The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and Americas Quest for Racial Purity - Essay Example

? Better for All the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America’s Quest For Racial Purity Introduction Harry Bruinius, in his book Better for All the World, talks about the many issues and happenings of history that were little known. His book emphasizes on the eugenic movement and is one of the only books that talk about the eugenics. His claims were against the eugenic movement and he discusses about the thousands of people who were victimized in those early years. Better for All the World is Bruinius’ greatest success through which he retells the policies and the social movement made in the early 20th century, and that laid its impact on several humans. There was little history of the eugenics that was known to the people, thus Harry Bruinius extracted the history and wrote about it in his book with the emphasis on the forced sterilization that was approved and lead to thousands of Americans to be deprived of producing. Whether the policy was justified or not, yet Bruinius discusses the impact and the reasons behind sterilization. He talks about the cases that were brought to court and the decisions that were taken for the sterilization, in order to quest for America’s racial purity. He talks about two women in the history who were poor and who had to face the consequences of sterilization. Harry Bruinius’ book was an analysis of how the people at that time accepted this contribution of science as the national policy where it was a quest for America’s moral and social purity. He laid arguments about how the lives of women have been changed just because they were poor or unfit. His book is a descriptive writing about the woman who is associated with this policy and was used by the state medical authorities as a test case to bring to the court their program. Analysts have discussed that at times the way Harry Bruinius has written the detailed case is prolonged and gets into deep details like the events that leads up to her sterilization, the mental level of the victim, the recreation of the event, and also involves the technique that has been applied by the scientists to create the theories that lead to the eugenics movement. As written by Bruinius, “this book is an account of scientists who shared this dream in the past, and the ‘worthless’ class they sought to sterilize”. Despite the detailed descriptions in the book and the moralizing of the connections or relations of American eugenics with the Nazi Germany, the author has managed to keep his point of view in front of the readers in a very critical manner. His arguments are justified and clearly connect the eugenics to the people, the state and to the rest of the world. The author is successful as his writing is influential and effective for the readers, and greatly helps to bring out the policies and events that took place at the time of the eugenic movement. His real purpose of the book stands out to reach to the readers and reveal to them the history that he believed was a secret, though it was not. However, the history and the events that took place were little known and Harry Bruinius has tried through his writing to give the information to a wide range of readers. He says, “After a century in which humankind has probed the mysteries of heredity and discovered some of the secrets of the human genome, the specter of better breeding and eugenics still attracts a host of people who long to remake their imperfect selves and breed a better type of human being”. The eugenics movement was founded by the core ideas of Charles Darwin. It started when socialists started realizing that the life of many humans is defected and many hold problems that come from their genes. Sociologists found that the improvement of human race can take place with the scientific control on breeding. The first eugenics movement in America was found by many of the new-world wee known biologists in the country. Supporting this group were a number of names that continued to get involved in the movement to improve the human race, disabilities and remove the genetic problems off the society to make human life better. There were many ideas of great thinkers behind the eugenics movement. Many of the sociologists gave intellectual discoveries that lead to the idea of the movement. Where it is called the social movement, scientists have a great contribution as well. The idea that there should be a movement that improves the quality of human life and human race is given by sociologists. However, scientists contributed by the scientific solution to this which is to control breeding. This was an intellectual discovery which did not bring the personal, emotional or social aspect but only the logical aspect that said sterilization will result in improving human life. By sterilizing the women who were either poor, or unfit, scientists concluded that there can be a reduction in the unfit babies and thus the whole generation. The central ideas of the eugenic movement were to control the birth of the unfit babies which would contribute in building up a strong society and improved human lives. The concept of improving race also played a major role in the eugenics movement. The movement had the goal to improve the human blood line by weeding out the physical and mental impairments and by encouraging the individuals to select partners with whom they are able to produce ‘superior’ babies. Charles Davenport and Harry Laughlin were the most influential people in the American eugenic movement. Both of them belonged to religious families and both aimed to transform puritan ethics into scientific practice. Charles Davenport is considered to be the founder of the Americans eugenic movement and is one of the most influential figures in the history of eugenics. Under his direction the eugenics movement was made a major research, teaching and publication centre for the eugenic movement. Davenport believed that the scientific methods of the eugenics movement will cure the society from the problems of poverty, crime and feeblemindedness. Through his writings for the Eugenics Record Office, Davenport established the importance of the scientific methods that should be applied and the public policies. He shaped eugenics as the major