilization for purportedly being "feeble-minded" as part of the state of Virginia's eugenics program while a patient at Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded.
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[edit] Family
Her mother was Emma Buck, and she had a sister, Doris Buck, who was also covertly sterilized by the same law. At the time Doris was told that her operation was for appendicitis. They lived in Charlottesville, Virginia.
[edit] Vivian Buck
Carrie had a daughter, Vivian Buck. Vivian Buck was adopted by the Dobbs family, who had also raised Vivian's mother, Carrie for a time. Under the name "Vivian Alice Elaine Dobbs", she attended the Venable Public Elementary School of Charlottesville for four terms, from September 1930 until May 1932, a month before her death at age eight of "enteric colitis". Stephen Jay Gould wrote:
She was an [average student], neither particularly outstanding nor much troubled. In those days before grade inflation, when C mean "good, 81-87" (as defined on her report card) rather than barely scraping by, Vivian Dobbs received A's and B's for deportment and C's for all academic subjects but mathematics (which was always difficult for her, and where she scored D) during her first term in Grade 1A, from September 1930 to January 1931. She improved during her second term in 1B, meriting an A in deportment, C in mathematics, and B in all other academic subjects; she was on the honor roll in April 1931. Promoted to 2A, she had trouble during the fall term of 1931, failing mathematics and spelling but receiving A in deportment, B in reading, and C in writing and English. She was "retained in 2A" for the next term -- or "left back" as we used to say, and scarcely a sign of imbecility as I remember all my buddies who suffered a similar fate. In any case, she again did well in her final term, with B in deportment, reading, and spelling, and C in writing, English, and mathematics during her last month in school. This offspring of "lewd and immoral" women excelled in deportment and performed adequately, although not brilliantly, in her academic subjects.
[edit] Supreme Court
Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote in 1927:
We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.
[edit] Popular culture
The story of Carrie Buck's sterilization and the court case was made into a television drama in 1994, Against Her Will: The Carrie Buck Story.
[edit] See also
- Buck v. Bell for more information about the case and its results