force in shaping the public policies. Harry Laughlin, also being one of the leading Americans in the eugenics movement, began a correspondence with Davenport. As Davenport was impressed by the energy, enthusiasm and ambition of Laughlin, he appointed him as the first superintendent of the Eugenics Record Office. Laughlin had two major interests in the eugenic movement; immigration restriction and compulsory sterilization for the unfit, while Davenport played a major part in advocating for stricter enforcement of anti-miscegenation laws and state sterilization statutes against those who were unfit. Davenport earned respect both nationally and internationally because of his work and Laughlin was awarded as the honorary doctorate for his work in the science of ‘racial hygiene’. According to Harry Bruinius, the history of the eugenics movement was long forgotten and a secret that has not reached many of the Americans. More than 40,000 individuals had to undergo the process of sterilization in the early 20th century in order to support the eugenic movement. Many Americans placed arguments against this idea and suggested that birth control was not a solution for the improvement of race; rather birth control should be the choice of the individual. Bruinius writes, “With good intentions and confidence in scientific method, eugenicists has begun their social programs as an effort to improve human life; but this led them to disregard individuals Laughlin deemed a ‘shiftless, ignorant and worthless class of people’”. The eugenic movement however played out in the United States in comparison to Europe because of the string figures present in the history of eugenics. The idea was adopted and accepted by many of the Americans who went through the process of sterilization to contribute in controlling the birth of unfit babies. Davenport and Laughlin published the importance of eugenics and also emphasized on the fact that sterilization is a scientific policy to create a better human life for the upcoming future generations. They believed that poverty, disabilities and many other problems were heredity and to prevent the society from such problems in the future, sterilization is the process through which the unfit individuals will be unable to reproduce. All the leading eugenic movement figures supported the eugenic movement and played their roles as advocates to emphasize the state to establish laws that would be supporting the eugenic movement. Under these laws more than 40,000 Americans were sterilized. The Eugenic Records Office promoted the need of the scientific methods to contribute in the eugenic movement. As the eugenics movement grew, it added more supporters which included Graham Bell, the inventor of telephone, and several biologists like Julian Huxley. They promoted the idea of eugenics being a part of proven science. Harry Bruinius has included the detailed test case about two woman of which Carrie Buck was one of them. Bruinius talks about her family, her life and her situation because of which she was forced into sterilization. Buck vs. Bell is the case that the state medical authorities used as a test case for sterilization. Bruinius explains the decision that was taken and lead Carrie Buck’s sterilization to be considered as a legal test case. Bruinius also explains the many factors that lead men and women to support the eugenics movement. Under the influence of the many leading figures of the eugenic movement, the courts put forward laws supporting the eugenics movement and forced sterilization. The opposition to the eugenics movement often came from the religious families who were conservative Catholics and Jews. The history of eugenics is predictable in two ways according to these groups. First, they did not spend enough time to observe the close link between the eugenics, yet they think of it as being bad, and the birth control which they still assume is good. Second, they do not say anything about the critics of the eugenics and birth control, which they thought was so effective that both the groups never achieved it. Positive eugenics and negative eugenics were classified during the process of forced sterilization. The individuals who were fit and considered to be able to produce healthier babies were under the positive eugenics, the ones the society needs to produce healthy and fit babies. Negative eugenics included those people who were unfit and could not produce healthy babies and thus were enforced of sterilization. The American eugenics movement has a great impact on Europe as they were inspired by the great eugenics leaders the Americans had. Davenport was recognized internationally as the leader of the eugenic movement and his publications were worldwide spread. The author writes, “Though the United States was a pioneer in the legal, administrative and technical aspects of eugenics sterilization, Nazi Germany borrowed its ideas and applied them in an unprecedented way”. Though the eugenics movement became less popular over time, people in history had a great impact from it. After the forced sterilization of more than 40,000 American individuals, there was finally a change seen in the human race and improvement of human life, and thus the eugenics movement became less popular. As the author states in his title, I believe the eugenics movements was a hidden secret. Many of the people did not know about it. If I consider it socially and scientifically, it was a smart movement as it aimed to improve the human life for the future generations. If considered emotionally and personally, there may be many flaws with this idea. According to the people I asked, most of them did not know about the eugenics movement, but those who got to know had positive views about it. The interesting part is the initiative and the impressive research work done by the great leaders of that time. High School children should definitely know about the eugenics movement, the way it developed, the way it was useful for the society, the way it was opposed and the way people supported it. The fact that the American law also supported the movement makes it an even more strong turn in the history of humanity. References Harry Brunius, Better for All the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America's Quest for Racial Purity. London: Vintage Books 2007 Read More